Some dreams take longer than others to come true.
Just ask Atlanta theater veteran Carolyn Cook. She spent her junior year of college (at Randolph-Macon in Virginia) studying drama abroad in Paris, where she participated in some 20 productions and discovered her passion for acting in French — a passion that has remained with her ever since.
“I came back on fire,” Cook recalls with a laugh. But when she proposed performing a series of neoclassical French monologues for her senior thesis, the idea was nixed by her faculty adviser.
That could have been that. Nearly 15 years later, though, after establishing herself on the local scene as one of its most prominent actresses (principally as an artistic associate with the former Georgia Shakespeare), she approached a few theater companies here about staging a French-language show, but to no avail.
As Cook explains it, “I never lost that desire to perform in French. I just wanted to produce one show, partly to get it out of my system, frankly, but also with the goal of seeing if there might be an audience for it.”
There was. Thus was Cook's Theatre du Reve (or Theater of the Dream) born in 1996, with a stand-alone production of Eugene Ionesco's "The Lesson." As its founding artistic director, she ran the company for its first 10 years — mounting one or two shows per season, in addition to cultivating several educational outreach programs.
“I had the great benefit of working with some brilliant and younger colleagues,” she says, citing such other Atlanta theater artists as Park Krausen and Ariel Fristoe. “But at a certain point,” Cook admits, “by the time I had a young child and a lot of other things going on, it became clear to me that they had great ideas for the future of the company that I didn’t.”
She handed over the administrative reins to Krausen for several years, under whose guidance Theatre du Reve “increased its international scope, commissioning new work and creating collaborations with wonderful colleagues from across Europe and Canada, and vastly expanding our educational programming,” Cook notes.
At another certain point, Krausen, too, was “ready to move into a new chapter of her own life and work,” as Cook puts it.
Now back at the helm, and fresh off her superb staging of Georgia Ensemble's "On the Verge" in November, Cook is directing Theatre du Reve's "The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)," based on the allegorical novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, performing (in French with English supertitles) at the Back Stage Theatre of 7 Stages, Feb. 3-12.
“In whatever language, the essential humanity of the piece is the same,” the director maintains. “It’s probably the most translated work in all of French literature, and truly a story for all ages. It’s about love and friendship and regaining the simplicity of childhood, about the importance of being who you really are, that you’re never too young to stand up for what you believe or what really matters to you.”
Cook has cast actress Jasmine Thomas in the title role of a boy who falls to Earth from another planet, opposite Chris Kayser as the Aviator he encounters stranded in a desert.
Over the decades, Kayser and Cook have worked together as fellow actors in more than 30 shows, including numerous Theatre du Reve productions. “A hallmark of Carolyn’s work, both as an actor and a director, is her deep intelligence and how smart she is, not only in terms of thinking through or picking apart a text, but also how brave she is in terms of finding ways to artistically express it,” he observes.
Cook acknowledges that the dreamlike nature of the classic tale makes it a perfect fit for Theatre du Reve. “This all started because there was something I felt I wanted and needed to do, even after I was told ‘no.’ I refused to give up on that dream, and I carried it with me until I was able to make it a reality.”
After a pause, she says, “Moving forward, my hope is that the company will continue to thrive artistically and to grow educationally, that we can inspire people to believe that their own dreams are possible, and to serve as ambassadors for helping to make them come true.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)”
Feb. 3-12. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays. $18.50-$27.50. 7 Stages Back Stage Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave. (in Little Five Points), Atlanta. 404-523-7647, www.theatredureve.org.
