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80-year-old decides it’s time to direct again

"You just have to wait until all the molecules congeal at the right time and the right place, and you know that now is the time to do it.”

For Robert Buseick, who just turned 80, the time is right to return to the director’s chair. He will bring a familiar text to the stage when River City Repertory Theatre opens “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” on June 26. That premiere will be the latest in a career full of them.

Born on May 30, 1933, in tiny Long Creek, Ore., population 275, Buseick caught the theater bug early. “When I was 6 years old and in kindergarten, there was a high school production they were doing of ‘Mrs. Mulligan’s Stew.’ They needed a little boy, and I was the one who got cast in the part,” Buseick said.

His connection to Edward Albee’s “Virginia Woolf” goes back to college. “I was at the University of Oregon, and it was one of their summer shows. I tried out for it, and I got cast as Nick,” Buseick said.

Later that year, he was again cast in a Portland Civic Theatre production of the show. “All in all, I ended up doing about 78 performances of it. When I nished with the run, I said I don’t care if I never do another show as an actor, I feel like I’ve just had the best experience that I could ever have.”

Buseick landed in Shreveport in the late 1970s at Centenary College and was a prominent xture in the theatrical community until he retired a few years ago.

In the hundreds of productions he was involved in over the years, he had never directed the show he had acted in back home.

“I always wanted to direct the show, and I never had either the right opportunity or the cast that I wanted to work with. It just turned out that I’m 80 years old, and I want to direct again. And what do I want to direct? I want to direct a production of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’” Buseick was reminded of another instance in his career where timing played a part.

“There was one play that I wanted to do in the worst kind of way, and it took me eight years to get around to do it. Because I always said, ‘I can’t do ‘Bent.’” “Bent,” by Martin Sherman, deals with the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany. But, Buseick changed his mind when, “I read in The Shreveport Times that there was a group in Oregon, and their premise was that all homosexuals should be killed, and I said, ‘The time has come.’” In spite of being in “Virginia Woolf” twice and directing thousands of other productions in the years since, Buseick said, “I’m nervous and scared to death to see if I still remember what to do. I always feel that way every time I start to direct a show. I have to make myself come to the realization that it’s like anything. You have to just take one piece at a time and t it together until the whole picture is done. But if you think about the whole picture, it’s pretty scary,” he said.

It’s strange to equate that fear with a man who has had such a long and eventful career.

When he was in school in England, he worked with a then-18-year-old actress who has gone on to be an international star of stage and screen, Dame Judy Dench.

He has directed hundreds, if not thousands, of local productions from opera, to outdoor musicals, to world premieres of new works. His repertoire spans the ancient Greeks to William Shakespeare, to some of the most contemporary playwrights.

“When I’m working in theatre, for instance, when I’m directing, you meet so many different kinds of psychological situations, social situations, physiological situations. To me, that has been the great fun in directing – learning so much about the psychology of relationships and the psychology of humanity.

“You can take an artichoke. An artichoke and a play are very much alike. The artichoke, before you start peeling away the layers is what you do as a director, peeling away the layers to get to the meat of the play,” he said.

Looking back, Buseick calls his rst 80 years “awesome” and “a wonderful journey, which I’m sure a lot of people can’t say.”

As to the future, he said, “Who knows?

I hope this is not my last experience at directing. It may be. But there may be a number of other things in the future that I may do.”

Joe Todaro may be reached at joetodaro@scribio.com.