Today is the first day of rehearsal to dramatically and successfully become Mark Rothko in RED. There’s nineteen days my partner, Jimi Kocina, and I will have together in the rehearsal hall under the direction of David DeVries, before we go before our first preview audience February 1.

Having already learned my lines, reading J.B. Breslin’s biography on Rothko, having traveled to Houston to see The Rothko Chapel, to New York City to view The Seagram Building and having entered there into the climactic focal point setting of the play, The Four Seasons Restaurant for which Rothko was commissioned with a small fortune to paint four pictures, I feel as prepared as I’ve ever felt to begin rehearsal and yet I also feel more challenged than I ever have felt to show up for work, simply because Rothko is such a complex, driven and tragic character.

It’s interesting to me that my wife, Beverly, and I made our way to Washington, D.C. in 1998 to see The Rothko Retrospective at The National Gallery. I was so moved by his work and so unable to understand why. Now, fourteen years later, thanks to John Logan’s brilliant play and the people of Theatrical Outfit in the intimate setting provided by The Balzer Theater at Herren’s, I’m diving into the inner reality of that person who gave his life to the creation of these images, “pulsating” still in my soul.  I’m terrified and thrilled.

-Tom Key