That same "family dynamic" is certainly already informing Third Rail's work. For two of our original ensemble members, Michael O'Connell and Slayden Scott Yarbrough, our production of Conor McPherson's "Shining City," which opens this Friday, marks their sixth Third Rail collaboration.

We asked Mike and Slayden to expound on how their working relationship has evolved over the last three years. In their unsurprisingly quixotic fashion, they asked instead to describe how they imagined the other would answer the question. Here then, in Part 1 of a series, is...

Working with Mike? Five shows? How is it? I don't know, try training a kitten to dance ballet, try herding bees, try fishing with a rock and maybe you will begin to understand the task before me.

OK, first a little about me. I am an only child whose single greatest joy was not tearing the wings off flies or sticking firecrackers in salamanders or subverting his brother's position in the family paradigm (like I'm sure Mike did) but sitting in a comfy chair next to the air conditioning in Oklahoma reading a book. I was a good child, hence I am not really into confrontations. In fact, conflict-averse would be at best euphemistic, conflict-toxic would be closer (although my wife is helping with this). I'm not one of those directors who will be the daddy and provoke his actors to push the envelope by bear-baiting them. I'm of the school whereby I just expect brilliance. But, I don't know, Mike sees rehearsals as sort of a Freudian battle cage whereon blood MUST BE SPILLED or art is just not happening. Case in point: for our first show together, "Recent Tragic Events," there was a lot of pressure. I was trying to gently nudge Mike away from some his pedestrian choices and he started to challenge me to the point where I really got mad and threw a hissy fit. And you know what he did? He smiled. As if now he could trust me, now we were friends because some distorted level of truth had been spoken. Ugh. Actors...

Over the next four shows we've developed a mutual level of respect and tolerance of each other's work. (I think my three Drammies to his one has cowed him, just a little bit.) Mike knows now that I will be all over him like a cheap suit for vocal clarity because his nerves sometimes betray his need to communicate. There's this click that happens during technical rehearsals or previews: he starts to slow down and really land his points. I say he knows this but he still breaks my balls during notes. I'm really working on articulating what I want my actors to do without using general words like "energy" and conditions like "sad" or "happy." Mike has become more patient with my fumblings and in his "casual" asides gives me advice on how to communicate better. But really, look into my hell for a second. Not only am I responsible for the production and organization of the whole show coming together but I have to try and navigate each actors emotional mine fields? Howzabout they navigate MINE?

The thing about working with Mike is I'm never bored and I know he appreciates me for what I do and he's in my corner. He delivers and is always working to improve from the beginning of being cast to the end of the show. So yeah, its been a struggle, but those kinds of struggles are what defines you. Give me five more.

Scott.

P.S. Thanks for Giving!

Hey, thanks SO MUCH to all of you who contributed to Willamette Week's GiveGuide (wweek.com/giveguide)! This charitable program ends today, and it has been a wonderful success. Contributions to Third Rail totaled more than $2000; contributions to one of our faves, The Oregon Cultural Trust, topped $43,000; and all told the GiveGuide raised more than $400,000 for 50 nonprofit organizations. Way to give, folks!