Chris Clavelli Needs Just 30 Minutes of Your Time
Chris Clavelli calls himself a hired gun: 40 years bouncing between acting, directing and teaching, and only in the last decade, playwriting.
Now, Riverside Theatre has handed him his biggest undertaking yet: a play built from the real stories of Indian River County's veterans and military families. Working title: "Voices of Service."
His credentials: resident director at Florida Repertory Theatre with more than 40 productions, a Wall Street Journal "Best of 2017" nod from critic Terry Teachout, a Carbonell Award for Best Actor, and a Barrymore Award.
The idea originated with Jon Moses, Riverside's executive producer and CEO, whose son serves in the Navy. Clavelli says that experience made Moses acutely aware that military service strains not just the service member, but the whole family. About a year ago, Moses asked Clavelli, who has directed at Riverside before, to write it, with one nonnegotiable: the stories had to come from actual veterans and families, not Clavelli's imagination.
He's looking for representation from World War II through Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans and spouses and Gold Star parents alike. The ask is just half an hour, by phone or Zoom, no obligation to continue.
If that's you, email Chris at voicesofservice@rtfl.org to schedule an interview.
Right now he's "purely in investigative mode," transcribing conversations and mapping them on a whiteboard, looking for what connects a Gold Star mother, a Vietnam veteran, the wife of a Korean War vet. He's done two interviews so far, including a three-hour session with a frontline Iraq combat medic that became a 15-minute scene.
Clavelli has no military history in his own family, but he carries a different kind of loss into these conversations. 23 years ago, his six-year-old son died. That grief he turned into A Little More Than You Wanted to Spend, a solo show that toured through Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Ohio and Florida, with an Off Broadway run at The Drilling Company in New York. That loss, he says, is what connects him to the families he's meeting now, including Michelle Dale, president of the Gold Star Mothers Association, whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. They bonded over belonging to "the same club."
Share this story with friends and families of veterans you know -- this is a first of its kind stage production, and it's being produced right here at Riverside Theatre for the 2028 season.
