Less than a week before opening night, Miller Murray Susen, the director and author of Four County Players’ holiday adaptation of Little Women, has one priority: to keep things calm.
“I’ve never directed a full-length play and been in charge of adding in all the tech stuff,” said Susen. “I seriously don’t have a great benchmark to judge how we’re doing, but in terms of my anxiety level, it’s manageable.”
Though she’s new to the helm of tech week, Susen has worked as assistant director on a number of local shows, including her own adaptation of last year’s A Christmas Carol in which she also performed (alongside her theatrically inclined husband and their two likewise inclined children).
It was during that performance that Gary Warwick White, the production manager at Four County, asked Susen if she would be interested in revisiting a show they’d done in 2002 and giving it her own spin for the holiday season.
“Little Women is a book I read at least once a year until age 9,” Susen said with a laugh. “It was one of my seminal girlhood books, along with Little House on the Prairie, Emily of New Moon and others. Of course I was interested.”
Childhood obsession was the perfect entrée to the adaptation process. “The first thing I did was make a list of all the things that I would be sad [about] if they weren’t in the show,” she said, then rattled off a list of scenes including Amy burning Jo’s manuscript, “the Christmas play with the disaster at the end” and the failed dinner party. But her focus on a festive theme meant she needed to pare the story down significantly.
Written in 1868 by Louisa May Alcott, Little Women tells the story of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy—who wait for their father’s return from the Civil War, fall in and out of love, and grow from girls into women.
“I didn’t know until we did research that the book we buy in stores today is actually two books put together,” Susen said. “The nice part is [that in the first half], Beth gets sick but recovers. She dies in the second book. Not to spoil it but, you know, no teenagers were harmed in the making of this book. The other bonus is you don’t have to find a teen actor who is able to realistically die of a wasting disease.”
But, she added, “I cast a Beth that not only has 10 years of piano experience but also has an amazing ability to look legitimately extremely ill. It’s worrisome, really.”
In addition to specific scenes, Susen wanted to include certain lines she knew from memory. She based the structure on a year, from Christmas to Christmas, so the novel’s emphasis on seasonality and nature could be reflected in the set.
The transition from writer to director was an easy one, she said. “I think about stuff like where the beats would be when I write, so I think it’s a huge advantage to direct something you’ve written. Rehearsals were wonderful, so enjoyable, because I went in totally confident. I am the expert on this play.”
In fact, she said, this project has helped shift her perspective of her own role in theater. “I spent a lot of time [in childhood] bolstering my vision of myself as a professional actor. I took voice lessons and three dance classes a week and went to theater camp,” she said.
But in high school, things went a little sour. “No doubt I was sensitive and overwrought—I was a drama teen—but I had bad experiences with directors,” she said.
Susen elected not to apply to a conservatory but to do theater as a hobby in college and gave the dream one last shot with summer stock. “It was a terrible experience,” she said. “I felt like there were a lot of neurotic unhappy people working in theater, and I felt like I was too sensitive.”
After traveling for a year, Susen moved to California, where she got a job in book publishing, got married, moved again and got another job as a website project manager and copywriter for brands like Keebler. “It was a long and lonely period of professional confusion,” she said. “I was being realistic and making money, but I realized people are crazy everywhere.”
She took a crack at writing the great American novel and began freelancing as a copywriter before having babies. After moving back to Charlottesville, she started blogging about parenting and writing articles for C-VILLE, among others. She also auditioned for Rent at PlayOn! Theater. “I had always wanted to do the show, and I got cast,” she said.
Susen went on to perform with Live Arts and Four County Players, and found herself back in the theater world. During Little Women she realized that her historical issues with directors occurred “because I’m a director,” she said. “I didn’t realize how bossy I am and how satisfied I am as a boss. Those years when I wasn’t being creative—I wasn’t happy,” she said. “Making things with other people makes me really happy.”
That philosophy informs her approach as a director. Especially in local volunteer theater, she said, “you want the end product to be good, but in the meantime you want to have fun. Everyone is doing it for the love, not the money. I think artists get caught up in making art with a capital A, but I’d rather create an experience where people feel relaxed and engaged and invited in, and they can walk away saying that made me think but I also had some laughs. I prefer to define success differently.”
Little Women runs through December 14 at Four County Players in Barboursville.