Still Remaining Thankful

The other day my glasses of five or six years or maybe longer, however long I've had this particular frame and prescription... broke. In two, right at the bridge piece that connects the two lenses over my nose. It's kind of ironic, because the frame was from Nike and it's the kind that is designed to be all bendy and not break. But well, these glasses were very old, and I've worn them a lot and this too must pass.

I haven't had a chance to get to an optometrist shop to order a new pair, and I need a prescription anyway. When I'm out of my apartment I can wear my contacts, but I'm definitely not the kind of person who can wear them everyday all day. So for when I'm at home, like right now, I've resorted to holding them together with a somewhat copious amount of electrical tape. I had to work at engineering a solution, initially I tried to take the classic approach and tape the bridge pieces together but they were so tiny that they wouldn't stay stuck to the tape. So now I have a long piece going over the tops of the lenses and then another piece over the bridge... it's pretty ugly, and it works except that the lenses aren't being held in exactly the same position so my vision is a little out of focus.

This got me thinking though how much I take my eye sight for granted. Without my glasses, I am practically non functional, I'm seriously like a mole. I guess if I was lost on a tropical island, and my glasses fell into a volcano, I could survive by groping around and squinting really hard, or I could be eaten by a large jungle cat.

Seriously though, it got me thinking how much I take this material thing, my glasses, for granted and how I always have taken them for granted. Anytime I've worn out a prescription or a pair of glasses, there was a new one! Thanks living in a wealthy western country and having health insurance! But what if I didn't have money, or health insurance, or live in a wealthy western nation? Say I was able to afford one pair of glasses. If those glasses were broken, I would be completely fucked. Or I would have to go to extreme lengths to hold them together, just so I could hold onto that basic human sensory experience of eye sight and not go around completely blind.

This is a fairly basic observation. Obviously we take things like running water, heated shelter, electricity, high speed internet for granted multiple times a day everyday. But for me, I'd never considered my eye sight. And having this happen to my glasses, I had to think about what lengths I could go to preserve it were it not something I knew would be available. Pretty big lengths, that's what. So yeah. End of blog post.

Playing the Blues For You

Earlier this evening Adia and I attended a performance of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Huntington, and wow...

But first, a little personal history. I think the first big, broadway level production I ever saw was Gem of the Ocean when I was in my sophomore year of high school, at the Huntington. It was the most elaborate set I'd ever seen in person. It was a gigantic, beautiful replica of the front entryway of the Pittsburg Hill district home of one of August Wilsons' central characters to his cycle, Aunt Ester. She was played by a really big television actress, Phylicia Rashad, the Mom from Cosby show. I remember it being a curious experience, a first for me as I hadn't seen all that much theatre maybe half a dozen productions. But it didn't leave any huge impact, at the time.

Going back to Huntington Ave though to see this play brought back all the memories for me of that place from childhood, seeing BSO concerts with a group from my school when I was in grade school, going into the BU theatre for the first time to see Gem of the Ocean, coming back with my rebel intellectual geeky friends because the Symphony Market on the corner didn't ID me when I tried to buy cigarettes. After smoking some of the cigarettes, first Winstons than American Spirits than another time Lucky Strikes, seeing free concerts at Jordan Hall of all kinds of different classical music.

It's a location that I identify with the friendships from that time, and also from seeing those big plays at the Huntington with my theatre class mates, two a year. In my sophomore year Gem of the Ocean and The Rivals, in my senior year The Cherry Orchard and Radio Golf (my other exposure to August Wilson).

I figured I should take tonight, my first opportunity in quite a while to see some theatre, which if you've read my earlier blogs you know is something I've been trying to do, to see something that wouldn't let me down. I'd heard generally good things about the production, and I knew Will Lebow and Tommy Derrah would be in it, two of my teacher's from Harvard Extension. I remembered vaguely from reading about August Wilson on Wikipedia it had something to do with a black recording artist in the 20s or 30s and the conflict surrounding the attempt to cut a record.

Going to buy tickets, I saw these were my options... orchestra or mezzanine for, what, ohhh like $100? How about the orchestra... oh, I can get a "35 and Below" ticket for $25, I'll take two of those. So I put us as close and as center to the stage as I could, Row G 109 and 110. I flipped through the program, taking in the bios of the various actors, the program notes on August Wilson and the music scene of Chicago in the 20s. Chicago is one of the great cities for the blues. Much of what would later become rock and roll in the musical landscape of the 20th century started with Chicago blues. A bunch of great blues artists. In my own musical life, I've always felt an affinity to the blues' passion and elegant simplicity.

Did I really just type that? I like to pretend I'm a blues guitar player, OK? On some level, this means wishing I could sound like a black person in my music, and I'm trying to admit that without being embarrassed by it because there is a long and important tradition of Caucasian artists trying to imagine and on some level emulate the perceived "suffering" and life experience of African Americans from which the blues mythically originated.

Without delving too much further down that rabbit hole, I sympathized and identified with the musicians of the play. I liked hanging out with them. I felt the energy between them, powered by some really beautiful acting.

Oh, the acting, that's what it's all about. And the music. But the acting was superb. After seeing the show and processing it for a while, I though I'd peek at some of the reviews I'd been avoiding to get my own critical juices flowing to write this blog post. As I started recalling the experience of the play, getting about halfway through the Broadway World Boston review I was overwhelmed by my recollection. Immediately, I went to the Huntington website and reserved the most primo seat I could find, the front row of the mezzanine. $100 into the Huntington's pockets, well spent to get a closer look at the performances in this show. At which time, I'll really unpack my reactions.

In the meantime, if you can, go to this show. And enjoy some blues, one of my favorite tunes by one of my favorite artists Killing Floor as done by Albert King (with backing from the Stax records house band!)

How do you know what's right?

Here's a question worth pondering, how do you decide what are the "right" auditions and how do you know when to take on the "right" project? With auditions, I think it's easier. I don't really think there is such a thing as a "bad" audition. You might have an audition where you don't perform to the best of your abilities, or feel "good" coming out of it. You might encounter someone who is auditioning for someone that doesn't know what their doing. I don't know, lot's of other things. But in general every audition is a chance to get better at auditioning and to learn something new. Something which did or didn't work, maybe. Or just to get more comfortable with the process of auditioning through repetition.

If you are starting out, or at a certain level, then you should be auditioning as much as possible for whatever you can find, within reason. Hey, seriously, check out the talent page of Craigslist every once in a while. Stay away from anything with the word "adult" in it, and generally use your judgement. But I've found some really solid gigs and opportunities through Craigslist, no joke. If you don't know these things, New England Theatre 411 is good, so is New England Film and if you aren't a member of Stagesource... what are you doing? Go and join Stagesource. Yeah yeah yeah it costs money, but it's cheaper than a lot of other similar websites (have you seen how much a subscription to Backstage costs? If you live in New York or LA, you need one, and they are expensive).

Let me elaborate on my musing. I'm no longer starting out, and I'm not at the level I was referring to that I feel the need to audition for anything and everything. I feel like I've evolved to the point where I can pick and choose a little more. This doesn't mean that if something comes up on Stagesource or whatever that I might be a good fit for, I don't respond and mark my calendar. But also in the month of March, I've been busy performing one show and rehearsing another. So I haven't been able to get to as many auditions as I would like. Also, since I'm already doing these shows, that limits what stuff I can do just by nature of conflicting rehearsal and performance schedules.

And also, previously in my career, I would do shows for the sake of doing them. To an extent this is still true, because working on stuff keeps me creatively satisfied. But I also have an awareness that I only really should be doing things that advance me in some way, either in terms of career advancement, like if a prominent theatre were to cast me or the knowledge that working with a group or certain persons would make for advantageous connections or if I know that artistically the role would be challenging. For example, Uncle Vanya was the latter, I knew that it wouldn't directly affect my acting like a larger speaking role might have but that it could turn out to be a big deal and that top notch people would be involved. Swimming in the Shallows was the opposite. I didn't really know anyone involved going in, or expect it would substantially increase my visibility to the theatre community but that it would be a challenging satisfying role.

So far, all the decisions of this nature have served me well, one way or another. Because I feel like I'm in a pretty good place, with a good ways to go of course, in terms of my artistry and my career. I guess this got started because recently an audition came up which intellectually I knew could be worthwhile, but that in my gut I was kind of like "meh, I'm not sure". Most of those successful choices I've made following my gut. For example, my gut told me a recent audition wouldn't be worth it. If I'd gotten this particular gig, it would be rehearsing on Tuesdays in April. Instead, I've signed up for On Camera Auditioning with Carolyn Pickman which I think will be much more worthwhile both artistically and from a career perspective which will be meeting... you guessed it, Tuesdays in April.

As to that other audition I was on the fence about, I think I'm going to do it and see what happens. If I get offered a role I'm not crazy about, hey I can always turn it down. That is to say, if someone asks me "hey do you want to play another spear carrier?" I can just say no. It's that simple! We can have self respect as artists! I know, crazy talk. But it's true.

Self Actualization

Today before this evening's performance of Swimming in the Shallows I visited the Peabody Essex Museum with my girlfriend, who's never been to Salem and erroneously thought that the witch trial hangings happened there (they actually occurred at modern day Davenport), for the first time since I was a kid. Among the exhibits, which included a retrospective on the modernist photographer Jerry Uelsmann, which if you are into photography you should check out and also an exhibit called Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art. Of that exhibition, the piece I found most evocative was this one by an artist named Rick Barlow, "From Nothing Coyote Creates Himself":

It's hard to translate over the internet, but it's a very striking piece in person, the curvature of the wood and the disjointed shape of the hand give the piece an expressionistic, hallucinatory quality. Even the title I find evocative. Doing some research about the piece, I found a quote where the artist referred to using art as a means to work through his experiences in Vietnam. To quote Rick Barlow (who's primary mediums are two dimensional) "I drew myself sane".

That really hit me, and if you see this work of art in person maybe you'd understand why. I think art is a true and powerful path to finding or as the case may be rediscovering the self after a traumatic experience. It's not something I like to go into, but as a 17 year old one of my best friends passed away from an accidental heroin overdose, and poetry and music got me through that time. Surprisingly, theatre less so, but it wasn't a very fruitful time in that aspect of my creative life for a variety of reasons, so I don't know. Also though, a teacher I had in high school said to me "if you want to go into acting, it can't be your therapy" and I think he's right. Take the example of Sarah Kane. Beautiful works, did not end well.

Is this exclusive to theatre though? I guess Sylvia Plath is the other famous example. Other times it must have worked out though, right? That someone funneled their inner pain or whatever into a work of art and it was successful and then they were happy. I don't know though. I still don't believe it's a viable model for acting or theatre. It's too vulnerable, too easy to drive yourself crazy and the people you're working with as well.

And then again... hey, that sculpture. The exhibit in question was really striking. I felt a lot of despair in a lot of the pieces. Then again, I spoke to my Mom about it, who taught at D-Q University when I was real little and has spent time with native peoples identified with another piece, a ceremonial drum associated with the ghost dance movement of the early 19th century (which would culminate in the massacre at wounded knee). In it, she found a figure of light and hope:

Thinking back on my interactions with the native people I worked with during Crooked Arrows, they didn't seem despairing or burdened by history. But of course we were on a movie set. So I don't know. I think it's an under valued story of our history as a nation and a people how it came to be that caucasians dominated this continent. Without presuming to speak for native peoples, there is a lot most Americans don't understand or appreciate. Native cultures had an appreciation for natural beauty and the Earth, but they weren't peace loving hippies, they could be very warlike and violent just like in Europe. In contemporary Native American spirituality, there is a lot of integration with christianity. And living on a reservation can be pretty awful, many of them are economically destitute, drugs, alcoholism and domestic violence are prominent in many areas. In many other ways to numerous to list, it culminates in a great injustice, and I felt the weight of that in this exhibit. But less so in the people I met on set, so hopefully things are changing for the better. And maybe Crooked Arrows, this silly Bad News Bears-esque sports movie I found myself a part of, will contribute to that. Time will tell.

Small Epiphanies

Reading my Mamet Three Sisters on my apartment buildings lovely, shady patio, I put something together. As you might have read previously, I've been trying to put the play into my own perspective as an actor and someone who's just really into Chekhov. So for example, I've been trying to answer the question of Tuzenbach's germanicness (his name in the play is understood to be uber german) from both the perspective of an actor, and a wannabe dramaturg. One theory I'd been toying with dramaturgically, maybe Chekhov is intentionally creating an echo to Karl Marx through Tuzenbach's proto socialist diatribes and his german last name. I brought this up in rehearsal, and my director admitted she hadn't thought of it that way, and over the course of the conversation I ultimately dismissed it for myself. Then I was looking at the text, and Tuzenbach's line where he says that although he has a German last name, and his optimism could be ascribed as a German trait, his father was Russian Orthodox and not fluent and German and Tuzenbach was the same way. Then I thought, "oh yeah cause duh, he's descended from the Russian nobility, and as was the case with Tsar Nicholas II, his family married into the German royal line" because that's what they did back then in the European aristocracy. So that answers half of that question! I've now moved on to Tuzenbach's relationship to his Germanicness, and in particular that theme of optimism in his character and how it relates to the play's philosophical ideas. The other night at rehearsal, we looked at a moment where Vershinin, who provides a counter point to Tuzenbach's ideas and character, expresses his belief that over time the sister's influence will be felt and their enlightened presence and way of life will reverberate across future generations, until it is the dominant way of thought and life becomes beautiful. In the process, he kind of one up's Tuzenbach who tries to frame a rejoinder and doesn't really succeed. In the next act, Tuzenbach's philosophy has turned cynicism and we pondered the question, could this be because of Vershinin's influence causing him to attempt a new point of view to regain his status as resident philosopher? Maybe, but now I think it's just life wearing him down. Over the play he continues to realize that life isn't as sunny as he believes it to be in Act 1 as he says to Irina as he confesses his love to her. I wonder if part of his philosphizing, or as Solyony calls it his sophistry, is partly an attempt to woo her with his ideas. He persists in this throughout the play, pursuing her and a life which is more meaningful then his meandering life as an officer in the Russian army. In the fourth act, he's close to realizing it, Irina has finally agreed to marry him, having few other viable options and they are about to go off together to live a romantic life working. But in the end, he realizes she doesn't love him and never will, and instead chooses to go off and die rather then let his optimism wither way. Or has it already left him, now that he's realized his dreams will never truly come true, and death is a better option?

Did I mention how heavy duty this play is? It's pretty serious stuff. But it's really funny too! I mean, that's what I've always loved about Chekhov, how there is so much humor ingrained in his sometimes sad or downright tragic situations and that is especially true in David Mamet's adaptation.

And now I'm off to do Swimming in the Shallows, it's warm and spring like outside, and to echo Tuzenbach's earlier sentiments, life is good.

What NOT to say

Something I've been coming up against in the process of this blog has been the treatment of other people with respect to what I write. When we talk about our experiences, it's easy to generalize and say something like "when we do this, we feel this way" and by generalizing avoid part of the responsibility inherit in owning a statement and framing it from the first person, "I". In fact, I intentionally did so in that previous statement (in case you didn't notice) in order to prove that point. Think about the difference, "when we talk about our experiences" vs "when I talk about my experiences". At any given moment, I can only really truthfully speak of and from myself. And acting is all about speaking the truth.

Do you see what I did there? I really came face to face with this lesson from working with Jennie Israel first on Measure for Measure and then when I took her and Paula Plum's Shakespeare Workout (it's a good class, albeit expensive, but worth checking out).

Writing this blog has been an exercise in that principal. And also, learning from mistakes I made when I had a Livejournal back in high school. Back when I was 16 or 17 I related an anecdote online of someone I knew saying something nasty about someone else I knew, using the latter person's full name. So basically, I wrote "Person A called Person B (referred to by their full name) ugly, nasty and homophobic". This was years and years ago, I hadn't thought of the post or the incident involved in as much time, when Person B sent me a Facebook message. They were applying for a job, and part of that application involved an internet back ground search and when their name was googled, my post came up and could I please delete it as soon as possible. So I did, and reset my Livejournal account settings to where it wouldn't come up on Google as much, because actually I don't really want anybody reading that thing.

Part of my motive for doing this blog is a similar sort of archival project, having a record of where I'm at, what I'm experiencing, learning, etc, from moment to moment to reflect on later.

But where do the people with whom I'm working with enter in to that equation? The first thing I've been trying to avoid has been saying anything negative about anybody, even in the abstract, in case someone reads it and thinks I'm referring to them. In that project I haven't been completely successful. In my recent post about my Improv Asylum experience, I initially passed judgement on my fellow auditioners. After publishing the post, I thought back on it and thought better of it and deleted those sections. I also feel a little bad about my film student rant. I mean, christ they're just kids. I didn't think I got too down on them, and gave a sort of measured rant that in learning people do jobs for which they aren't necessarily suited and as actors doing student films we encounter those situations. But anyway I feel a little harsh. Not harsh enough to edit the post... well I'll probably go back and look at it after I finish this one.

But do you see what I mean? Likewise, I previously blogged about negative aspects of working with a certain group, and when I ran into someone who I worked with on that project they commented on it. Thinking about the implications, this got me a little paranoid. Who else read that? Probably other people associated with said group, how did they take it? Will they hold it against me?

This is also why I'm reluctant to write full blown reviews of shows I see. Since, you know, even if I go and see a show from Theatre X and it's not great in my estimation, I still might want to work with them down the line. I'm pretty much open to work with anybody at this point, especially if I think it might advance my art or (especially, let's be honest) my acting career.

You see, as an actor, you have to be career minded at least part of the time. You have to choose what roles you take. I don't think you should be selective about your auditions. I think that's a pitfall people fall into, they will only audition for something that "grabs" them whatever that means. Some of the most satisfying work I've done hasn't necessarily been something that grabbed me in the audition notice, but when I encountered the people and the material, neither of which I was familiar with, I was in. That's another tangent.

The point is, this blog is part of my career as well a personal effort. In this day and age, the internet is a powerful tool. Any creative person who isn't actively putting stuff out into the world in some form, videos, writing, music, art, whatever, is making a big mistake. Granted, there are millions of voices out there and the likelihood that your voice will be one to catch fire is one in a million. But hey, so are the chances that any of this will really make it big, right? So by going out and being an actor I have a one in a million chance of "making it". By doing this blog, now I'm two in a million. I just doubled my chances. And anything you can do to bring these gargantuan odds ever so slightly closer to your favor, you should do.

But don't do anything to hinder them, either! And if someone reads something you wrote that makes them think twice about hiring you... then shit. But the best art is also truthful. Truth is in speaking from the self and what you really feel. So what's the moral? Be careful what you feel? I don't know. But that is the line we walk. Let me rephrase that. This is the line I walk.

Fun With Film Students (or: more adventures in acting)

So my in class Emerson film shoot thing was yesterday, and I felt pretty good about it! I've been super focused on theatre stuff lately, so actually besides Crooked Arrows and some auditions which were filmed, I haven't been acting a lot in front of a camera, I've been acting more on stage, and getting my creative jollies out that way. There is an interesting dichotomy between the two. Anyone who has done both can tell you they are very different in the kind of focus and energy you bring to them, but at the same time I also think the things that make for good work in either medium come from the same place: your craft. At the same time, I think the actor's craft or any artist's craft is just a way of accessing your interior life and in the case of the actor we use that to tell a story. This is a long way of saying that I think acting is all about heart. And if you can bring your heart into something, then it will be good and how good it is depends on how much of your heart you are able to bring into it. And that depends on your craft. And your craft depends on your preparation.

Unlike in theatre, in film you don't always have time to prepare. In the case of this project, we only had one rehearsal this past Saturday where the director tried to communicate his vision of what the scene was about and how it related to the script as a whole. I can dig that, I've had to do that kind of stuff for directing classes and the fact that he was in a position where he had to do that was partly why I agreed to do it. A lot of the opportunities in Boston to act in front of a camera are student films, most of which are not going to be very good. If you are reading this and are interested in acting on camera, don't let that discourage you (wherever your at, don't let anything discourage you). Some of them are OK, but writing a good script and telling an effective story with pictures and stuff? It's really, really hard. And frankly, a lot of kids major in film because they kind of don't know what else to do with themselves. Other times you meet really talented, committed film students, and that's fantastic. But that doesn't mean the material your working with is necessarily any good, or that they will necessarily understand it fully. When a film student goes to cast their student movie, they are doing so while wearing a director's hat, while other film students around them wear the key grip hat, or the AD hat or whatever job they are learning how to do. Most of the time, the director you are working with will not go on to be a director, they might have another job in the industry because the industry is full of jobs for people who can do them and will work for free at first. But while they are students, they learn a little bit of everything.

This is a long winded way of explaining why, in general, I've stopped auditioning for student films. Also film students can be kind of flaky, and even though it says in the audition notice "no pay, but meals, copy and credit will be provided" a lot of the time they won't actually get you a copy either because they don't finish it or you know their busy being 20 year old film students. The thing of working on something over a weekend or two or however long and not getting a copy kind of extends to the entire world of independent film, web series, etc, since often times money or time will just fail to come together in such a way that something can be finished. Other times you'll get it, and it just won't be very good. Such is life.

Where was I before that tangent? Oh yeah, preparation. We had some but not a lot. A general grasp of the scene, our relationship, intentions, given circumstances, etc. Lines? Blocking? Not so much. So when we got up at the top of the class and tried to run the scene, which were going to be filming on Emerson's rather nice sound stage with kind of a cool, simple but effective set it wasn't very good. Where the lines are concerned, I'd really hoped to get have a whack at the scene this past week but with being in two shows and Adia's wisdom teeth coming out it just didn't happen. So we tried to get through it and incorporate the various stage business that the screen writer had included, all this stuff with a carpet and shit, and it just wasn't very good. Which the professor called us out for, which pleasantly surprised me, because previously when I did a sort of similar assignment for BU the professor didn't really lean on the acting so much. This definitely pushed my scene partner and I, so we went outside and ran it half a dozen times then half a dozen more times on set with blocking while they finished lighting and rehearsed with the camera and we got feedback from the professor until we actually had a scene. And then we filmed it. We did so pretty quickly, and in fairly rudimentary fashion which is to say like half a dozen set ups (or individual shots) and then we were done. Overall, it was a good experience. The kids in the class knew what they were doing, we were shooting in a controlled environment with half decent material and hopefully when the kid who's project it was finishes cutting it, it's maybe usable, or at least a few seconds are, on my reel. Fingers crossed!

In the end, it felt good to flex those on camera muscles. Acting on stage, it's necessary to bring a certain volume to your performance both in terms of your voice and your level of expressiveness. Also often times material on stage is much more stylized, as is definitely the case with Swimming in the Shallows. Film less so, your acting choices have to be very focused and specific and every moment has to have a defined sense of that "interior life" because the camera picks up everything that happens behind your eyes. Even though I always wanted to be a stage actor, since I found my footing acting on camera which took a while, if you search on Youtube for Doctor Who and the Collectors you'll see a fan movie we did when I was in high school, my first time acting on camera, it's not very good, but since getting better I've wondered if actually I'm better suited to that kind of work. Crooked Arrows kind of reinforced that possibility. But also, something I wanted to get across is that I think acting on stage is the best training you could have as an actor. On film, time is always your enemy. You get a finite number of takes to get it right. People think it's the opposite, that on stage you have to get it right in the moment because you don't get another take. And that's true, but you get to try again and again, night after night. Whereas with film, you get it to place, that moment is captured and you move on. You don't get time to revisit, often you didn't really have time to rehearse or anything everything happens in the moment and that's that. Theatre you do it over and over again, finding what works and refining it in front of people. And you learn quick what does and doesn't work. Film is much slower, I think, to find that balance. But stage time helps. So if you want to do movies, get on stage. That's my advice.

End of blog post.

Stress Relief

Today was a rather long and taxing day, and a testimony to the power of on stage catharsis and the simple joy of performing. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Perhaps against my better judgement, I actually sought a posting on Craigslist for an Emerson student shooting a scene from the Spike Lee film the 25th Hour (which if you haven't seen, do so, it's pretty great) mainly for the reason that I knew the material would be good, and it's going to be in a directing class on Emerson's big fancy sound stage. I've never shot anything on a sound stage, so I wanted the experience and I looked at the date and figured "I'm not doing anything that day, why not". So, today the film student, another film student also acting in the scene and I met to rehearse. I'd really preferred to meet during the week, but he wanted to meet today, so I consented despite having an audition at 1:30 (relatively nearby mind you, at Improv Asylum in the North End) and a performance tonight. The rehearsal was fine. Getting there wasn't my worst T riding experience ever (that would come later in the day and I'll get to it) although the Red Line was sluggish and I was like five minutes late but whatever. The rehearsal was fine. Lots of film student mumbo jumbo but it's a good scene, and hey maybe some of the material will maybe be usable we'll see.

After that was my audition for Improv Aslyum. I've never studied at IA but I know people who have, and have performed with troupes who came out of there, and by that testimony it seems like a solid if corporate minded operation. Also I thought "what the heck" so when the audition notice went out, I responded thinking "also I'm pretty good at improv, I think". Still, I went in with low expectations and they were met. I thought I did OK. Six people, twenty minutes, a bunch of short scenes. One thing I took away from it, it's especially important in an audition to really focus on fundamentals. The first few scenes, everybody was really nervous and all over the place, as you might expect and the scenes were extra not good. So, the auditors stopped us and said "OK let the nerves out and slow down, actually take your scene partner in before you start" and when my next scene started, I did that. I stepped out and created an environment, some one came into the space and we acknowledged each other and it went pretty well until I felt like I zigged when I could have and should have zagged, that is to say I could have "yes and"-ed one of their suggestions better than I did and when I didn't the scene kind of crashed. I wasn't called back, oh well.

Coming home, my transportation woes began. One of my pet peeves are stupid and/or inconsiderate people on the T, or just anytime anyone is in my way while I'm riding the T. Usually, my commutes are well plotted in terms of where I get on and how I get off the train to get to a given destination, usually a rehearsal, audition or performance since that's my life right now. People gawking, standing around, blocking stair ways or entrances, etc, that's what I'm talking about. The T was chock full of those kinds of people today. Stupid, drunken suburbanites who either don't know how to take public transit (this is my assumption), are just utterly inconsiderate, don't have any sense of the space around them or some combination of the above. As an actor, I'm hyper aware of my personal space, what is around me, and how to navigate around it. In large part I developed that skill taking the train a lot. I'm also very considerate, I try to let people off or on as appropriate and make way for people coming off or on a mode of transit, etc. The people I dealt with all day today coming and going from my performance were not. Multiple times I saw people just standing in the path of an exit for example, or barging past people trying to exit a train. People of Boston, this is not how you conduct yourselves!

You see, in addition to it being St Patricks day, there was a Bruins game, so my god the Bostonians and it's adjoining suburbanites were out in FORCE making me ANGRY and causing me to MUTTER OBSCENITIES UNDER MY BREATH IN THEIR DIRECTION. In addition to those factors, the Newbury/Rockport line which I take to Salem is shuttle bussing on weekends due to construction. This made my commute to tonight's show, so, so frustrating. As you would know if you read my Facebook page at all today.

When I got to the theatre, first I got a coffee and a chocolate from the Starbucks nearby to help myself relax. Then as I started to decompress, it came time for the Shark and I to run our dance sequence (yes we have one and it is amazing SEE THIS SHOW) partly out of necessity and at the behest of our cast mates who wanted some entertainment. So we did, and we entertained them, and it felt great! It was the beginning of a cathartic night of doing theatre, and a testament for me to it's power. It's interesting because the past few shows I've felt less "in the moment" than I could be, but tonight I was all about the moment, my scene partner, the audience, all of it except my shitty time getting there. And I felt really good about the show. And I came home having not chemically inebriated myself on St Patty's day, although I will have a beer or two before bed, the adrenaline and endorphins I felt performing were all the chemicals I need.

Being in two pla(y)ces at once

It was strange returning to Swimming in the Shallows for tonight's performance after spending Monday and Wednesday and part of the time in between digging into the dense existential tangle that is Chekov's Three Sisters. It's like, I'm getting on Chekov's wave length, thinking like his characters think, plotting a mental flow chart of all the levels of philosophical discourse coursing underneath the hood of this mammoth text... then I get off the train and WHOOP I'm in Adam Bock land! Concise! Funny! Gay! What where am I? Oh yeah, this thing I'd been rehearsing for a month before this and started running in front of all these audiences.

It's weird working so intensely on something, thinking about it almost non stop, then it's on to the next thing and that starts taking up all this mental real estate since you know, most of the work on that other thing is done, but not really because you still have to perform it!

So anyway, tonight's show was pretty good. I couldn't help feeling like it wasn't my strongest, but I found my footing and by the end of the night I'd even discovered some new things.

And Three Sisters? Holy shit what a can of worms that play is going to be. There is so much going on in that text... I don't even know where to begin. But it is going to be a fantastic time. I was talking to my Swimming in the Shallows director, and he said "it really is a dream role" and I was like "yeah it is". And yeah, it is. I'm kind of apprehensive about reentering the community theatre world, for various reasons. But it really is such a dream to be playing this role. There is so much to chew on in this part, and in this play. My next blogging project hopefully will be trying to break it all down...

That's all I have to say at the moment, here's to the endeavor!

Chugging Along

Loyal readers! Bored facebookers! Im writing on my iphone, backstage at STC before our first matinee. What a joirney thia weekend has been! Just to recap, Wednesday was a very vocal invited crowd of about twenty, thursday a much more introverted group of 15, Friday was a big house of like 50 or 60 and last night was our official opening to a crowd of 45 or so. Very different audiences all of them. I think last night was our strongest show yet. Everything has of course been clicking acting wise and last night tech got all the kinks out and the show really came into its own. Today is our first matinee, presales were about 12 I guess. As you know, or maybe not but matinees are an animal unto themselves. Every day is a new challenge, a new step on this journey. And im excited to see where it goes! Oh and heres some news. Looks like I'll be playing Tuzenbach in Three Sisters at Footlight Club. Whoa my dream role. And in it will be several friends from Vanya and R&G Are Dead. Our readthrough is tomorrow and I begin another venture! Oh and Spring is... Springing! Life is good.

Up and running!

Swimming in the Shallows is up and running, woo hoo! Last night was an invited dress rehearsal, attended by I suppose twenty or so members of the Salem Theatre Company community, various actors, technicians, board members and other folks with an existing relationship to the theatre. One of them, Jonathan Simcosky, wrote this awesome review in North Shore Art Throb! Thanks Jonathan! Last night was pretty intense, we were all hyped on that adrenaline you get performing in front of people for the first time and man were they receptive. Which on some level was to be expected. They had been invited (and thank you all for coming) to see an invited dress, so they were getting an exclusive first look at the piece and I'm sure they all had motivations for wanting to see it go well and do well in the future, so they were supportive as well as receptive and they all laughed their asses off. Which was great! Part of the DNA of this play is just a tiny bit screw ball. Every like, fourth line can be interpreted as a joke. It's not particularly realistic, but still grounded in it's heightened logic. The point being, they had a huge amount of energy and they showed in their laughter, and it was a decent sized crowd for the space.

Tonight's public preview audience however, as these things often go, was much, much quieter. And something like ten people smaller. And generally on the older side. So, you know that means (of you do if your a performer) less responsiveness, less energy, more pensiveness, more chuckles, some out and out laughs but less unrelenting torrents of sheer LAUGHTER. And that was an adjustment. Generally speaking, the second performance is usually more of a challenge than the first, especially with comedy. Because with comedy, laughter and the energy of the audience are big factors in the room. Your laughs, audience members, drive the performance. So when you come out of tech and into a room full of people you respond very immediately to that energy and when you get a lot of it (or not a lot, depending) then you scale your expectation of how much "force" to anticipate coming from the audience. BUT no two audiences are the same, and neither are any two performances and that's part of what makes theatre so fantastic. Personally, I think sometimes I maybe even do better when there is a lower energy crowd than when there is a big, young, possibly drunk on excitement and/or alcohol kind of audience that laughs heartily and readily. Not that I mind those audiences. But tonight, man? I was working that shit. I was doing whatever I could to make those fuckers LAUGH pardon my french. I think part of my DNA as a performer is that of a comedian, not necessarily a stand up because in the case of stand up when they aren't laughing then it's really painful and I feel that, but you know what I mean. I like making people laugh. And I'm good at it. I discovered that kind of early on, and I think it was part of my impetus to becoming an actor.

So anyway, in terms of audiences, we've already hit both extremes so from here on it I think we'll be ready for whatever comes our way. Man, did I mention how good I feel about this show? Did you read that review? Damn, it's some good shit.

Is it Spring yet?

One of the best things about living in New England is Spring. It's probably my favorite season. I guess tied with fall. And also, summer. Basically all the seasons that are not winter. I really enjoy going out in a light or medium coat. This is of course especially true after like five months of crappy weather, basically the stretch from November to somewhere in March where things start to turn...

And we are fast approaching that turning point! Exciting, yes? We had a few days in February where it got up into the 40s and 50s, and man were they delightful... more so than when the weather did that in November and December that was just creepy. But now that the days are elongating, the angles of sun light actually match up with those kinds of temperatures.

Speaking of Spring, that's when Crooked Arrows will be arriving at a theatre near you (if you live in select markets) May 18th! Wow so this thing I've been talking and thinking about will be becoming concrete and then onwards from there! I want to speculate on what this could mean for me, but I won't because I don't know and won't know until after it comes out so what good is speculating?

Meanwhile in the present, I did my second round of ADR yesterday. Fun fact: ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement. I did a bunch of this in LA while I was out there, I think they wanted while they had me in person to just record a bunch of extra stuff while they could and it was actually a pretty fantastic experience, both in learning a new skill set and in collaborating with the film's director Steve Rash. This was also quite an experience, as this time I actually had to redo lines so that they synced up with my performance on camera, I essentially had to lip synch myself. Generally with Chad Bryan, because I had such a strong understanding of the character, I could knock out my stuff in at most three takes also depending on the complexity of the text at hand (some of his lines get pretty wordy) but this took me like ten or twelve takes to nail down the exact rhythm that I was saying the line at. Later on, I had to deliver one of my lines from a place of actual... sincerity. Generally, Chad is kind of a smug bastard. He's a big lacrosse nerd at heart, and he loves the game so much that he can't help but run around to all these prep schools and do his little online show of live commentary on the games and over the course of the movie he goes from viewing the Crooked Arrows as pitiful to really admiring them. And it's in a moment of sincere admiration that he talks about the conclusion of the typical sports movie cliches and delivers a heart felt line about how they won't give up. So I really had to drop down out of Chad... but I still wanted to fight to keep some of him in there, but stepping away from the cartoonish persona that I was dependent on to drive the character while keeping the shading of those characteristics... the best take and the one I assume they'll go with was the one where I was able to drop way out, and then at the end bring it back in. That also took me like ten or twelve takes to really nail down, and it was hard!

But I'm a better actor for it, and I'm glad that they decided to go back in and add that heart to my character. I think it will reflect better on the film, on Chad's role and on me as an actor in relationship to all of that. All in all from what I was able to glean, I think it will be a really entertaining family film. So that's that.

In other news, I had my audition for Three Sisters on Sunday, and I felt like it went really well. In the four major plays of Chekov of which I am a big fan, Chekov is probably my favorite playwright ever, there are maybe half a dozen roles I'm in a place age and I guess life wise to play right now. Konstantin in the Seagull being a big one, the young communist in The Cherry Orchard who's name I can't remember is another, and Tuzenbach and Andrei in Three Sisters are two others. And if nothing else in that audition, I got to play those two roles, just a few pages at a time, for a little while. And it felt very satisfying. Chekov is just such an actor's dream to play if you know where to look for the nuances of his writing which I frankly do because I had good teachers who taught me how. I can't make the callback on Thursday, which is unfortunate, but I felt like I put forward good work and the director said they would keep me in consideration and that's all I can hope for.

Oh and lastly, why can't I make it to callbacks on Thursday? BECAUSE THAT IS WHEN SWIMMING IN THE SHALLOWS OPENS. Holy shit. How long has it been? Like a month? A little less than that I think? Wow. This is going to be a great show. It hasn't really hit me yet, here we are in tech, this is the moment where everything really comes together. And then an audience enters the room, and BOOM ACTING *MAAAAAAGIC*. Seriously, it's going to be a great show, hopefully if you are reading this you got an email invitation but if not consider yourself invited! It's really been a fantastic experience with a fantastic group and I've been able to push myself to do things I've never done or thought I would have been capable of a few years ago.

So come see it. That's all for now, ciao!

Circa! Cirque due "whoa look at that"

Tonight was my night off from Swimming in the Shallows, so I figured I ought to take my girlfriend to a show, since my new years resolution was to see more theatre. I could have taken in various offerings, but when I heard about Circa and saw this video on Thomas Garvey's Hub Reivew I splurged and bought two orchestra seats to tonight's performance.

Circa is a minimalist, post modern riff on circus performances ala Cirque Soleil but without the goofy costumes or sets. The set for tonight's performance was a gym mat, and a traipse and rope that descended for parts of the performance. So did you watch that video? Yeah it was some pretty amazing stuff. They performed on a physical level beyond anything I could ever imagine being capable of, and it was incredibly inspiring, especially when you think about the hours of work and dedication over the years it must have taken them to get to that level.

It was a stunning, visceral, funny and thrilling celebration of the human form and it's possibilities. And I don't know what else really to say about it! You kind of have to see it to believe it. It made me think about wanting to become a more physical performer. It made me think about the way that they were conscious of and would work the audience. It made me think about physical presence in space. All of that stuff, and all of it in relationship to my life as a performer.

Yeah, just really incredible stuff. Totally worth the money. If you can see it, see it.