TFTV alum Annika Maher (’20) has built a career that spans stage management, design, producing and directing. Now Co-Artistic and Managing Director of The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre alongside fellow TFTV alum Zac Austin (’20), Maher is directing the Arizona premiere of Samantha Hurley’s I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire, a darkly comic Y2K-era story about Shelby, a teenage girl whose obsessive celebrity crush takes an unexpected turn. The show is running now through October 11.
In this Q&A, she discusses how her technical and production background shapes her collaborative approach to directing, the TFTV connections within the production, and her vision for Scoundrel & Scamp as a home for emerging artists, new work and mentorship.
You graduated from the School of Theatre, Film & Television with a degree in Theatre Design & Technical Production with an emphasis in stage management, and your Scoundrel & Scamp work has included stage management, lighting and sound design, producing and now directing. How does that technical and production perspective shape you as a director?
I have spent much of my career seeing a production from many different angles. Those experiences have taught me how much every person in the room contributes to storytelling. Ultimately, I think my technical background has made me a very collaborative director. I don’t see directing as having all of the answers. I see it as creating a shared vision and giving everyone the tools and the space to contribute their expertise. My job is to bring all of those different pieces together into one cohesive theatrical experience.
This is the Arizona premiere of Samantha Hurley’s I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire, a play that looks on the surface like an outrageous Y2K-era comedy but takes a pretty intense turn as it explores fandom, obsession and loneliness. What did you see in the play that made you want to direct it, and what do you hope audiences experience beyond the laughs?
When I first read the play, I really recognized the character of Shelby. To me, she is a perfect depiction of what a teenage girl can be like at the age of 14. I reminisced about my own heartfelt and embarrassing teenage memories. Underneath the comedy and nostalgia, there is a very vulnerable story about loneliness and wanting to feel connected to someone. I wanted to be able to share that story on stage, as I felt it could connect with people at any age. I hope audiences have a genuinely fun time with the show, but I also hope they leave thinking about the ways that we form relationships with people we don’t actually know, especially in a world where we have so much access to celebrities and strangers online.
This production is something of a TFTV reunion: your two lead actors, Alexandra Kaplan (’24) and Zac Austin, are TFTV alumni, while Julia Waters is a current student studying Live and Screened Performance. What has it been like to work with people who share that TFTV connection, and do you see traces of your shared training in the way you collaborate?
It has been wonderful to work with fellow alumni and a current student from TFTV. There is a kind of shorthand that comes from working with people who were trained in the same environment. It felt as though we all had a general understanding of how we like to work in a rehearsal room: coming in prepared, treating the rehearsal space as a place to play and take risks, and creating a safe space to give each other productive feedback. If there is one piece of our shared TFTV training that I am very proud of, it is that we all treated the process as seriously as the product.
The production has an elaborate physical world, centered on Shelby’s basement bedroom, with meticulously detailed wallpaper that draws the attention of audience members the moment they enter the space. How did you and your design team approach creating that world, and how important was the physical environment to telling this particular story?
I spoke with our scenic designers Bryan and Elizabeth Falcón before rehearsal began. We all came to the same conclusion that we wanted our audiences to feel immediately immersed in Shelby’s world. Bryan and Elizabeth experimented with designs on how to keep the pink and bubbly personality of a 14-year-old girl present, while emphasizing the dark and grungy basement that she also lives in. The end product was a perfect blend of Shelby’s worlds. Once Bryan and Elizabeth created that physical environment, it became a central point of the production. The scenic design automatically draws audiences in to the detail and helps them to feel as if they have entered a private world. That kind of attention does a lot of quiet storytelling, and it rewards people who look closely. Additionally, the environment was a great resource for the performers. The actors weren’t just pretending to be in a room; they fully inhabited one. They were able to enter Shelby’s headspace from the moment that they stepped onstage.
When you and Zac took over the theatre, you talked about building on the foundation created by Bryan and Elizabeth Falcón and expanding opportunities for local artists and developing new work. A little over a year later, what are you discovering about the kind of artistic home you want Scoundrel & Scamp to be?
Bryan and Elizabeth founded the Scoundrel & Scamp in 2016 and emphasized telling diverse stories, making immersive, imaginative work, establishing a home for physical theatre in the Southwest, and creating opportunities for local artists. Zac and I feel that is a foundation worth protecting. We also want the Scoundrel & Scamp to be a place where emerging works and emerging artists have a home – a place where artistic endeavors can be created and cultivated. Bryan and Elizabeth also created a renowned theatrical education program, and we want to continue and expand on that, whether that’s elementary students taking their first acting class, a college student exploring theatrical careers through internships and mentorship, or providing opportunities for students in our in-house theatre classes to work on our productions either onstage or backstage.
The Scoundrel & Scamp is also fortunate to have a team of Artistic Associates who are working theatre professionals with deep experience in the field who generously share their knowledge and expertise with the next generation of artists. That kind of mentorship is an important part of the creative community we want to cultivate here. Zac and I want The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre to be a place where an emerging playwright, a seasoned actor, a student in a class, and a first-time audience member all feel it was built with them in mind.