Director Nico Krell shares his thoughts on The Baltimore Waltz!

What most excites you about The Baltimore Waltz? It’s a really exciting and dense play because it leaves itself open to go down many different roads. It’s source is so rich in its intertextuality – it stands at a lot of intersections of pop culture and American impressions of Europe, but also the AIDS crisis and all of the political ramifications of that.

Compared to your previous shows that you’ve directed, whether in Princeton or elsewhere, what do you think is unique about The Baltimore Waltz? What’s particularly exciting is the energy of this show which is very unique for me, it’s very fun, it’s very 80s, it’s very kind of like scandalous and goofy mixed with incredibly emotional. It’s bright colors, whereas, what I have done in the past, Crucible is extremely kind of stark, intense, iconic type of work. This one has a lot more playing, which is a blast.

What would you say you want the audience members to learn and discover from this play? In life, we’re given a lot of struggles. We’re given a lot of hardships. We’re given a lot of first times. And we make a lot of mistakes. And I think, when you really get down to it, The Baltimore Waltz teaches us that… it’s always going to be a process to continue – it’s always going to be hard work to understand why you need to change, what you need to change, and how to change, in order to keep going. But what’s so beautiful about The Baltimore Waltz, is that it shows us how in those mistakes and in those missed opportunities, in those fights we have with our loved ones, you can always grow forward, you can always learn and find sweetness in what you have and what you had. And you can always aim to grow.