Elsa has been directing plays on the Monterey Peninsula since 1993. When she was eighteen years old she first got the idea of creating her own theatre, and with the recent opening of the Magic Circle Center for the Arts her dream has finally come true.

Elsa was born in the Netherlands and spent her first eight years there. She says her earliest involvement in theatre was at about four or five years of age; as soon as she learned to write she would create little skits and round up the children in the neighborhood to act them out. She also was often taken by her parents to children's plays. Elsa's father was an oriental rug dealer and traveled a lot because of his business. When she was eight her family moved to New York and then eventually moved to New Jersey. Then, when Elsa was fifteen years old, she returned to Europe to go to school in Switzerland. It was at that school, during her junior and senior years in high school, that she became more intensely involved in theatre. She had an inspirational drama teacher and took many classes from him - in writing, acting, directing - the various aspects of the theatre arts.

After high school graduation, Elsa returned to the United States and entered Windham College in Putney, Vermont. She officially majored and got her Bachelor's Degree in English Literature, but, as Elsa explains, "I told everyone, 'If you're going to have to grade me on something, just grade me on what I'm doing in theatre', and all I did there for four years was theatre. I did some acting including some leads, which was really a disaster. I'm not a good actress - never have been. Basically I'm an observer, so I'd be on stage, not even in my own character, watching everyone else which was not good. So I ended up assistant directing my very first year there, and as soon as I did that I knew I wanted to direct. I also was taking a writing class from John Irving, before he was really famous, and I started writing some plays and producing and directing them."

After Elsa graduated from Windham College she worked as a graduate teaching assistant at Bennington College in Vermont. The theatre was black box and she was pretty much given the run of it - to direct, to do a lot of improvisational work, and even to work with some New York playwrights. After a year at Bennington, she decided to study theatre more seriously and entered a Masters level program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She was there a year and hated it, deciding what she was learning was totally irrelevant to anything she wanted to do. So she decided to go to the mountains and "start a theatre company" and ended up at Crested Butte, Colorado, a small mountain town near Aspen. Elsa describes the amazing thing that happened, "The week I arrived there, somehow people from all over the country just migrated to this tiny town of 300 people - really great theatre people from all over the country all ended up at the same time wanting to start a theatre. We formed the Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, a company of about twelve people. It was amazing. We'd have eight hour long training workshops that were semi-rehearsals. And it was there that I was taught the sacredness of theatre." Elsa stayed there a couple of years, directing THE EFFECT OF GAMMA RAYS ON THE MAN IN THE MOON MARIGOLDS, co-directing the Manhattan Project's version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, and developing a wine and cheese restaurant to help support the theatre. Eventually she moved back to Boulder and became a jeweler and silversmith while she examined what direction her life should go. She came up with the idea that she could use theatre as a way of helping people.

Elsa Con (upper left) & the cast of ORPHANS

So Elsa enrolled in a program in Denver called The Creative Arts Therapy Institute, learning to use theatre, movement, and improvisation as a means of therapy in patient settings. After a year she got a certificate as a Creative Arts Therapist and then spent a year doing various internships as a therapist. Becoming increasingly intrigued by psychotherapy, she decided to enter graduate school in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. She was there for four years from 1979 through 1983 and during that time did no theatre. She explains, "I realized early on that if I got anywhere near theatre during that time I'd probably drop out of graduate school. It was too dangerous, sort of like a drug, so I stayed away completely. I was so busy, basically working seven days a week, that I didn't have time to miss it." She obtained her PhD in clinical psychology in 1983. It was also at that school that she met her future husband, Bucky. Elsa and Bucky next moved to New York doing post-doctorate work at Cornell University followed by more post-doctorate work and internships in New Hampshire. Elsa tells about attending a few plays, "I still stayed away from theatre, but I did go to a couple of plays and one of them was TALKING WITH and it was the first theatre I'd really been near in ages and I thought, 'This is so incredible, well if I ever do theatre again that's the play I'll start out with', and I sort of filed it in the back of my head. In New Hampshire I saw AGNES OF GOD and thought, 'Gee, looking good' and filed that one in the back of my head, and I'M NOT RAPPAPORT in Boston, another one I was filing, sort of wistfully, 'Oh, gee, those are good plays, but I'm a psychologist now so oh well.'" In 1984 Elsa and Bucky set up practices and remained in New Hampshire for the next five years.

By 1989 they were tired of the New Hampshire winters and the heat and bugs in the summer, and after much research (on "desirable places to live in America") and deliberation they decided to move to the Monterey Peninsula and set up their practices as psychologists. They first lived in Pebble Beach but kept moving further and further into Carmel Valley; they had come west to be warm. After a few years, Elsa started getting a feeling that something was missing in her life. She describes the process, "I started THINKING about directing a play, and I thought, 'But it's been twenty years since I've done any theatre.' So I thought, 'There was this play TALKING WITH; maybe I'll just order the script.' At someone's suggestion I started writing down what directing means to me and ended up with three pages." So Elsa took a big leap and did TALKING WITH at Cherry Hall (it's formal title is Carl Cherry Center for the Arts) in Carmel in 1993. And she continued at Cherry Hall presenting usually two plays per year. Elsa called her theatre company Magic Circle. She explains the source of the name, "I have this belief that theatre is a circle - it's a circular energetic relationship between the audience and the actors and without it nothing happens. And it's magical just to create something from nothing."

Elsa did about seven plays at Cherry Hall and then last year started looking around for her own space. She describes what she was looking for and why, " I always wanted to have my own theatre. I like things a certain way. I like things clean; I have this thing about treating actors well; I think they should have nice surroundings; I think they should be paid; I think they should be respected. And I want comfortable seats, good sight lines, and good acoustics in a theatre, also a backstage room and a real pretty setting." She started looking for a space in Carmel Valley, so it would be close to where she lives. And she found her space in Carmel Valley Village - two beautiful buildings set in a lovely garden and close to Elsa's home. It had been an antique dealership. Elsa continues telling about why she loves her space, "I love real community theatre. You can have a core of actors, but I love having the community involved. Carmel Valley Village is still that kind of community, a real wonderful, small town where everybody knows each other. We're starting to have people come to every event we have and bring their friends, and neighbors are volunteering to do box office."

Elsa calls her theatre complex Magic Circle Center for the Arts, and explains that what the Center presents has three basic components. The first is the main stage productions. The main stage theatre holds sixty people and Elsa plans to present four plays a year. The second component is the events for children which include interactive music concerts and special plays. There are also after school classes for children ages eight to eighteen. In the future she plans to expand the children's program and have classes for children under eight. The third component is the series of live music concerts presented in the smaller theatre of the Magic Circle Center. In addition the center offers improvisational theatre workshops for adults and Elsa hopes in the future to offer other workshops such as mask-making and mime.

Elsa talks a bit about herself as a director, "I direct, after I get done with the blocking, very intuitively. I don't think a lot; it's much more of a feeling thing. And because of my training as a psychologist, which has been really helpful for directing, I feel I have a real understanding of what motivates the character on stage so I can really help the actor find the motivation in the scene. I think one real interesting thing about acting, especially when someone is not type cast and it's a real stretch of a role, is that they find a little kernel in themselves which they've hardly allowed to surface and make that little piece grow into a whole character."

Elsa also talks about finding a good script, "One of the things I struggle with the most is finding a good script - I obsess about finding a good script. What I look for in a script is good character development, not just superficial characters - something that moves people and that can include laughter. I like a lot of depth in a play; that keeps you interested as you're directing it. I did ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST twice, and it was still interesting the second time. The one I'm doing now, ORPHANS, is fascinating because each scene could be done a thousand different ways. And I have to have a personal heart connection with the script; I have to either believe in something it's trying to say or I have to feel connected with one or more of the characters. Sometimes I'll go up to the city and see some plays. Usually I get all the big catalogues and they have little synopsis and I read through them, forever and ever and ever. WRONG TURN AT LUNGFISH was this incredibly wonderful script; nobody ever heard of it. DOG LOGIC - ditto - great script. Also I like things that are a little quirky and unusual or things that have a real psychological interest."

When asked about any other future plans Elsa commented, " I'd like to do some kind of workshops that combine theatre and therapy. I have it all spelled out on paper; I've planned workshops like these for years. I just haven't gotten around to doing it. I like the overlap between psychology and theatre; where they meet is a real interesting place."