At a prestigious art school, one teacher and two students get tangled in an unpredictable web of power and deceit in playwright Lisa Lewis’ SCHOOLED. After its successful premiere at the New York International Fringe Festival, the play will run as part of the “best of” selection at the 2015 FringeNYC Encore series at the SoHo Playhouse. StageBuddy talked with SCHOOLED director James Kautz (actor and artistic director of the critically acclaimed theater company The Amoralists) about the complicated and rewarding process of staging the play, which stars Quentin Maré (Broadway's Rock ‘n’ Roll), Lilli Stein (HBO's Veep) and Stephen Friedrich (CBS’s Elementary).

How did you get involved with SCHOOLED?

I started with SCHOOLED as an actor years ago. I was a guest in the first public reading of it with [actors] Phoebe Strole and Peter Friedman. I played [one of the students,] Jake, actually. The play was very different then. There was a fourth character, and it didn’t cut as much to the bone.

Lisa [Lewis] came to me and she said she wanted to dig into this and carve it up. She wanted it more theatrical and dangerous, strip away some of the inessentials and get down to the heart of the conflict of what she wanted to explore. A lot of playwrights say that but very few want to. She trusted me -- we’ve known each other for years -- and she asked me to direct. The first time I read it as a director, I thought there was so much underneath.

Did you collaborate with Lisa during the rehearsal process?

Oh yeah. Lisa was in the room every day. On brand new plays you have to have the writer in the room, and other times you have to kick them out. But with Lisa it didn’t come to that. She was definitely the authority on everything in the beginning, and then eventually we started teaching her about her play. The actors started teaching her about her characters, and I started telling her, “This is what you’ve actually written here. Let’s explore this.” And she, as a fantastic writer, was able to let go and learn. She is the ultimate authority on it, though, so where she’s willing to test out theories, she’s the one who says, “That’s what I’m trying to say.” Or, “That’s not what I’m trying to say.”

Did the actors have strong opinions about their characters?

Absolutely, which is great. You want to work with actors who have ideas and who are passionate about their ideas, and you want to be able to learn from them. But then you also have to be like, I totally get what you’re saying, but you’re looking at this scene, and I’m looking at the whole play and what the play means. Earning their trust was a big part of the journey. [At The Amoralists,] I’ve had the luxury of working with people I’ve known for a long time. This is the first time that I was like, everybody in the room is new to me.

Was there an excitement about that?

Oh yeah. It pushes everybody.

How has your experience as an actor and artistic director influenced you as a director of plays?

I understand what goes into it as a writer and as an actor. I definitely put a big onus on making sure the artists feel safe to be vulnerable. I think so much of directing is creating the environment for art to blossom. I know what it’s like to make a choice and maybe have it be the wrong choice. But an artist has to learn themselves, I can’t tell them. I learned that as an actor and as someone who has worked with playwrights: how you can help people make their own choices while silently guiding them.

In an interview, you once said what you learned about yourself as a performer was that if you’re not afraid to do something, it's not worth doing. What did you mean?

You gotta risk. Otherwise, who cares? Especially in this day and age, we find what we’re just perceived as and we’re expected to be that. The rewards in theater are so few and far between monetarily, it has to be from the soul. It has to be from the spirit. How am I growing as an artist and as a person through this experience? What am I getting out of it? Taking ourselves out of our comfort zones, learning more about ourselves and what that does in terms of opening up conversations with the audience, that’s what it’s about. If you’re just staying in your comfort zone, that conversation would be very, very limited. It’s a palpable feeling. The audience knows when you’re risking.

What scared you about directing SCHOOLED?

I will say, I’ve come to a point in my life, my career, where I only want to do things that feel right in my gut. I’ve done things that haven’t felt right that made sense on paper, and they always fail on some level. Even if they make money there’s my internal feeling of letdown. It sticks to you. It’s regret.

I try to trust my gut. Am I going to be able to bring to this project what this person really wants? Am I going to get out of it the growth and the experience that I want as an artist and as a person? You can feel it. I feel it. Sometimes it’s confusing. Sometimes the head and the heart war with each other, but I try to follow my gut. My gut felt right about this one. There’s something special here. What scared me most was probably the first, second day of rehearsals when you’re working with actors who don’t feel comfortable being vulnerable yet, who have their own ideas or no ideas. Everyone looks to you to know.

The Amoralists worked with Daniel Aukin in 2012. I’d never seen a director work like Daniel before on many levels. But what I brought with me from my experience with him was that he had the courage to say, “I don’t know.” I think that’s something that directors are maybe trained to never said, to never admit. A director is supposed to always know. I thought that was such an awesome and courageous thing to say as a director.

Do you think the show will extend pass FringeNYC Encore?

I don’t know, that’s always the goal. I think it is an important story, definitely explores an important and timely argument. Not that it’s anything new, but gender equality is definitely at the forefront of people’s minds now more than ever. [SCHOOLED is] creating palpable argument which is what you want to create in theater.