Books, Plays, and Attended Theatre 2009

Here's what I read this year. The first list is books (a variety of non-fiction and fiction) and then plays I've read. Finally, I've added a list of theatre performances I saw this year (which is rather slim).


Books
1. Thinking Shakespeare by Barry Edelstein
2. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
3. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
5. Wild at Heart by John Eldridge
6. The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman
7. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
8. Kiss Me Like a Stranger by Gene Wilder
9. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
10. Renee Fleming’s Vocal Autobiography
11. Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler
12. Close Calls with Nonsense by Stephen Burt
13. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
14. Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
15. The World According to Garp by John Irving
16. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
17. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
18. Sanford Meisner On Acting by Sanford Meisner and Dennis Longwell
19. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
20. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
21. Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller
22. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
23. A Thousand Miles in a Million Years by Donald Miller
24. Coaching the Artist Within by Eric Maisel
25. Straight Man by Richard Russo
26. The Shack by William P Young
27. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
28. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
29. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Plays
1. Mrs Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
2. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
3. The Road to Damascus (part 1) by August Strindberg
4. Miss Julie by August Strindberg
5. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand
6. Picnic by William Inge
7. Buried Child by Sam Shepard
8. Waiting for Godot by Beckett
9. Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht
10. Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco
11. The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter
12. The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde
13. Long Day’s Journey Into Night by O’Neill
14. Angels in America by Tony Kushner
15. Fences by August Wilson
16. The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash
17. Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin
18. John Gabriel Borkman by Ibsen
19. Death and the Plowman by Johannes von Saaz
20. Three Days of Rain Richard Greenberg
21. Enchanted April by Matthew Barber
22. Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
23. Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon
24. Late: a cowboy song by Sarah Ruhl
25. To Fool the Eye by Jeffrey Hatcher


Plays I’ve Attended
1. Happy Days
2. Eleutheria
3. Bernstein’s Mass (not a play, but it’s a very theatrical piece)
4. A Delicate Balance
5. Endgame
6. Private Eyes
7. Buried Child
8. Grey Gardens
9. The Odd Couple
10. The Tempest
11. A Midnight Dreary

What's been most disappointing is the number of plays I've attended. But it was my final semester of college and then the acting apprenticeship that hampered any chances of catching attending theatre. I hope to catch more stuff in Minneapolis and St. Paul this year, but that can prove challenging.

One more show this year...

I've got the final performance of 2009 tonight.
I think I've been in over 100 live performances this year:

--8 or so Cabaret shows of Miscast 2: Once More with Feeling
--4 of Dames at Sea
--around 70 of The Rainmaker
--7 of The Odd Couple (for understudying)
--close to 30 of The 1940's Radio Hour

It's been a very good year. What a blessing!
Thanks to all family and friends who have caught a show.

Who knows what 2010 will bring (I've got some ideas)?
I'm excited though.

Snow Daze

We've were dumped with snow. And I have proof.

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This is just outside the theatre. I attempted to show how deep the snow got in some places, but that failed.
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The bluff nearby. I'm not sure if this photo can give the proper justice it deserves. Earlier this morning, the sun hit the bluff and made it all shiny with this haunting pinkish tint. You'll just have to take my word for it.



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Obligatory here's-my-car-underneath-a-ton-of-snow picture. Take a look at the front left part of the hood.


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Because of all the snow, I've been cooped up in the house, working on monologues. Here's the initials of every word to a Romeo monologue. It's a handy way to check memorization without having all the words in front of you:



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WE HAD A PERFORMANCE OF 1940'S RADIO HOUR last night. It was so great to be back on stage after three days of sitting around and watching movies. I did a bit of cleaning, but it was a ton of nothing. Last night, I finally had to walk to the gas station and get some milk (it's about a mile walk, round trip). My eyelashes felt particularly frosty after that trip.

BUT I DIGRESS.

The show was a lot of fun. It felt great to have a renewed sense of energy and purpose. The crowd was rather...inebriated... They were responsive to us, but it got to be a bit annoying and distracting.

I have a tiny speech where I talk about being in flight training and going off to war.

I said: "I got a call last night from my folks in Greenwood, Indiana..." I paused, trying to find the best way to say "and they said the best Christmas present I could give them next year would be my being home." Well, before going into that weighty bit, a couple people started cheering, applauding:

"WOO! Indiana!!!"

I stopped, hoping the silence would shut them up. It worked, but it put me completely out of the rest of the speech.

The audience acts as the actual audience of the radio show that is broadcast live throughout New York. So we interact with them and appreciate some verbal nods here and there. This time though...it was unwelcome.

A baby was also in the audience. It wasn't too distracting. While I was changing into my tap shoes and Ann is singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," I heard the baby coo. The mics picked that up into the dressing room feed. That was pretty adorable.

AND THEN TODAY we had 200 middle/high school students catching the show. They just didn't seem to appreciate the 40's. It's funny how one night the entire audience knows ALL the music, and the next it goes right over their heads. I think they ended up enjoying the show (or getting out of classes for a morning).

Movin' Right Along

I need more creative titles.

We do six shows in four days: 1 Thursday night, 2 on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and 1 on Sunday afternoon. It's quite a feat! The audiences really seemed to enjoy our performances this weekend. It's great.

Today, we had a special event called "Sunday Salon," in which an invited guest comes to discuss some topic that deals with the show. Today we heard some WWII stories. One couple was invited to explain how they used song titles as a code system. If "White Christmas" was mentioned in a letter, the wife knew her husband was in Hawaii. "I'll Be Seeing" you meant he was in Japan and so forth. It was very clever and never censored! Other people chimed in from the audience, sharing their stories from the war and using the radio as a means for entertainment and news.

It's great to hear these accounts. There were lots of tears in the room during the salon. This medium has a powerful impact on people. I think this show takes many by surprise.

Yesterday, we had a rehearsal look-back. The cast gathered with the artistic director and discussed how the rehearsal process went. We expressed what we loved, what was frustrating, how we grew as artists, etc. It was interesting to hear what people had to say. I won't go into details, but it's great that we had an honest conversation about what worked and what didn't. Hopefully what didn't work out so well can be remedied for future shows of this nature and others. We're constantly learning in this company, which I appreciate. We'll also have a production look-back or post-mortem to examine similar elements (outside of rehearsals, obviously).

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GRAD SCHOOL COUNTDOWN

I'll be auditioning for grad schools in less than two months.

Tonight, I'll be lookin' over Shakespeare stuff. I've got a bit of anxiety about choosing the right Shakespeare monologues. I'm looking at the ingenues, which just seem to be so cliche, but with my age and looks, that's my options (it's just weird to me to think I may end up working on Romeo's lines). There's a lot of Shakespeare that I haven't read. So I'm trying to find a good balance of working with what I know and stretching beyond that a bit. As much as I enjoy Shakespeare, I can't just sit and read it for long periods of time. I need to speak it and hear it. The problem is that time is ticking and I've got some finalized decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later. I aim to have a list picked out by Tuesday (probably of five or so monologues).

I do have my contemporary monologues. One is Alan from Picnic and the other is Pip from Three Days of Rain (which may be a bit too old for me, but it's got such a great amount of energy and humor, and I genuinely love the piece)

Thanksgiving

Whew. I just had Thanksgiving fun (traveling and eating) mixed in with opening a show and doing five performances in three days. It's tiring work to say the least. Add in some sickness recovery and you've got the potential for griping.

But that has all been wiped away.

I'm grateful for all the friends, family, talent, and opportunities I've had this year. It's been concentrated in the past few days. I've realized how much I enjoy talking to audience members. There are some outstanding, generous, and very smart subscribers and donors who love having a dialogue and relationship with the company members. Today, after our matinee, there was a mini reception and I had the opportunity to chat with some supporters who truly adore the work we do here. It's humbling.

It's not about receiving accolades and praise. It's realizing that the work I'm doing in this ensemble is making an impact on the lives of these people. That's why they keep coming back and bringing friends. Yes, it's entertaining, but it's sustaining and revitalizing people.



1940's Radio Hour has the potential to veer toward fluffy "deadly" theatre as Peter Brook would call it. But our production has some deeper elements and I think we're giving a nod to that pretty well. There's alcoholism and war content that broadens the scope and transports people in the audience, whether they were alive during the 40's, part of World War II, or any part of the military period (past and present)--okay, not so much the drinking bit, but it interrupts the radio show within the show for a little bit.

Initially, I wasn't a "fan" of this show, but the more I spend time with it and understand how much it has been affecting audiences and company members, the more I realize this stuff is important. It won't be too long before the folks of the 40's will be gone. This is a tribute to their times, which have plenty of ties to today. And theatre has a unique ability to link all of that together and aid in transporting people to places they weren't intending to go initially. It creates moments of transcendence--whether it's for five seconds, five minutes, or the entire show.

I've managed to feel that while attending shows (but it doesn't happen too frequently since I've got my eye on the acting and other production elements), but those striking moments kind of bash you over the head and feed the soul in ways you can't quite figure out. Art, particularly theatre in this case, changes lives.

Got a Fever.

We had a preview last night for The 1940's Radio Hour. The audience seemed to like it. We've got some sound issues to deal with still. I can't quite read what people thought of the show overall. We have talk-backs after every preview to gain a better understanding what the audience thinks.

I thought it was a pretty good show. But I'm sick right now, so it's all jumbled. I've got fever symptoms, which isn't ideal for previewing a musical with tricky jazz chords and a tap break (and playing the trumpet).

I sat in bed and watched some episodes of Flash Forward and went to bed. It was the worst night of sleep I've had in a LONG time. I can't even remember the last time I was so restless. I was also half-dreaming about the FBI trying to get to the bottom of a world-wide blackout where most people saw the future (which is the premise of the show).

I'm a bit better now. I feel rested. I've got a bit of rehearsal this afternoon. Hopefully I'll be able to get to a grocery store for some more food (and JUICE!) between that and our second preview tonight.

Enter: Tech Week

We're in tech week. The last time I had tech was for The Rainmaker, which is a 2.5 hour long romance/comedy (or "romantice" as it said on the cover of our scripts). It's not a show that requires a lot of technical wizardry.

The 1940's Radio Hour is an entirely different beast. We've got three microphones (well, four, actually) and a different playing space than what we've been using all year. It's a bit more proscenium-y and less thrust-y. BUT we are using the entire house of the theatre (stairways and booths and audience seating).

The music is canned, so it's all pre-recorded. And the cast changes which mics they sing in throughout the show.

Needless to say, our entire world has been rocked slightly.

This afternoon was a slow four-hour spacing rehearsal. We just marked the show and finessed blocking and traffic patterns. No music, no tech, just getting used to the stage. Previous to this, we've been in the rehearsal hall, pretending there were levels when we were just acting on a single flat surface. Now, we're in the actual theatre space, using doors and staircases and the mini stage for our radio show. It's exciting, but slow-going work.

Tonight was a music/sound night. It's complicated, and I got a little frustrated at one point. It got hard for me to loosen up during a duet song I sing. I don't do well with compartmentalized information. I'll get a technical/music note and then get an acting kind of note right after that and it's difficult for me to combine the two. Plus, there's a small dance break. I knew tonight wasn't about performing; I was trying to be extra-sensitive about the monitors and mic levels and how I had to work with the mic. So I let the performing attitudes slide and I think that was rather detrimental. I was just going through the motions so that I could pay attention to the sound. Not everyone else was buying into that and it was just kind of a muddled mess.

The weirdest thing happened also: I had absolutely no energy at the beginning of the rehearsal. Once I was finished with the duet section, I had a bit of a break. I just sat down and read a bit of a magazine. Then, for whatever reason, this jolt of energy happened. We did the tap number and that was very energizing for the end of the rehearsal. Right when I was hitting a good stride, the rehearsal was over and we got a note to come back tomorrow ready to go.

I know a lot of this has to do with trekking up to the Cities for a day and hanging out with friends really late at night. I'm a bit behind on sleep right now, so I should just rest up now and get a good breakfast in, because (like they say in the song "Strike Up the Band"):

There is work to be done, to be done!

But I also need to figure out how to get jazzed about this work from the very beginning.

Rehearsing and Listening

Rehearsing a show is exhausting (understatement of the week). I think the entire cast was getting loopy as 10 p.m. drew nearer. We're working through the show right now, tightening and refining details so they are more specific, finding the proper focus. But I'm glad that we've had the opportunity to do a mini Viewpoints workshop prior to all of this. I don't feel weighed down by one single way of approaching the action. It's all very go-with-the-flow. I had choreography this morning, a tiny break, then I worked as an usher for a nearly sold-out Sunday matinee. That was a five-hour shift.

Now, let me explain. The show is only two hours. Ushers need to be at the theatre an hour before to set up everything and get the house set up. Then there was a small potluck/party after the show. I stayed around to clean up and take in the free food. That took another hour and a half or so. I kind of forgot about the whole lunch thing (which isn't something I normally do), so I wolfed down the pasta salads and this outstanding corn salsa. I don't even know what was all in it, but it was exquisite!

Needless to say, I was exhausted, and I knew that I had three hours of rehearsal later that night. I attempted to take a nap, but I just kind of lied in bed listening to the latest Cantus album.

Cantus is the nation's premiere vocal men's ensemble. There are 9 guys singing remarkable literature. Stuff from all over the world (new and old music).

The whole reason I spent this time listening was that I took a quick, rather spontaneous trip to Rochester to catch a concert featuring Cantus and the Choral Arts Ensemble. It was stunning, to say the least.

I sat in the back of this church, and it was packed. Lots of people were here for a benefit for the Choral Arts Ensemble. They started off the program and I was instantly hit with how much I appreciated, love, and (gasp) miss singing in choir at college. It was an insane commitment that had very little payoff it seemed. There wasn't much credit (if any, honestly). The hours were long. Rehearsals and personalities can get rather aggravating for even the most patient of people. But then the concerts come around and the tours start up. There's a lot of preparation we'd have to do just to make sure one measure of a particular piece was to our director's liking.

Until last night, I've usually always been singing in the ensemble. To sit down and have a rather objective perspective from a choir that I knew nothing about was refreshing and surprising. They were good. They even sang a piece I sang my senior year of high school. Sitting in the audience with all those supporters was completely invigorating. Those people LOVED the choir for a variety of reasons. I could tell they needed it, probably in ways they can't fully understand.

I sure needed it.

And Cantus comes up. These guys are mind-blowing! The effortlessness and ease they sing with! I was just in awe (and I consider myself to have a pretty critical ear and eye when it comes to a performance like this). There's a sensitivity and absolute connection to the music and words and story behind the pieces. They're a pretty theatrical group and do a lot of engaging things with their faces and restricted body language (since, you know, they're singing). But all of it was such a fascinating performance. I felt transported to other countries and times and...ugh...it was stunning.

It makes me wonder when I'll be able to dive into that sort of thing again. It's hard to discern how that can happen at the moment (and also to realize that I'm only 23...so there's time and who knows where I'll be a year from now). But it's something I don't want to slip.

We'll see what happens.

And speaking of future endeavors, I'm sending off my U/RTA stuff tomorrow. It's all ready to go. Monologue camp until those auditions!

On to the next show...

Whew - I'm pretty exhausted. I've been working quite a bit in the theatre, only non-acting duties:

--box office shifts
--some office work for education and development
--house managing
--cleaning
--tracking line notes for the opening of A MIDNIGHT DREARY, which is a world premiere play about Edgar Allan Poe (it opens tonight, Halloween).

Doing line notes requires me to be on book and keeping track of what the actors say. If they flub anything, I note it. If they switch words or sentences around, I make a note. I certainly make a note if they call for line. I only did this for three runs (1 tech run and 1 dress rehearsals). It's tricky. I had an electronic copy and was glued to my computer for a good two hours. Meanwhile, ghouls and nightmares appear on stage. Spectres of Poe's work is projected on the stage. The lights are great. Nearly the entire show is underscored. It's very spectacle-heavy, but I can't quite comment on the effect of the show. But it feels like I know so many of the lines already. Anyway, I'm eager to see the show without having to worry about anything else.

I'm pumped for the opening night party tonight. I don't have a costume or anything, but I'll probably get all schnazzy.

Yesterday, I had a short choreography rehearsal for The 1940's Radio Hour. There's not a ton of dancing, but some. Biff and Connie sing this great duet together. A dance break is part of it. There was the smallest, TINY, bit of a dip that we do and I completely dropped my dance partner. I don't have a single excuse other than we were just marking it. She started to dip, and I wasn't ready to support her. Needless to say, Connie slid agonizingly slow out of my arms and on to the floor. She wasn't hurt, but now she and the rest of the cast has plenty of fodder that I can never live down for the rest of my life....

Afterwards, we worked on music. I should've warmed up. That's one strange thing about this professional world. You don't have a voice teacher or someone leading the group in vocal warmups. I'm going to have to be way more diligent about getting the voice back up to speed.

We have a read-through/sing-through of the show tomorrow. It's the first script rehearsal.

I also hear there's going to be lots of Viewpoints exercises. I've read bits and pieces about Viewpoints from Anne Bogart's book, but I've never implemented it or done any of them before. I'll let you know how it goes.

(Man, I have GOT to get off book with these songs...deadlines are creeping up on me...)

So Long, Jimmy

We closed The Rainmaker on Saturday. It was a generous, full house. It was a great final performance, I think. I continued to discover new things. The entire cast and crew bought into the show from the day we started work on it. It continued to blossom throughout the run (around 70 performance, or so). I'll miss it.

I'm not going to miss the plateful of mashed potatoes though.
I don't even think I'll be able to eat them at Thanksgiving.

But I do have a month to recover.

"You Look Foolish"

That's a line from The Rainmaker. Jimmy says it to his Pop. I absolutely LOVE saying it every performance, because it's hilarious and full of irony (Jimmy's wearing a huge bass drum while he asks his Pop to clean up the whitewash on his shirt).

ANYWAY....

Here's a bit of an interview with Sally Wingert, a delightful actress in the Twin Cities (italics are my emphasis).

AVC: What do you do as an artist to make the right conditions for art?

SW: I try to be really open, I try not to shut down things that are said. I try to listen more than I talk, which is a very hard thing for me. I try to put away my fear of being foolish and looking stupid because you almost invariably experience both on your way to art. And I try to get a good night's sleep.

You can read the whole interview here.

Away We Go! (A great film, by the way)

Things are a bit stressful at the company right now. We're working on four shows (performing two, rehearsing one, and pre-production on another). I'm only involved with two of those, so I've got more of a break than others. But the stress can spread. Additionally, we're nearing the end of our summer/fall rep. This means people are snatching up tickets like hot cakes. We were sold out for The Odd Couple (tonight's show) on Monday. I think this is a record-breaker of some kind. Around 7500 people have seen this show. Last year (a five-show season) had just under 20,000 people attend our theatre. This show is going to have almost HALF of our our audience this year...well...that's how it's looking so far.

In any case, the artistic director mentioned something that his screen saver says: "we're all on the same team." We're all here to make excellent theatre. We've got different ideas of how that's best done, but the results point to the same end. I mean, we live, eat, work, play, sleep theatre. It was inspiring, actually. It was a nice little reminder.

Only five performances of The Rainmaker remain. My aim is to have the best show on the final night. I've always had that idea in the back of my mind. It's been a continual arc (with some blips, some small, some not-so-small), and I'm immensely proud of all the work that everyone has done on this show. It's grown into something quite beautiful. A week never passes when some stranger says this is the best show they've seen at the theatre. It's hard to take in just what that means--especially when these are season ticket holders and donors. They've seen them all, and keep coming back. I'm grateful The Rainmaker has had so much success. It's going to be bittersweet to finish it off (that sounds like I'm going to kill it or something).

In other news, I just finished playing the trumpet for an hour or so. I probably played too long, but I'm trying to build up endurance. The tone quality comes back relatively quickly. I haven't played trumpet in over a year. But I'm playing it in The 1940's Radio Hour right after Thanksgiving. It's a canned show, which means we've got a recording of the music to sing to every performance. There's no live music. Well, the one exception is when Biff (my role) brings out his horn for "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Today I transposed the trumpet solo in the middle. It's a bit tricky and requires a lot of lip slurring (multiple notes can be played with any one valve combination--so I have to change the note with my lips and air).

Finally, on Monday, I'm part of a staged reading that will be taped. It's called Mettle of Honor--a historical play about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. She's the only woman to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's basically all voice acting, but I'm playing a variety of characters: her husband, a couple soldiers, a Yankee Killer, and a sideshow barker (and a dog...who barks...). They require different voices (especially since we're just using stands and changing hats every once in a while to distinguish scenes). I don't consider myself to be a voice/dialect person. But I'm working on it. The sideshow barker is fun. I usually just accept that with my baby face, I'll be an ingenue type for a while. This small project allows for some stretching, and it appears to be going well.

I think tonight (I have the night off!) I'll look over some scripts and start narrowing my monologue options, maybe even start crafting some first drafts of cuttings. We'll see how that pans out. Some tv shows on Hulu are tempting.

The list piles. The more I consider what I've got on my plate, the more I realize just hoe much is going on. Many of the projects are in the near or distant future--nothing is too immediate. If I'm wise, I'll start tackling some of the bigger things now.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

I had to go to the basement of the house today. That's where all the storage is. In the storage are hats and scarves and blankets. Alas, I'm in Minnesota, so go figure.
It snowed almost all day. It's let up by now, and I hear the sun will be out tomorrow. It'll be all melted (most of it has already). It was optimal snowball snow.

Shoot, I need to find my gloves.

Plenty of leaves are green.

Flowers are still out...lilting, but they're still there.




This morning, I woke up at 5:30. This is early. This is supremely early for me. I usually roll out of bed around 9 or 10...or 11. I had to tag along for a pre-show workshop for some students. The school was an hour away, and their first period begins at 7:50...I just shudder at the prospect of having early American Lit that early in the day.

Anyway, another actor and I gave them a bit of a jumpstart on The Rainmaker, explaining the world of this drought in the late 1930s and just how much of a big deal it is for Lizzie to get married--not only for her happiness and comfort, but for economic reasons too (of course, Jimmy, my character, thinks the world's going to blow up, so he just wants everyone to be as happy as they can before the big BANG!).

The actor (who plays Starbuck) is in charge of a lot of educational elements with the theatre. Afterwards, we talked about how we can be more effective. We both agree that getting them on their feet doing some of those goofy acting warmups isn't a bad idea. That also gives a small taste of what it may be like to participate in our summer conservatory.

The students will see the show on Friday morning (which will start at 10 am, that's quite an early call...) I hope our little talk was helpful or provided a TINY bit of context that will orient the stakes.


[Above is the view from my window this morning]


I spent the rest of the day calling a lot of community education departments in the area. Each school district has an office for community ed. We're hoping to advertise our workshops for students and teachers (and the conservatory). I left a lot of phone messages and quickly got over my phone anxiety. It usually takes a couple trials to figure out how best to say what I'm trying to say. But trust me, I've made plenty of strange voice messages where I just end up fumbling over my words. Ah well.


I'm starting to feel a bit under the weather. I've been pumping lots of Emergen-C and water. I bought a bunch of soup and orange juice. I'll be getting to bed earlier than normal (and it feels like midnight already, but it's only 9 pm). Tomorrow is a long day at the restaurant.

In other news, I'm starting to dive into grad school audition work. Doing some re-research and looking over scripts and monologue possibilities. I've got some good leads that are pretty exciting.

Get Outta My Head

Due to a rather erratic schedule, I pick up serving shifts whenever I can at the restaurant. Today is the theatre company's day off, but I ended up working 7 hours as a server. It was kind of trying. A swell of customers all seem to walk in at the same time. I was serving senior citizens all day, and they had a lot of special orders and needs. For the most part, I enjoy serving. It's fast-paced and has quite a bit of variety. But the thing that is most difficult is when someone throws a kink into your groove. I start to get sloppy and end up having multiple tasks and orders to juggle at the same time. I've got to get better at completing something and then moving on to the next thing. Of course, not everyone realizes that. Then I've got a couple who wants to chat, and I'm happy to chat with them. Another random guy is asking about real estate businesses in the area.

That's the one thing I HATE about living in a small town. I'm expected to know everything about the goings on in the town. It never fails when I'm walking down the streets, working the box office, or waiting tables. I rarely know the answers and I feel embarrassed when I don't. Pretty soon, I won't be able to use the excuse that "I'm new here."

Anyway (I'm getting into an extended analogy, so bear with me).
As I was saying, if something interrupts the flow of what I'm doing at the restaurant, I can get off track and start going a little batty. I have to remember not to snap at people (not that I do, but I started to play those conversations in my head while making more decaf coffee) and to take extra breaths. My being frazzled or annoyed is not going to help the other tables that have been plenty amiable.

This gets me thinking about performing. We've recently had some audience issues. Some people put their feet on the stage. One man was just standing in the vom for ten minutes. People text. People cough a lot. People talk constantly, as if they're watching tv. It's all very irritating. This isn't to say that I'm ungrateful or wish people would never cough. Some of it can't be helped. I'm inclined to believe that many people have reasons for their actions that are completely justified in their minds (that's what's so great about acting). Sometimes, we have slipups. My phone has gone off in too many classes to count. I appreciate audiences so much. I truly do. But there have been some performances of late that have caused all the guys in the dressing room to say: "what is going on out there?!"

One particular show I had my head in about thirty different places, and it resulted in a strange performance that I could not stop thinking about while I was performing.

I realize that I'm a very "heady" actor. I approach things too intellectually sometimes. I become aware that I'm not quite "there" in the middle of a performance, and I start to freeze up. I cannot expect that it's impossible to alleviate those feelings and thoughts. What I do hope is that I can quickly transfer to what's at stake on stage. I give myself a mental slap in the face, but that doesn't seem to work all the time. This doesn't happen with great frequency. I expect it is bound to happen every now and again, especially after doing 50+ performances of something. Still, it's worrisome. I hope I can whisk away the whole, "you're not living as your character right now, so just do it." Because it's not that easy to convince yourself that.

In the morning, I can tell myself: "you should be up and eating breakfast so you won't be late for work." But until I actually roll out of bed, inaction is what's happening--and that's not very eventful.

A Four-Day Breakdown

Monday
Had a kinda rough day. There was just a lot of stuff going on: a restaurant shift, long music rehearsal, a set changeover, and then an understudy performance.

Tuesday
Great day off. Got third season of 30 Rock, bought some books at Savers, saw Inglorious Basterds. That movie was insane. I loved it, but it was intense. So much dramatic irony. Every scene was laced with subtext and nuance (and the occasional burst of Tarantino violence and all-around wackiness).

Wednesday
Opened up the box office at the theatre and spent a long time taking messages and replying to them. Lots of numbers, addresses, dates to keep track of. I manage to get through all the phone messages, but hardly touched the e-mail reservations. Ah well, you can only do so much in two hours.

After that, I went up to the offices and did some Twittering for the company. I also looked up a lot of National Foundations for potential grants. There's a lot to slog through. I've got a long list to sort. I should be finished by tomorrow.

Went on a bike ride, watched a bit of 30 Rock, saw Glee (which is a show that is...well, maybe that's another blog post), and closed out the night with Top Chef.

Thursday
I've got a 10 AM MATINEE for The Odd Couple (final understudy assignment, unless anything freaky happens with the actors playing Speed and Roy). It's a student matinee and it's early.

Later, we've got a company-wide theatre clean, company class, changeover, and The Rainmaker - it's a full day, so I should get to bed earlier than usual.

Peace!

Some preliminary search

I'm starting to dig through scripts and find monologues. I've got some leads, but there's very little that is catching my attention.

This is all in lieu of being ready for auditions. I want a strong collection of monologues, and I feel ill-prepared for that. Don't even talk to me about songs.

I don't have anything specific lined up for the future. My apprenticeship is over in March, but there are other possibilities in the works for stuff beyond March. I won't delve into that because it's all completely unofficial.

I received a notice for an audition next week that I could maybe try to attend. It's doubtful, especially since it's for an operetta rep. I'm not saying I can't do it, but I'd have to find an accompanist and really work up some songs. It would be

This has all caught me off guard. Right now, at this moment, I don't have anything to worry about because I'll be working on at least two more shows and another project during this apprenticeship. It's difficult to think about what's next.

Still, I've been thinking seriously about MFA programs, and I'm nearly certain I'm going to attend the U/RTA auditions in Chicago next year. That's sooner than you'd think. I mean, we're halfway through September already. WOOSH! I get little hints of how much I would appreciate that kind of education. We have weekly company classes, and I wish I was more diligent about preparing for them. Anyway, we get into little conversations or exercises that make me think and respond and adjust. I love it.

I like to think I'm a good adjuster, and that I can take criticism and notes well. It happened today: we were doing a neutral movement exercise where we start walking as neutrally as possible. When the instructor claps his hands, we stopped. Snap - we squat. Snap - we sit. Snap - we lie down. Snap - start building up. You have to do it as quickly and fluidly as possible. I was getting hung up about arm/hand placement for the squat. The instructor told me to observe another actor and I noticed her hands were hanging off her thighs. My hands were resting on my thighs. He allowed me to figure it out myself, which was striking to me. The second time we did it, I did the same old habit but moved them immediately. He said, "Nice adjustment, Tim." It was great to hear that. And I was able to snap in and out pretty quickly from then on with the correct placement. The exercise was about being able to start in these neutral positions and then build and lean off them when diving into characters.

What I was also gaining was an intense drive to love the learning process. According to Tom Rath's STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0, one of my top five strengths is Learner. The Learner enjoys learning (duh). There's a process of learning that is just as important and invigorating as having that information (which seems to be a trait of Input, my top strength). During the class today, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I enjoy gathering this information and implementing it. There's a minor bit of struggle, but it's all helping and allowing for growth and development.

It's getting late, and I've got a matinee tomorrow, but I may have to share more about Strengthsfinder. It's really interesting, especially when applied to a resident company like the one I work with. We're able to understand each other with a common language.

1940s Preview

Don't mind me. I'm fiddling around with the look of this.

In the meantime...

Over the Back Fence - September 6, 2009

Commonweal Theatre - Over the Back Fence

SNEAK PEEK!

The whole episode is fun, if you have the time.

At 51:50, I'm singing in a duet from THE 1940'S RADIO HOUR with the actress playing Connie. It's pretty fun (and a live recording, so you know).

MN Shorts Play Festival

Yesterday I put up posters all around town for the theatre. I’ve still got more to go, but I was able to get a large chunk of them done. It was hot. It didn’t make sense to me since it seems we’re in full autumn swing mode. Ah well.

I attended a development team meeting. It looks like I’ll be visiting some classes this fall to explain more about our company and discuss the themes and elements of THE RAINMAKER. That could be a lot of fun, I think. I’m also going to be learning more about the world of grants and foundations. It all sounds pretty fascinating to me.

After the meeting, I got my things together, pulled a suit and some shirts out for a costume, and hopped in the car with the writer/director of the ten-minute play and his wife, who was my scene partner for NOTHING HAPPENED. We traveled to Mankato, MN for this short play festival.

The festival was in an old school that has been converted to a community center. We had a makeshift greenroom, which was just a section of a hallway that was curtained off. It wasn’t a huge deal; we were only there for five hours tops.
The strange thing about this event is that none of us had any idea of what to expect. It seemed like it was a large blend of professional/academic/community theatre. I was really nervous for some reason. My scene partner and I decided was that it seemed just like an audition. You’ve got all these actors in a rather small space, waiting to go on stage for ten minutes. Some people are very friendly to strangers. Others know each other. I didn’t know anyone.

Ah well. I must say that we did a pretty fine job. We performed the play twice. We were second on, so we were able to catch most of the other shows in the audience. Boy was that auditorium hot. And there was a lot of variety in the plays. One was about a woman with a puppy attempting to attract men. Another play was written and performed by a sophomore in college and it was all about crying and these different stages of relationships and age. Another play was about this washed out rock band who was getting past middle age and debating the merits of tour and going on for a fifth encore.

The writer of our play (and fellow company member) did say that whenever there was laughter from other plays, it was only pockets of people who were friends of the people on stage. In our case, no one knew us. So when we got laughs, it was from the entire house. That was cool to hear.

I guess I didn’t even describe what the play I was doing is about.

I played Eric, who is sitting in a nice restaurant on New Year’s Eve. He’s about to propose to his girlfriend, Stephanie, but he’s got a lot of doubts. He’s had a habit of calling upon his former fiancé, Jennifer, just to hash out his problems. So Jennifer arrives (it’s all in his mind, so he uses his cellphone to talk to her, so as not to appear crazy. But since this is theatre, an actual actress appears and sits at the table—it’s pretty clever, actually. The two exchange pleasantries and get into a bit of an argument. Things get heated, and Eric denies that he’s trying to compare Jennifer to Stephanie. He also (finally) admits that he desperately wants to be “different from the man you couldn’t marry.”

What’s so interesting is how, in ten minutes, you go through a beginning, middle, and end. This play has a LOT going on, and I think we pulled it off with some success (not that this was a competition or anything). That’s hard to do in ten minutes.

I wonder if I’ve got a ten minute play or two I could write out. Who knows!
I’m glad I had the chance to do this. It was a great side project and nice change of pace from doing the same show for the past three months (not that I’m getting tired of THE RAINMAKER).

Future Projects

• I'm performing in a ten-minute play this week: NOTHING HAPPENED. It will be presented at the MN Shorts Play Festival in Mankato on Friday (7 and 9 p.m.)
  

• I also found out that I'll be part of a staged reading film project for the Mayo Clinic.

• Also, stay tuned for a preview of 1940s Radio Hour, which was taped yesterday for a live radio broadcast. I sang a fun duet, and I'm excited to start work on the next show.

• Finally, my fellow apprentices and I are working on conceptual work for our show. We're in charge of every element of the production: marketing, design, performance, etc. The show will go up in March, but there are many steps involved. I'll be sure to keep updates on the blog, but we may be setting up our own special project blog to keep people updated with out progress, challenges, and discoveries.

More details to follow.

Happy Labor Day!

Reminders...

We're in transition phase for Rainmaker. The original actor playing Starbuck watched the show this afternoon. He came back after the show and said: "My friends are awesome. I'm so thrilled to have watched that show. You have no idea how great this show is." Okay, I may be paraphrasing a TINY bit, but he was gushing.

That was humbling.

We're halfway through the run, and it's been going very well. It's kind of hard to keep that all in perspective.

This morning, I was chatting with a couple while working the box office. They bopped in to ask a question and had seen both THE RAINMAKER and THE ODD COUPLE. She noticed me from the show and smiled: "You're doing what you love. That's great."

I am. What's surprising is that I kind of needed that reminder.

There's things I could wish to be better. I wish I had more money right now. Blah Blah Blah. But when it's all said and done, I'm doing what I want to do. What a blessing!

Adjustments and Notes

I made it through two shows, understudying Speed in THE ODD COUPLE. The first time (Saturday night) was for a sold-out house. We had over 210 people, which was a record (to have this many people come to a single night for a five-month run in a town of 788 people is pretty remarkable). The theatre is a small thrust space and gets around 100 or so, depending on the show and the night, of course.

I ended up slipping on some water that spilled on the stage. It received some laughs--all due to the fact that all of the characters are nearly hysterical. The poker players are all trying to help Felix who claims to have taken a whole bottle of pills. We're all trying to cure him, which includes spinning him around and rubbing his wrists to keep his circulation going. Prior to that, Oscar splashes a glass of water on Felix's face, and it gets all over the stage--usually on the actor playing Felix and the rug. Well, it went a little too far downstage. And I slipped. People laughed. I wasn't injured or hurt in any way, thank goodness.

The next day, a woman stopped me and wanted to know if I had meant to trip on purpose. If only....

-----------------------

ON THE RAINMAKER FRONT
We've reached the halfway point of the run. The artistic director observed a number of performances and sat us down before our matinee on Saturday to give some notes. For whatever reason, I was apprehensive about the whole thing. But I had to keep telling myself that if there were major issues with anything I was doing, I'd get some kind of note immediately. By the time the meeting began, my paranoia was put at ease.

I've always felt a bit "eh" about the first scene of the show, but I could never pinpoint why. It took an outside eye to say that we've been missing the whole point of the play (which sounds more harsh than it was, honestly).

The brothers and father of Lizzie need to hear Lizzie's news from when she visited Three Point. We attempted to set her up with a cousin so that she could get married. So when she comes downstairs for breakfast, we have to know whether or not she's going to get married--if not, we have to resort to an agreed-upon plan B (inviting the deputy sheriff for dinner). Everything else that happens in the scene (and there's a lot of other conversations) is cover for the fact that we're really anxious for Lizzie. Needless to say, the first scene plays much better now and has real urgency.

I got some notes about volume at the beginning, which really befuddled me. This is when I wish I had more technical vocabulary about the voice. I have a feeling that the accent I use (which is this western/southern twang, I don't know the official dialect) may not be sitting in the right places so that I'm not quite on voice. What's odd is that I feel like I'm shouting and overpowering anyone else who's on stage--especially the more reserved qualities of H.C. and Noah. Jimmy (my character) bursts on stage with a bang. I sometimes worry that things are TOO exuberant or loud, but that may not be the case at all. The artistic director saw the show again last night and said a general "good work" to us. I'll have to ask him if volume was an issue or not.

Other notes were more about specific moments that just needed to be tightened. But a caveat was that speed for speed's sake is no good. So it's a tricky balance. Intent and meaning always have to be at the foreground--the speed of a scene or act or play will fall into place after intentions are established.

All of the reminders were great. It wasn't as if these notes were revolutionary (although the opening scene bit was significant), but it was good to hear from an "outsider" in a sense.

We've done one show with a new Starbuck. He'll be a permanent change in a couple weeks and stay with us for the rest of the run. The original Starbuck has to return to the Cities for work and such. This is a different situation than understudying. It's my understanding that an understudy must do everything as close as he/she can for the originally cast actor. But in this case, we've got an arrangement for a whole new actor to do, essentially, what he would do with a role. Does that make sense? In this role shift, the new actor has much more time and space to play with since he is owning the role in a way that an understudy wouldn't. Apologies if this is confusing. I also realize that no actor can completely mimic another actor's performance--understudy or not.

Needless to say, this run of the Rainmaker has been one of constant adjustments on small and large scales. It's rewarding, gratifying work.

"great theatre great show...."

The theatre I work at has chalkboards in their bathrooms. It's so cool. In fact, the whole lobby is quite a piece of art. I'll have to post other pictures in the future.

Anyway, I walked in one evening after a show and found this on the board:


That was fun. I may start a series of board photos. Some people doodle. Others say: "__________ was here." I wonder what the women's room has for messages and doodles. I'm tempted to put up "Jimmy Loves Snookie" with a heart around it in the guy's stall one of these days. You'll just have to see The Rainmaker (or read it, I guess) to know what that's all about.



IN OTHER NEWS
I'm understudying on Saturday. That's also my birthday. Here's the schedule:

10 am: Put-in rehearsal for actor replacing Starbuck in The Rainmaker
12 pm: Mid-run check-in (the Artistic Director watched the show last Friday and will sit down with the cast to make sure we're still hitting the points that need to bit hit and so forth)
12:45 pm: fight call
1:28 pm: places
1:30 pm: The Rainmaker
4 pm: Changeover for The Odd Couple (switching one set with another)
6:45 pm: The Odd Couple call
7:28 pm: places
9:45 pm: sigh of relief
then: birthday time

The Weather Outside's Delightful

The pink eye is all gone. Well, I've got a couple days left of eye drops. Thank goodness it wasn't anything serious. I'll probably do one more show without contacts, but it's not something I'd like to do. We'll see how I feel on Monday.

For whatever reason, last night's (Friday) show was extra long. We added about 2 minutes, which is pretty significant. But then we got a nice pep talk from the stage manager and managed to have one of the fastest shows ever for Saturday afternoon's matinee (and the house was one of the lowest attended ever, so it's odd that we zipped through). That, my friends, is the malleability of theatre.

In other news, it's beautiful outside. I hope I can get on the bike and enjoy the weather. It feels like mid-September. I love the fall. It's my favorite season. But I wouldn't mind a nice humid heat wave before the leaves start changing colors. That may be wishful thinking. It's been an extremely mild summer.

I received a phone message from a friend that said next year's season posters/brochures from school are out. There's a claim that I'm pictured on it four times, which is ridiculous. I wasn't even in four shows last year. Typically, different shows from the previous season are displayed.

I'd write more, but I've got an early serving shift at a restaurant tomorrow. I've been working a lot of hours there, which means less time to finesse lines (for both a ten-minute play and an understudy role in "The Odd Couple"--which I'm going in on Saturday). So this week is going to be a bit stressful.

Have a good one.

Conjunctivitis...

I wrote a medium-sized entry, and then it got deleted.

Here's the gist:

1. I've got pink eye or something.
2. I can't wear contacts for the next week. This means performing with fuzzy vision.
3. I made some new realizations/discoveries about my character last night and started to play with them. I think it works.

Sorry to spare you all the glorious details and wry wit. But I'm not in the mood to rewrite it all over again.

Picture Time!

Here are some photos that give a glimpse of what I've been doing since graduating in May (egad, summer's winding down).



This is one of several tortoises that live in a backyard of a home near the theatre. I see these guys on a daily basis. This guy, in particular, responds like a dog and will waddle up to the fence, crane his neck, I think he just wants someone to pet him or something.




Downtown


Snapshot of dressing room. I've got items for both THE RAINMAKER and THE ODD COUPLE sitting here. I took this when I was understudying in THE ODD COUPLE. One day I did both shows.




After every performance, this little report is posted on the callboard. The night of this show, there was some strange interactions between myself and Starbuck. I won't go into details, because it's rather technical and won't make much sense. But it required us to do a tad bit o' ad libbing so we could get back into the scipt. It only affected four lines, but you can imagine the stage manager freaking out. Thus, the "WHAT HAPPENED?" note.



Here's a glimpse of the cast and the set for THE RAINMAKER. I'm having a blast.

Understudying and Food Acting

Understudying is something else. Acting on stage with an understudy is a whole other ballgame. I’ve experienced both in less than a month. I went on for an actor in The Odd Couple about a month ago. I survived. By the second performance, I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of things. The first performance was insanely nerve-wracking. But I had four, sometimes five other actors helping me out. There was only one moment of panic. I had the cue and KNEW it was my turn to speak, but I couldn’t figure out what the heck the line was. I panicked (this feels like ten minutes), and then remembered the gist of the line. That was that! The other actor was able to understand and kept the scene flowing along nicely. Crisis averted.

When stuff like that happens, you can’t run off stage. There’s no where to hide. You just maintain an understanding of trust—that’s especially heightened when the understudies are around.

Then the tables turned and the actor playing H.C. was on vacation (which is allowed at this company because our runs are very long and the actors also have administrative duties on top of the artistic assignments). So we had a put-in rehearsal and then two performances with a new “Pop.” The actor does different things and the ensemble had to be more malleable with blocking and cues. Nothing major happened. There were some dropped lines here and there, but I think we all carried the story along quite well.

Of course other strange things still happen. The first scene centers around H.C. and his grown men having some eggs for breakfast. My character devours a plate of scrambled eggs (“I guess five or six’ll do,” says Jim). They’re not actually eggs—just dyed mashed potatoes (cold mashed potatoes). The latest night they were particularly cold and crumbly, more like eggs actually. At times, I spit out lines with bits of food in my mouth. I don’t have a set schedule of when I take bites and how large the portions are. I probably take more than I should, but it’s a lot of fun to act with food. It heightens the believability for me and makes every scene that much more spontaneous.

Anyway, I became a little overzealous and bits of mashed potato went flying over to the actor playing Noah. He saw it and so did half the audience. We’re not talking projectile vomit kind of stuff, but little morsels of yellow mashed potatoes did manage to catapult across the table. It was pretty obvious.

No matter the situation—understudies or not—things remain interesting and fresh. I’m delving into an interesting period of acting with the same show for an extended time. I believe I’ve done over 20 performances of one show. Prior to this, the most performances of any one show had been around 12. There’s no rut forming (granted, this isn’t a Broadway type run where I’m doing 8 shows a week) and it’s very energizing.

I just wonder what will change once the run treks along. I’ll be living with this show until the end of October. We’ve still got a ways to go.

Conservatory Comes to a Close...

I just spent the past two weeks helping out some high school kids learn about the wonders of theatre with an intensive in the following areas: voice and movement, improv, acting, Shakespeare, stage combat, play analysis, and other little seminars on a slew of other things.

It was intense and exhausting for them and for the teachers. But I’m only speaking for myself. It was a lesson in juggling responsibilities: marketing work (which has time-sensitive deadlines), acting, understudying, and a day trip getaway to see some family. Those weeks with the conservatory were demanding and the first time when I felt a bit bogged down like I was in college.

I also learned more about teaching. When I started college, I got to thinking about teaching (specifically English) and that slowly fizzled out when I entered education courses and became more involved in theatre productions at school. There was a shift from “I can never ‘make it’ in theatre” to “it’s gonna take a lot of work, but I want theatre to be a part of the rest of my life.” This doesn’t mean that I have to make it to NYC or Hollywood (and I’ve got not a shred of film experience yet).

Teaching has been lingering in the back of my head, and this conservatory was the first time that I was able to try it on for size. I wasn’t in charge of any one class, but I was able to offer suggestions and input—particularly in the acting and Shakespeare classes. I did lead discussion of one period of Shakespeare for a day. We poured over dictionaries and understood more clearly what Hermia and Demetrius were talking about in the whole “treat me as you treat your spaniel” scene (which is absolutely hilarious). I had a blast discovering the text with them.

I haven’t sworn off teaching. One of the reasons I’m considering auditioning for M.F.A. programs is so that I could teach at some university and do other courses and things in addition to acting. Teaching reinforces what the teacher already knows. I become just as much of a student as the pupils are. It requires improv skills too.

The final presentation was tonight and it went very well. There were monologues, songs, and scenes from The Glass Menagerie, Picnic, and Fools (Neil Simon). Families were around and laughed and clapped. After the reception, most of the students gathered in the rehearsal/events room for a final time and we played “Bippity-Bippity-Bop” and “Big Booty.” Who knew that these mild mannered kids would burst out of their shells to initiate those games in front of their parents? They embraced this small community that was created for them and ran with it. That’s pretty gratifying. Who knows what they’ll do with theatre in the future. Many of them are just about to enter high school. I hope this conservatory gave them a boost in confidence. They know dozens of games that can be played in a many different situations.

No matter–I wish them all well, wherever they go.

Starting to Settle In

Hey all,

I’ve been done with college for two months already. It hasn’t quite sunk in. I thought this may be a good way to share with friends and family (and perhaps strangers, which is likely) about what I’m doing.

Here are the facts:

I live in a town that has fewer than 800 people.

• I am serving as an acting apprentice for ten months with the theatre company (which is in its 21st season).
• This means acting in shows (and understudying, which has happened already).
• I’m spending three months in a different administrative area. Right now I’m working with the Marketing team.
• Next I’ll do Development.
• Then I’ll end with Production.
• The artists at this theatre are some of the most tireless, dedicated people I have met. It’s incredibly encouraging and inspiring (and exhausting).
• I’ve not done a lot of theatre outside of school. This is the longest run of a show (four months) playing Jim Curry in N. Richard Nash’s THE RAINMAKER.
• This script is phenomenal.
• I have fight call before every performance. It’s now known as: “It’s 6:45, let’s punch Tim.” (said in the most casual matter-of-fact voice of the stage manager)
• In addition to the shows, the theatre has a live, one-hour radio show on Sunday nights in the summer. I’ve sung and done radio theatre. You can check out the shows here. It’s pretty fun.
• I also wait tables at a nearby cafe. It’s kind of fun (I’ve never done it before) and allows for a bit of extra cash.
• I just got a new bike and am slowly exploring the surrounding trails.
• I’ve been writing a bit more poetry lately. Be on the lookout for some lines in the future–perhaps.