When Daniel Talbott, artistic director of Rising Phoenix Repertory, talks about theater, he is able to go on for minutes without once pausing to gather his thoughts. Talbott’s eyes are tired as he sips his Grande Starbucks drink on a Monday morning—this is his only day off during the last week of rehearsals for Tartuffe at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton—but his ability to articulate his passion for the art form seems unaffected.

Although Talbott still makes his living as an actor, it’s his work with Rising Phoenix that has most recently earned him praise. Since moving a majority of its productions to an East Village restaurant in late 2005, the not-for-profit company has attracted positive buzz for its creative use of the venue: Talbott has commissioned plays for the dining space, the hallway and even the bathrooms (the last venture, titled Rules of the Universe, was recognized at the IT Awards). Ask his company members, and many will attribute the success of Rising Phoenix to Talbott’s experimental, unyielding vision and ability to connect with other theater professionals. Talbott, however, is careful not to give himself too much credit and separate himself from the community he loves.

“That’s a huge question,” Talbott says when asked about his concern about the city’s theater scene. He then speaks for a long time, occasionally shifting his coffee mug from one hand to the next or tearing at its cardboard jacket. The lack of public and governmental interest towards the arts concerns him (“I think that says a lot about our civilization, it says a lot about our culture and where we are headed right now,” he says), and the labels of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway tick him off (“I don’t know what it is about our culture that we need to label something so that we understand it’s important”). When he speaks of the lack of support from theater critics, his tone speeds up further.

“Whether you like the play or not is not the point, but you have to be able to say that these people have talent,” he says. Recently, Talbott says, the New York Times slammed Scarcity, a play by an up-and coming writer Lucy Thurber. Another playwright he respects, Ann Marie Healey, has faced similar dismissal by critics.

“If I read those reviews and knew nothing about theater and these women, and how obscenely talented they are and how hard they work, I would go ‘oh, these people suck,’” Talbott says. “Yes, they might hate a production, and that’s their right as critics, but they should also look at theater in a larger scheme and in the context of new playwrights within that. And not take away their opinion, not take away their right to rip on something that they think is bad, I respect that, but I don’t respect dismissing someone that’s talented.”

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“Whether I’ve sucked at it or not, I’ve always wanted to do every aspect of theater,” Talbott says. “It’s really hard for me to just do one thing.” After graduating high school in the Bay Area in the mid-1990s, Talbott completed a two-year actors’ training program at Solano Community College before entering Juilliard’s drama program in 1998. The experience allowed him, unlike many of his Juilliard peers, to gain experience auditioning and working with local companies like the Berkeley Repertory prior to entering a four-year conservatory.

After his first year at Juilliard, Talbott returned to a local theater space in San Francisco to try his hand at directing. The production was Harold Pinter’s Other Places, and the cast and crew a mixture of old friends, Juilliard friends and teachers. It was this experience that first brought Rising Phoenix to life, and even after becoming visible in New York theater, Talbott has maintained a special fondness for regional companies around the country. Since graduating Juilliard he has returned, for example, to act with Berkeley Repertory and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

“What’s great about regional theater is that you get to just go do the play, there is no outside pressure. The only reason you’re there is to do a play,” he says.

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This drive to do theater without the constant presence of outside demands has been the motivating force behind Rising Phoenix as well. The production team has some high-profile credits—artistic associates Denis Butkus and Samantha Soule appeared in The Coast Of Utopia and Koram Boy, respectively, but members find themselves returning to the not-for profit company when other productions wrap.

“It’s a group of theater professionals who mostly make their living as actors or directors outside of the company, and it acts as a home base for us to come back together and work in between projects,” Talbott says.

“The company is the one place where you have the permission to say this is what I want to do, and you get to do it and be a part of it,” says Samantha Soule. Both she and Denis Butkus have known Talbott since attending Juilliard together.

“It’s expanded our horizons in terms having a distraction from the grueling auditioning,” adds Butkus. Talbott almost never requires his actors to audition, but instead seeks out individuals whose work has impressed him in the past. About a third of its 30 members are other Juilliard graduates, but Talbott tries to constantly bring in new voices.

“That first read-through is always stressful,” says Soule, “and not auditioning takes away that feeling of ‘I need to prove why I was given this job’.”

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The company has gained much of its current attention since moving its productions into Jimmy’s No. 43, a basement restaurant near Second Avenue. Owner Jimmy Carbone has lent the restaurant’s back room out to the company at no cost for the past two years, so the budget of each production has rarely exceeded $500. In a city where theater rentals shoot the costs of Off-Off Broadway productions to thousands of dollars, Jimmy’s provides a rare luxury.

The performance space has now become part of the Rising Phoenix trademark. Each work thus far has been custom-written for the space by playwrights that Talbott has personally approached. Writers Crystal Skillman and Daniel Reitz have created works that have put the bathrooms, the corridors and the tables at Jimmy’s to use; the only space the company is yet to utilize is the small stage itself. The restaurant’s character is strong—scents of olive oil and candle wax float in the air, and patrons eat by candlelight at heavy wooden tables, underneath decorative rows of barrels. Trying to turn the space into something else would be a forced, and likely an unsuccessful, choice.

“We really wanted to do short pieces because of the nature of it being a bar space. We also knew they had to be new works, and Daniel made the choice for them all to be set-specific. We incorporated what was going on in the bar into the pieces,” says Butkus. The bar’s kegs are kept near the back room, and occasionally the restaurant staff has had to come in and change a fuse during a performance.

“Daniel has always been open to that kind of work where you pitch a challenge to people and see what they come up with,” says Soule. “He came in one day and said he wanted to write a play for the bathrooms. And I thought ‘come on, it’s going to be so disgusting’, but he just said it will be great, and that’s what we won the IT award for.”

So far, Talbott’s instincts have generated good results. In its consistent coverage of the company’s work, NYTheatre.com has described it as “taut, compact, poetic,” “jolting, moving, and exciting,” and “showing us what site-specific theatre can be.” At this September’s IT Awards, Talbott was named Outstanding Director for Rules of the Universe, while Daniel Reitz received the award for Oustanding Original Short Script. Rising Phoenix was also the recipient of a yearly Caffe Cino Fellowship Award, a $1000 stipend.

“Luck plays a strange part in the theater. If there are 20 people that come in for a part, maybe five of them are actually right for it, and thirteen of them are obscenely talented. Then why does that one person get it? Who knows,” says Talbott. “I’m proud of the work we do, I’m proud of our failures as much as our successes and the people I work with, but we are no better than any other company. Maybe the right person saw our play, but it doesn’t make us better. It’s not about being better, it’s about doing good work and doing it in conversation. Theater is about community, and about other people, and you have to do your work in context to other people’s work.”

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When it comes to his work, Talbott tends to get swept away. What helps him snap out of theater mode, he says, is his two-year-old son, Bailey, who isn’t afraid to demand his attention.

“I can get really obsessed with my work. But Bailey is really good at coming in and saying, come play with me, so he’ll throw blocks at you and stuff till you come and play,” he says. Talbott is married to fellow company member Addie Johnson, who appeared in one of the company’s productions, The Telling, only a few days after her son was born. When Johnson stepped on and off stage, she and Talbott took turns holding Bailey.

“Daniel is an out-of the box thinker. He’s a renaissance man, few people truly are,” Johnson says over the phone about her husband.

“We are family at this point, so sometimes it’s horrible and we fight, but even through that, Daniel is such an inspiration to me personally for his work ethic and for his commitment to the art form. So even when he is breaking me down and I’m so mad at him, I have faith that what he’s doing is for the best. And he really is always right. You put the work in front of an audience and you go, ‘god it’s really beautiful, it’s really its own thing’,” Soule says.

“I’ve absolutely had meltdowns in rehearsal, and thought ‘what’s wrong with me.’ It comes out of fear, it’s such a terrifying thing that we do. You have to put so much of yourself on the line and open yourself up in such a vulnerable way that you really get crazed and defensive,” says Talbott.

Despite his directing and writing chops (one of Talbott’s plays will be produced by The Side Project in Chicago in the early spring), his first love is still being an actor.

“You’re only as good onstage as you’re off-stage. And if you’re not a searching, open, and empathetic individual in life, you aren’t going to be able to walk on stage and flip it on,” he says.

Having a family has helped Talbott simplify life and put it in perspective. To him, life amounts to work, family and friends, and each holds an equally important role.

“Through trying to do work with the most integrity I can, I hope to make a good living for my family and to be able to support my family better. And, if I were ever lucky enough, to make enough money to help support my friends too,” he says.

“You know, if six years ago someone said here, do Terminator 16, I would have said ‘oh, fuck you,’ but now that I have a kid, I would say please, give me Terminator 29, just so that my kid can go to college.”