The movement of Jerry Manning's mind resembles molten mercury. It rolls from one subject to another with quicksilver restlessness. He goes from the brilliance of Shakespeare and the culture of Jesuits to John Waters to the minor writings of the Marquis De Sade to the perfect Boston Crème pie.
Manning is now in his second year as producing artistic director and his 10th year on the artistic staff at Seattle Repertory Theatre. He has been casting director, producer and director.
The door to his office is always open. He rarely closes it. His lair mirrors his mind, a maze of scripts and eclectic books. There are stacks everywhere, on the overstuffed chairs, on the coffee table, on the floor, on the file cabinet and of course, on his desk. And the staff says he carries a script wherever he goes.
This year Manning celebrates his 25th year in theater. But he didn't set out to have a career in the theater. He wasn't a stagestruck child. As a pre-teen, "Man of La Mancha," was hardly a transformative experience. All he can remember is running up and down the aisles.
But in his 20s, Jesuit-educated Manning stepped into DC's Arena Stage as a fundraiser and had his theatrical epiphany. "From the first day I walked in, there were amazing things happening," he said. "All those incredible people there. That was it for me. I was smitten."
He entered the building as a fundraiser and exited 11 years later as a dramaturg, casting director and director. "By that point I was driven. I could actually give voice to what I believed in politically, socially and culturally."
From Arena Stage, Manning moved on to the New York Theater Workshop, where he spent seven seasons--dramaturg/literary manager/casting director-whatever. His mentor Jim Nicola gave him his first assignment, "'Read these two plays over the weekend. I'm thinking very seriously about them for next year.'" Manning recalled Nicola saying. "And he handed me 'Quills' and 'Rent'."
For Manning, his most fulfilling experience at New York Theater Workshop was working on Doug Wright's "Quills," certainly a contrast from theology at Marquette University.
"I actually sat down and read the entire works of the Marquis de Sade--2,500 pages of boring, boring, boring and then scathing. I got my ya-yas out that way."
Although he's never tread the boards, along the way Manning did a lot of secondary and tertiary casting. "I get paid not to act," he laughed. "But once I was in a John Waters' movie. I was like the 16th person on the bus in 'Cry Baby.' starring a young Johnny Depp. One day somebody didn't show up. John said, `You! Get over there, sit on the bus.' I was like, 'You don't want me up there.' He says, 'Yes, I do!' In the final cut, you only see the back of my head, which was not bald at the time."
Manning also did casting work for "Forest Gump" and "The Pelican Brief," as well as for Ken Burn's television documentary, "The Civil War."
"It's not as glamorous as it sounds. When the second assistant director calls you at four in the morning and says, 'You know that call we're doing at six in the morning? First of all it's changed to 4 a.m. So you've gotta get everyone there--now. And you know the woman we wanted with the red hair? We don't want her anymore. We want a blonde in there. So get me a blonde.' Crazy people. It's very lucrative, but I don't enjoy it at all. It's kind of awful work."
Manning sums up his life as a balance of extremes. On his mother's side were the "shanty Irish," as he calls it. Her family was dirt poor and they came over during the second potato famine. His father's side of the family was far less provincial. His grandfather, for example, was a professor at Yale. That familial combination has made him a lover of both the sophisticated turn of phrase as well as the basest of jokes. Yet he'll be touched by the sappiest sentiment in a Hallmark card to a genuinely tender theatrical moment-particularly Tana Hicken's mesmerizing performance as Mary Tyrone at the Arena Stage.
"She came down those stairs in this astonishing white lace dress and delivered the last speech. 'Oh yes, I remember that, I would wait for your father by the stage door and we got married and we were happy'--pause, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause--'for a time.' The entire audience was sobbing. I will take that performance with me to the grave. It's seared in my brain."
At the Rep, there have been many memorable performances, but Manning is loath to single out any preference adding that he's most moved in a play when all the tangents converge, when every level of reality explodes in a moment and "I'm living in seven dimensions at once. And it only happens that long," he said with a quick clap of his hands.
Though times have been economically tough of late in just about every industry, Manning is optimistic about the Rep. "All things considered, I think we're weathering the storm as well or better than any arts organization in town. We're knocking on the door of one million dollars in new money. Our tickets sales have actually increased this year. We're just lucky we have Ben Moore as Managing Director."
Manning has certain ideas he would like to see put into place over the next several years, especially keeping things local. "I adhere to the notion that Seattle Rep was founded by civic leaders from Seattle. It's about, by and for Seattle people, and I want to redouble that," he said. "Which is not to say that every actor and every designer represented onstage will be a Seattle artist. But I think this should become a more comfortable home for Seattle citizens, be they artists or audience members. That's a big one for me."
People see Jerry Manning as a combination of intellectual curiosity, rigorous scholarship and deep humanity. As board member Debbie Killinger put it, "He's really unique. He is very giving, in that he always shares credit with others and makes sure they are acknowledged for their contributions. The staff loves him. Me too!"
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