NR: What's the most ridiculous rumor you've heard about your next project?

DS: I don't know. I haven't really heard any big rumors.

NR: Oh, come on. You didn't hear about the Tony Awards?

DS: That I was hosting the Tony Awards? I heard that.

NR: And Kiss Me Kate.

DS: Well, that wasn't ridiculous.

NR: Then there was the "30 city concert tour," but I started that one as a joke.

DS: (laughing) I didn't hear that.

NR: How about Harold Hill?

DS: That's not ridiculous. That's certainly within the realm of possibility. I would say nothing I've heard seemed outrageous to me.

NR: How about hosting the Tony Awards?

DS: THAT was outrageous. That was silly.

NR: You never know.

DS: Would I WANT to do it? Sure, I would probably want to do it.

NR: Would they want you to do it?

DS: No, they can't. You have to think logically. You don't hire an auto mechanic to run a Fortune 500 company. They need a person of profile.

NR: So, not yet... What do you really want to do next?

DS: Rest.

NR: I know you're going to rest. But after you rest?

DS: Well, how the rest evolves will inform what the next project is. For example, if in ten days, I'm eager to work again and I feel a burning desire to do a specific project, then that project will make itself known to me. If it's going to take six months, and I can't even see opening my mouth again to speak words, then I need to go work in some charity situation to feel like I can create something again. Then that thing that gets created will probably be very earthbound and something that's a very loving, giving thing as opposed to a musical. So, I think the rest and how the rest evolves will inform what the next piece is. What I don't want to do is get into a piece because it's there. I want to get into a piece because I have something that attracts me to it. My inclination is to do a play with another director who really motivates me to be better than I am. That's all I care about really once I feel that the well from which I draw has been replenished, because right now it feels pretty empty.

NR: When you started this career, (and this is true of most people who've been doing this more than a couple of years), it probably didn't occur to you that there would be something called the Internet on which hundreds of people would be dissecting your every movement, your every comment, your every mood. I'm assuming that was a surprise. I'm sure you thought you would have to deal with critics and some fan mail, but you didn't think that you would go home and have the ability to read fifty people commenting on what you did that night, whether positively or negatively.

DS: That's probably true.

NR: You seem to have handled it well...

DS: (shakes his head)

NR: No? So, there's been a cost to that.

DS: None of us live in a vacuum. I'm not a Zen Buddhist who can assume that everything around me has no value. (I'm paraphrasing the philosophy as I know it on a most shallow level.) But, anything that occurs is going to have an effect on me. I assume you're asking what effect it's had on me. Well, it's overwhelming. It's taxing because you want a person to feel responded to, first of all, in terms of mail. So, that was an extremely heavy burden to carry.

NR: Well, you would have gotten fan mail anyway. You know that. But, you wouldn't have had that much of an immediate, tremendously large response. You come out here in a bad mood one night, and there are fifty posts within an hour and a half saying, "Douglas was in a bad mood" or "He was tired" or "He cracked on this note" or "He did an ad lib." What is that like?

DS: It's daunting so I stopped reading it. I don't know that I would do that. It's hard for me to imagine that I could be one of the writers. Now, I think that all experiences are universal on some elemental level, that you should be able to image yourself as an actor in any situation, but that was hard for me to see myself as a poster, so it was hard for me to relate to that. I quickly had to say, "This is not something which informs me in a healthy way, or adds to my work or my life." So, I stopped reading it and I stopped going there. Then somebody would say, "Oh, so and so did a really nice job on this website. Could you go there and post something?" so I would do that. In general, I didn't feel like there was something to be had there for me, that would make my work stronger, or make me a better person. So, I didn't go.

NR: Does it bother you that it exists?

DS: No, I think it's pretty harmless. The only thing that bothers me is when the advent of the Internet creates a group dynamic, or what I should say, is a sub-group dynamic, within the event of the play occurring on a given night. So, more specifically, or in lay terms, there are people laughing before the cue happens, or laughing in anticipation of something happening, or laughing just a hair's breath, a split second ahead, or starting the applause too soon. I'm talking about a shade too soon, because I don't think they're people who are ill behaved, but it throws off my connection with the other 1500 people in the house. That is weary. It makes you weary, and without the Internet, that wouldn't occur, because they come in groups. They sit in groups and enjoy it en masse. Even a group of ten can change the audience dynamic. That is difficult sometimes because you know you're not making the same connection with the rest of the audience as a result of it. Otherwise, no, it doesn't bother me that it's out there. It seems pretty harmless as an offshoot of what is now our modern media empire.

NR: That's my point. You wandered into something not knowing this was ahead.

DS: Right.

Interview conducted and photographs by Nancy Rosati.