Northlight Dramaturg Kristin Leahey interviews The Outgoing Tide actor Thomas J. Cox

Kristin: How did you get involved with The Outgoing Tide?

Thom: I’ve done a couple of the plays during Northlight’s Interplay series: the first was Intelligence-Slave by Kenneth Lin and then Jon Jory’s Emma.  At some point when I was doing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Lynn Baber (casting director) contacted me about doing another of the Interplay series with The Outgoing Tide.  That was the first time I approached the script.  And it was written with John Mahoney in mind for Gunner, the character he plays.  The reading was really well received, and it was already planned to be produced the next season.  Everything that I was hearing at Northlight was, “You’re the guy for Jack and this is what we want to do.”  And I did too!

Can you discuss your process thus far in rehearsals and now in previews?

The first two weeks, it was John and me and Penny Slusher, who was filling in for Rondi and did a wonderful job – fantastic actress!  Rondi was still under contract for the television show Mike and Molly and could not join us for the first couple weeks.  It was a great opportunity for John and me to understand the rhythms and develop the relationship more fully than over the course of the readings.  Getting up and doing some physical work together was great and that went really well.

Rondi came into the room like a force of nature – which she is, in all the good ways.  And just everything started to fire-up.  She was willing and compelled to ask all the right questions and challenge the script and really push through.  The main thing she pushed for – she’s legendary for this – was a super fast pace.  John and I were tentatively off-book at that point; we had done the discussion and some cutting and changing and work on blocking.  Rondi came into the room and Bruce [the playwright] was with us that same day.  We just blew through the script.  We had figured on taking about four days to get Rondi up to speed with the blocking, and we had blocked the first act by the end of the first day.  That energy that she brought really shocked John and me.  The work that we had done to get off-book was really valuable – the pace that Rondi worked at really forced us to realize that we did know the script.  By being less tentative suddenly we were able to say these lines more confidently.  And that led us to making more quick detailed changes and fixes in the rehearsal room.  And then we got up on the stage even before we left the rehearsal room for a few days and that helped a lot.

We walked into tech rehearsal and had finished the first act well before the end of the first day and had finished the second act well before the end of the second day.  We were able to do a full tech run by the end of the second day, which is pretty unheard of.  But it was possible because Rondi and John have this shorthand from years of working together and the pace at which they can work and retain information and speak has made everything move so much faster.

And now in previews we’ve had this phenomenal response from the audience.  We’ve had standing ovations for every preview, which is unheard of at any theatre.  You don’t go into previews and expect that kind of audience response, and we’ve been getting it from day one.  That doesn’t mean we’re resting on laurels.  It’s given us confidence to know we’ve got most of the pieces into place.  Now we can play a little too hard on this side or that side and see where the balance is.  Bruce is coming back into town soon; we’ll get a chance to make a few more changes to the script as we go along.  Really, I think we’re in very good shape to go into our second week of previews and the week of opening.

Can you talk about your experience at Northlight in terms of its audience and working here, because you have worked with so many companies including your own resident company, Lookingglass Theatre.

I was having this discussion with my wife the other day.  I’ve managed over the past five to ten years to find a niche in various companies around town.  I’ve been working with Lookingglass for over 23 years, not including college, and in the past 5 to 10 years I’ve been cast at a few different places but predominantly Northlight and Court Theatre.  I feel like Northlight and Court Theatre are the bookends of Chicago theatre both in terms of audience and type of work that they do and geographically – Northlight is far on the north side and Court Theatre is down on the south side.  I’ve managed to find a family in both places.  To me, there’s a familiarity and an ease in the working relationships.  But this is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to work with BJ and that was really a huge delight for me.  I’ve wanted to work with BJ for a number of years – ever since I started working up here.

One of the things I love to do and have experience doing is working through the process of a new script and how it feels in an actor’s mouth.  I’ve been able to do that with a couple of plays with Northlight’s Interplay series and now with The Outgoing Tide‘s world premiere.  At Northlight, we’re working with a large focus on the craft of production.  BJ is a master craftsman and they understand their audience.  They have a very good feel for what their audience wants and needs without turning them off.  A lot of that has to do with working with veteran actors like John and Rondi, who are such great artists of their craft, the speed at which they work.  You walk in the room and you know you have to hit the ground running to keep up with them because they’ve been doing it for twenty, thirty years.  It’s such a privilege to be in a room with people who are so focused on their craft – not just acting but writing and directing and doing all of the areas of production.  It’s really interesting to have found a place in both communities.  And that’s how I feel about them.  It’s family here.  It really is.