Movement class day two (and a side bar to the bass)

Well, today was my second movement class, so let's talk a little bit about it (I promise to be less pretentious).

First though, do you ever have the experience of feeling like you remember the quality of a piece of music or say an album that maybe you listened to at a time in your life, and something inspires you to revisit it and you're like "whoa this is different than I remembered". In large part due to the music Yo-el plays during the class, and also maybe because I've been getting back into playing bass guitar, I went and listened to some of Jaco Pastorious' self titled debut album. If you're a fan of jazz, or just a lover of music, definitely do yourself a favor and listen to that record. If you've never heard Jaco's playing before, maybe check out this track. Portrait of Tracy, which I just linked to, was particularly revelatory. I remembered the haunting melody and the stark quality of Jaco's solo fretless electric bass (yes as far as I know that's one bass track, specifically an American Fender jazz that he took the frets off of to get the sounds he got) but man, those harmonies. Especially the motif he plays at about 55 seconds, with the bass line modulating underneath it in these incredibly modern and expressionistic directions, it just blew my mind a little bit.

You know, I think it's bullshit when guitar players get down on the bass. And it's not really something I've encountered since I was in high school, and everybody in high school is prone to jumping to conclusions just for the sake of having an opinion, or is capable of great ignorance, I certainly was, but it's a really beautiful instrument. Rediscovering it has been very inspiring for me, musically, and the vast number of techniques and approaches and sheer sounds you can get especially from the Fender Jazz (which is a specific model, kind of like the Stratocaster of electric basses). Similar to the Stratocaster, something about the electronics on that instrument really opens up a variety of sounds, to say nothing of the unlimited number of techniques emanating from your finger tips which can lead to different kinds of sounds. You can make a melody sound so many different ways, if you have a well made and well intonated instrument, just plugging straight into an amp, it's very beautiful. I think that even keeping the fundamental quality of the melody the same, which is to say having the same dynamic, melodic and rhythmic values, there might even be more variety in a bass straight to an amplification source than with a guitar. I don't know if that's really true, it all depends on the talent and ability of the musician. But yeah, it's a great instrument, and I've been having a lot of fun rediscovering it even if the tips of my thumb, forefinger and middle finger hurt like hell from all that plucking.

Oh so yeah, movement class. It's a requirement for the apprentice kids to journal about the class, although I don't imagine Yo-el is big on collecting assignments and I haven't gotten the sense that he's expecting me to do so, but this blog is all about my journey so let's chronicle it, yeah? Today was my first section, and the emphasis was on Laban technique in the form of a sequence of warm ups that Yo-el has been instructing the class in step by step. Again, I spent the first half of the class catching up and then he instructed the class in the more movement intense aspects of the warm up as opposed to the floor based initial section. This kind of technical work is what I was really looking for in a movement class, and what I feel had been missing from my training up to this point, so I'm again excited to start learning it and see how it informs the more creative and expressive aspects of our work together. Not much else to report today, check back tomorrow for an update on my first extended Saturday morning class session.

Movement Day One

Today was the first session of my movement class with the Commonwealth Apprentices, taught by Yo-el Cassell and I'm already very excited. Immediately upon arrival and the start of the class, I was thrown in to an alien but familiar world of moving through space, trying to be present with this new group of peers as they enact an already understood ritual, reacting to Yo-el's instructions, leading with different body parts and going up or down in pace or level and freezing in place when he shook his morocca, while I just listened and observed as hard as I could. Basically, this group has been together for at least a week or two and is several sessions ahead of me (and the one other newcomer) in this course, so we were essentially playing catch up. I wasn't really able to tune into what she was experiencing, but this wasn't that much of a big deal, and was kind of a fun challenge identifying each excercise and relating it back to my past work. I was focusing as hard as I could on just being loose and present in the space and with the people around me.

The other part of my focus was on my alignment. Possibly the biggest discovery I made in this past year (come to think of it, my very first year out of an academic program, now come to a close) was Alexander Technique. If you've known me for any length of time and are an observant person, you might have realized that I slouch. I've been doing this for as long as I've been aware of my own body, probably in 2nd or 3rd grade when I was first teased for my weight. And in general I was never much of an athlete, or particularly graceful or physically coordinated. But I also remember from a young age loving to dance. From the ages of 5 to 6 (before pesky body awareness issues crept up on me) I went to a hippy dippy montesori school in Berekeley California, where my father was doing his post doc at the time... And it's never something I'd put together previously, but I imagine a lot of the creative outlets I was given access to in that environment probably took part in planting the seeds of the artist I am today. Anyway, I recently discovered Alexander technique and in the process "grew" from 6' to 6'2" by extending my neck and spine, but then recently succumb to old, bad habits. So I've reoriented my focus into a more conscious practice of Alexander both in my work as an actor and my daily life, and I was really focused on it for the initial part of the class, which I think informed the next section.

After the warm up and initial exercises, I had my first really truthful moment of the class. In the final section, Yo-el spoke briefly about an American choreographer who's name ringed a bell at the time whom I've since forgotten, talked a little about points in space in relation to dance (64?) and trying to touch as many of them as possible in the manner of a free improvised dance set to music. To start us off, he did a very elegant demonstration and we passed that energy around the room, each taking a few minutes in the middle of the circle to move how we felt, touching as many points as possible. And for me, it was a very freeing and truthful moment. Yielding myself over to one impulse to move, then letting the momentum of that movement bring me into another, and so forth. Just being free. Not even thinking about the room full of strangers in any meaningful way. Purely exploring the space. It felt natural and beautiful. And I remembered feeling that way before, as a child, and during certain performance but especially during my semester studying improvisation with Tommy Derrah, which had a clearly shared philosophical underpinning in Gratowski. I made a lot of progress working in that class, but when I really had a break through on the very last session, I hit the brick wall of my poor physical shape. Since then I've been working out a lot, so that will be less of a constraint, I think. And I'm incredibly excited to see where this experience takes me in the coming weeks.

Topping From The Bottom

I had one of my favorite discoveries thus far in the R&G rehearsal process just the other day when I discovered this weird new persona for Alfred; a gender-queer street smart bad ass drag queen doing what he has to do to get by. This runs contrary to my initial intention, and to Stoppard's script, but since we've cut all of the really explicit rape jokes and Alfred's exchange with Guildenstern, and also considering my physical size and the world of the play as my director has been shaping it... it makes the most sense. At first, I was interested in the idea of Alfred as a victim, someone who's been put through a lot, has probably been assaulted and is clearly used when necessary in a sexual way by the player. So I was interested in how that affects someone's physical state, you know when someone has been a victim of trauma it affects them in a certain way. Except I realized with Alfred, and remembered from people I've been close to the in the past who I know had gone through those kinds of experiences, it doesn't necessarily translate to weakness and in Alfred's case it's made him very tough and weirdly strong and resilient. I mean, just considering my physical size, I don't look like someone who takes a lot of shit when you remove my gentile personality from the equation. And neither does Alfred. Danielle is really interested in bringing this ongoing sense of menace and danger to the Players as a unit, and it's been really enjoyable exploring that with Alfred. And with the gender-queer aspect, Alfred wears the dresses and plays the women because he wants too and because he does it damn well, and when he gets down to business with the evil king in the dumb show, he really gets into it.

All of this power and toughness though is in spite of his intrinsically low status, arguably in the text as written Alfred is the lowest status character in the play. This kind of changes when you remove the rape element, and instead of Alfred being a smallish 14 or 15 year old as he would have been in Shakespeare's time and so might be traditionally played in a straight reading of Stoppard's text, he's me, a 6'2" 200 pound 23 year old dude, so I have to bring the truth of "what if I were this person" and not "what if this person in the text was me" does that distinction make any sense? I guess I mean I have to bring the character to myself, rather than vice versa. And I've been exploring that, and this new sense of physicality and having tons of fun with the costume (the full version of which I saw today and it's pretty great), and especially the physical comedy.

Which is a fairly efficient segway into the other thing I wanted to blog about tonight. As of tomorrow morning, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning at 9 AM I'll be reporting to movement class with Yo-el Cassell courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. As you may now, Commonwealth in it's third or fourth year of offering an apprenticeship program where you give them a bunch of money and in return they give you training, farm you out to do a "selection of scenes on this theme" style show in the 'burbs and you understudy and/or play a spear carrier in their main stage production. This year, in addition to all that, their offering parts of their training to the public, which will include me. So I'll be in with the apprentices and whoever else responded to the Stagesource post and had $500 doing Alexander Technique, Grotowski, Laban (don't know who that is but I'll find out), dancing and generally getting sweaty early in the morning for the next month. I'm excited! Having not done a BFA, movement is a big gap in my training and I'm looking forward to filling it in, becoming a more rounded actor and of course blogging about it.

Briefly, before I sign off, progress has been made in the podcast front. I have a tentative partner in the venture, someone I'm very excited to be working with and hopefully we'll be recording some stuff in the next few weeks. Till then!

Making Your Own Stuff

I was listening to one of my podcasts the other day, and one of the hosts, I think it might have been Kevin Pollak, said something to the effect of "if you're not creating, you're waiting". And you know, it's true. If you're a creative person, you're either waiting for someone to give you an opportunity to do something (which can take a long time as an actor) or you're making your own opportunities. Right now is the best time ever to be any kind of an amateur musician, the internet and digital technology have so throughly leveled the playing field that no matter what your vision is, you can find a way to achieve it. That's music though, and the nature modern of musicianship and today's digital recording and synth technology is you can collaborate purely with yourself and a computer and no one else to make just about anything.

Less so with acting, which is inherently both interpretive and collaborative. Generally as an actor you're pulling from some kind of material either in the literal or metaphorical sense, which you interpret through your performance into art. Usually that mean's a script. But I think it can be defined even more generally as just a medium. You need some kind of physical medium in addition to an intellectual or spiritual starting point of some kind. It used be that film making was incredibly prohibitively expensive because of the cost of film stock, to say nothing of editing and communicating all that material to the outside world. Of course no longer so with the internet and Youtube so thousands and millions of aspiring creators are as we speak slaving away at their attempt to get beyond the confines of their physical reality and touch someone far away, and maybe feel something back. And maybe make a life out of doing that, of connecting with an audience, because isn't the truest and purest nature of acting? Just connecting with another person, either on stage or on camera (or on a microphone) who's either their with you in the work or seeing it happen or what you made it into. An audience. And the internet is a giant access hub to the entire world.

So if you want to be a professionally creative person, like I do and maybe you do as well, you have to be channeling that creativity somehow right now and getting it to the outside world of you're making a big mistake and missing out on the opportunity to find out what you do and get as good as you can at it. Did how I mention how easy the internet makes it to receive criticism of your work? If it's constructive or not is completely besides the point.

I'm frustrated at myself for making that mistake every day that I don't pursue developing and sharing my own voice as an actor, by writing and performing my own stuff into a camera or a microphone and out into the world. I've been making that mistake quite frequently, exceptions being when I write this blog, or the little bit of music making I've been doing. Or my foray into video blogging, which I have to continue but am still intimidated by the naked feeling of being on camera.

What I really think could be personal medium though, might be podcasting. Ever since I was very young, and I was just a goofy little kid and then adolescent, I've liked making characters and a lot of that was always in my voice. That practice was what ultimately lead to me booking Crooked Arrows, and a number of the other creative experiences I've had in my life. One of my favorite things to do because I get to make those kinds of goofy voices, is improv comedy. Improv is great for me because it removes the pressure I feel when I try to write my own stuff to act out, and instead I just get my brain working in real time and enact all the different parts in the moment through the inherent sensibility of my own voice and mind.

All you need to put out a podcast is a microphone and an internet connection. As it so happens, left over from when in late high school I fancied myself an amateur producer and audio engineer, I have a collection of rather nice microphones and a nice 4 channel mixing board, and also a very effective USB input to my computer's sound card. And an internet connection. Everything needed to make well... a podcast. Even if it's just me talking to myself. But I would like it to be with other people.

So I posted to Facebook, I'm supposed to be meeting with someone next week, and now that I sort of have an idea that I think could work I've written some emails. Exciting, I know! I'm posting this to my blog so that I will accountability... I am starting a podcast! Look it for it in your iTunes or RSS feed in the near future!

PS This might have been the most pretentious post I've ever written DEAL WITH IT

Playing at Coins/Jugar de monedas

Well, Three Sisters is still over but Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead is just beginning! I take that back, because we're a couple of weeks into rehearsal and we open in just under a month. So actually, I untake it back, because now is the time when shit gets serious.

So far so fun though! I'm having a great time playing Alfred, in the context of my last couple of roles this is just what I need, a super fun, goofy, comedic supporting character who has some really nice moments and a decent helping of stage time but neither is he on stage every other scene. This means I'll get to come on, do my bits with the tragedians, get some laughs, go off while the other characters talk for another twenty or thirty minutes, come back on, get laughs, etc. Also, there will be music and funny trumpet sounds. It's gonna be a good time.

My director mentioned something about the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston and my blogging about the bilingual show experience, so let's blog about that! As we've gone from just giving bits and pieces a basic shape and are now moving into really refining them, the challenges are beginning to change. At first, rehearsing in Spanish at all was a challenge because it was like "what is going on at all?" but now that I better understand the scenes in English, and having taken far too many years of Spanish to have my low level of proficiency I can basically follow what's going on.

The problem I faced last night was the timing of entrances and physical bits. The script calls for a moment where Rosencratz confuses Alfred for Queen Gertrude, puts his hands over his/her eyes and says "Guess who?!" which our director wasn't super into, but to make it work we've blocked it where Rosencratz is going off and he basically bumps into Gertrude and then, not knowing what else to do, does the "guess who" bit. If you've ever had to do any kind of physical comedy on stage, it's all about timing to the point where it's almost like a dance. Things need to happen in a certain order, in a certain way and at a certain pace all in conjunction with the text, to get the laugh. The nature of this particular bit is that I'm coming around a corner and Rosencratz bumps into me, right? So I'm trying to land in conjunction with the text and the actors on stage where we arrive at the same time, but the two Rosencratzes play the scene at a different pace and energy level which I have to accommodate in my timing.

Do you see what I'm saying? It would be really interesting to talk to my cast mates and see if they've been influenced at all thus far in the process by the work of their Spanish/English language counterparts. Maybe I'll try to have a conversation with them and blog about it.

Reeling It In

As is often the nature of art, I'll probably change my mind later, but in this moment I've decided to put an end to my reel editing process. Over the past two weeks or whatever I've been working on it, I've come to a new version or structure just about every time or every day I've sat down to work on it. I've gone through at least a dozen different drafts, adding things, subtracting things, putting things back in, remembering pieces of footage I hadn't thought of at first and thinking "oh actually that's really funny" then reworking another existing piece, then taking something else out, extending one thing, shortening another, lengthening something back to it's original length, shortening something again... on and on. Well, I have a cut which is running two minutes and twenty seconds, has good momentum, some really nice segues, is generally fun to watch and ends on an up beat note. So you know what? Good. Let's go with that, and stop fussing around endlessly. It's tough with this kind of stuff, because there is no one "best version", every different piece has it's own merits as do the possible relationships between pieces in terms of order and length, etc. If I were cutting together a skit or short film, it'd be much easier, because there would be a linear story and it would be possible to find the most effective way of communicating that story as succinctly as possible. But this is just me, so what's the best way of showcasing that, again as succinctly as possible?

My understanding, and this makes sense, is that with a demo reel, the shorter the better. The perfect length I've been told is two minutes, less than three minutes tops, three or over is indulgent. Also though, this is from the perspective of professional agents and casting directors. Eventually, I would like those people to see my reel, but probably they won't be seeing at least this particular version. And part of the reason it should be two minutes is because those people are busy and they don't watch something longer and if you give them a whole five minute short or whatever it's amateurish and demonstrates you don't understand that principle. It's pretty much true of all casting and auditions, they know within 30 seconds whether or not they'll like you. And if you want someone to respect a piece of footage demoing you, give them the very best of you that you can. Take that clip that's 30 or 45 seconds and make it 15, cut off the fat and keep the absolute best stuff. That's my philosophy.

What I was starting to get at though, is the other side of the coin, because really the people who at this point I'm more likely to use this on are people closer to my level, independent creators who probably have day jobs and don't necessarily have a bajillion headshots to sort through like a higher level producer might be dealing with. So probably, if your clip is closer to three minutes, they'll watch it. And if they see seven separate clips of you acting, their more likely to be impressed by that volume of work because again they don't have a bajillion headshots.

So admittedly, I actually have two cuts, one which is nice and lean at 2:20, and another more indulgent one with a few extra bits that runs about 30 seconds longer. The shorter version will definitely go on IMDB, the longer one maybe Youtube but I'm not sure. I'd link to it, but I haven't put it online yet and I'll just put it to Facebook and you'll see it there like you saw this.

Au Revoir Tuzenbach

And with this past weekend's performances, I close the door on my time on stage as Tuzenbach, one of the great roles period and particularly for actor's of my type. Where the jocks get to play Biff Loman, the geeks play Tuzenbach. Not that I seriously view the great roles of theater through a lens of base a archetypes, but it's kinda true. I am kind of a geek, and Tuzenbach is one of the roles in the western dramatic canon that I'm ideally suited for and indeed one of the most beautiful. And I say goodbye to the role with no real regrets. I do wish we'd had a longer run than four performances, but such is the way of community theater and especially a play like Three Sisters, a three hour long turn of the century semi-melodrama (which is to say a play on the melodrama but that's another dramaturgical Chekovian can of worms, yes I know $5 words $10 meanings). I don't think I really nailed down the role to the fullness of my capability until the second weekend... but when I nailed it down, I nailed that sucker down. The most fun and the most challenging part of the role is definitely the big dramatic death scene, where Tuzenbach comes face to face with his great existential quandary, Irina's inability to love him and subsequently his inability so save her/bring her meaning/find happiness with her. The fact of the scene being he's loved her to bits the entire play, and throughout as he's watched her suffering and remorse escalate fantasized about taking her away to some mystical shangri-la of work and eternal happiness... but in the end he can't give that to her, and she can't give him what he needs which is her true affection, so he fights a duel and dies.

During the process, my friend and cast mate Ron referenced a conversation he had with a Russian coworker who said that for the Russians, (this is my summary/interpretation) Chekhov is sort of like dramatic comedia de'll arte, and for a Russian audience characters like the drunken doctor or the nobody who thinks he is or could have been an intellectual savior of Russia (ex; Konstantin, Vanya, Andrei, etc) are recognizable archetypes. I think in the case of Tuzenbach, he's a reflection of a popular literary idea that I've blogged about it, that of the romantic/intellectual hero-poet, the classic example being Werther and that's why he's German because it's an idea of Germanic origin, etc I've talked about this. I've further though that Solyony, Tuzenbach's counterpart in the army and his rival for Irina's affection who goes on to kill him, is sort of like his Russian doppleganger. In Solyony's case, he's decidedly anti intellectual and violent, perhaps even a sociopath and identifies himself with the Russian author Lermontov who wrote novels about romantic heroes sleeping with lots of women and fighting duels (credit to Scott, who played him, for that background). So in that sense, they kind of mirror one another, two sides of the same coin which explains why Tuzenbach is so inexplicably drawn to him and why Solyony constantly torments him except when their alone, when they get along pretty well, blah blah contents of the play.

Anyway, this is a long build up to how it is that Tuzenbach embodies some of Solyony's madness at the end of the play, leading him to (in our version, anyway) lash out at Irina before going off to die in a duel in a final act of desperation, and as a way out of a life that he simply can't continue living while maintaining his romantic hero factor (because one of the ways romantic heroes die is in duels).

One of the things the director and I struggled with in our collaborations was this whole where Tuzenbach goes off about trees and shit, and their permanence against our mortality and it's like what? You're about to go off and die and this is what you give the love of your life before you do? Initially, we tried it where this passage is a moment of introspection for Tuzenbach where he collects himself after going off on her, and I think that's part of it. But after reblocking it where Irina was available during this speech for Tuzenbach to connect with her and during the second to last performance where I was the mostly deeply connected I would be to my scene partner and the given circumstances... I felt like I figured it out. It's his way of forgiving her, and his plea for forgiveness for what he's about to do, that in the end the trees are the way they are and will continue to be so and that we don't control the way we feel or how the universe affects us. It's not her fault that she couldn't love him, and it's not his that he has to do what he's about to do, and then even when he's gone some part of him will continue in the world and in her and it's also tied it into (I think) romantic ideas and values about the natural world and our connection to it as human beings. And that's what he's leaving her with before he dies. And in the second to last performance, I really felt like I did that, and that's the moment I blogged about where I saw a real tear go down her face and I thought to my self "yes, this acting" and I found the full truth of the moment, of two lovers saying goodbye for the last time.

If I have those moments, I tend I find to have them once per production (in the case of the two productions where I've had them, small sample size). My scene partner and I found it in the second or third to last performance of Swimming in the Shallows. I think I blogged about this at the time, but it was a particularly unresponsive audience in that tiny theater so when I came to my big romantic scene with The Shark, instead of playing to them for laughs like I usually might I just focused on The Shark and tuned them out completely, and felt the romance and chemistry of those moments, and then in the moment of our big dramatic kiss it felt... real in a way that it hadn't prior. And didn't in the remaining performances. The same being true of Three Sisters, not that Saturday's show was worse than Friday's just different. And that's the lesson I'm still learning as a stage actor, even when you find what is in a way the perfection of a moment like that, it is the perfection of that moment and every subsequent moment is inherently different, ya dig? So it's a fools errand to try to replicate that perfection, because it's impossible, you have to find the truth of THIS moment and you have to refind it every time you go on stage. And that's the truth and the challenge and the beauty of acting on stage, you have to try every time and you get to try again.

My hope is that I'll get to try again someday with Tuzenbach, but if I don't, then this was a production I can be satisfied with and moving forward harbor no regrets, because I lived a dream role and embodied it to the fullness of my ability at that time and made it something beautiful. The end.

Goodbye Three Sisters, no not goodbye but farewell for we shall not meet again. Or if we do, who will we be then? (Quote from the play, sort of). Someone else entirely, and the moments will be all the same... but different in every way.

Putting It All Together

Over the past few days I've taken all the footage of mine I could collect off of Youtube and Vimeo from the various film and web video projects I've done in the past three years, and have been going through the arduous but satisfying process of cutting them together into a usable demo reel. Mind you, I have a demo reel, but since making it I've acquired some new footage, and some new perspective. Where before, I cut something together rather cheaply, this time I've been much more methodical with my iMovie cutting. I'm on draft 5 or 6 now, draft 4 is up on Youtube and so is draft 5 I think, but set up where you can't find them unless you have a link.

Stop me if this isn't interesting to you. Actually, don't bother, just stop reading all together. This ties into several things I've been ruminating about as of late, producing and taking pride in my own content, and the sense one has as an actor of "a legacy" or an impact in the longer terms of making a career and the even broader question "what does it all mean"? It's sort of a paradox but not really because the word is just too pretentious for it's own good... the way that I think live theater is capable of much more impact and meaningful change in people's lives (or so I'd like to believe) but that film, which is so often crass and commercial, is the longer lasting, sometimes even immortal medium. Of course there are crass and commercial theatrical endeavors, and films of aching truth and beauty. But I think of the theatrical work created in a given year, even as it dwindles and diminshes, versus the slate of movies that are made or come out in a given year, which ironically as theater declines are becoming much more accessible with digital cameras and the internet... that the theater has more of that "truthiness". But what do I know?

This is a prelude to the big question, as an artist, where do you focus your energy? Wherever the work is, haha! Yeah it's sort of a silly answer, but it's a silly question too, because you only have so much choice. Unless your driven to create your own stuff and your own opportunities. Which brings me to point B, creating my own stuff. In case you were unaware, I made my first video blog. A big part of this was an exercise in being front of a camera as myself, filling space, and being comfortable while I do it. I would say I'm actually pretty good at hosting gigs, I can be funny and charming as needed, and generally know how to work a crowd. I say having hosted a couple of different events over the years. And I could probably also be better at it, if I had opportunities to practice. And eventually, if I can get good and get the right opportunities, it could be quite lucrative. And the nature of technology today is, I don't need an audience to practice, although audiences make it easier. Probably, if my on camera career were to take off, I'd be put in situations where I'd be hosting against a green screen or on an empty sound stage. And because I have a web cam, I can start honing that skill now. Eventually, I'd like to record little scenes and monologues and actual scripted content.

Speaking of which, I mentioned the podcast Making It with Riki Lindhome previously (the episode I was referring to at the time was with Malcolm Barrett) and in the latest installment she talked to writer/director/member of The State Robert Ben Garant, and it's fantastic and inspiring and if you want to write your own stuff you should listen to it.

For me, writing is still hard. For a long time I could write lots and lots of poetry, but most of it wasn't very good. Now that I've become more aware of how I would like to envision my voice by doing all this acting and improv and that brief foray into stand up, I really want to start doing my own comedy writing and making my own videos. This would be with the full knowledge that probably my initial attempts will not be good. But Picasso had to practice before he became Picasso. You have to produce junk before you can learn how to make anything good or interesting. And the sooner you start, and the more you do, the sooner you'll be better.

So back to editing my reel, it's been a fun creative exercise in stringing moments together (and figuring out iMovie and by extension the principals of editing). And it ties back to that question of legacy, because this is the sum of a quadrant of my work as an actor, and the direction I think I want to take it in. It's funny, every time I finish a version, I start to think "OK this is the one" but then I look at it again and say "actually this could be better..." and so I'm on draft number 6. I think this one I'll put online and show to some more people to get feedback. OK here it is. Tell me what you think, if you've read this far. It's sort of redundant, because I should be getting in some more new footage and will have to redo it soon. But hey, fun creative excercise! Enjoy those as they come, before it's just work. And even still, enjoy them.
---
EDIT: Since writing the part up top, we had our third performance of Three Sisters, and it was super intense and satisfying. During my big climatic pre duel to the death scene, I felt as in the moment as I've been through this process and my scene partner shed a tear. It was legitimately very moving. I think what it was, for me, was that I finally brought all of Chekhov's poetic language about trees and our slavish existence to fate all together finally and brought it down for Irina as a way to try to make her feel better about what I had to do and that's what the scene is really all about. I'll blog more about it later, our second performance is tonight!

Careful what you wish for

Would you believe it's taxing to play the arc of bipolar romanticist who goes off the deep end and is willingly and intentionally killed in a duel? Because it is, I've now realized, having performed the first of scant four performances as Tuzenbach (my dream role! and now I've remembered why) in Three Sisters. In response to your question, "how did it go?" it went extremely well. We had a healthy audience of I believe 66, which now that I think about it is probably the biggest house I've performed to since... I mean, it must have been Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Footlight Club the last time, which is ironic. And here I am, as the producer pointed from that prior production pointed out, saying things! And they seemed to follow along, and laughed at the funny parts, which are surprisingly frequent considering it's Chekov who is supposed to be all down and dour but in reality is pretty hysterical.

My mother came to see it, and although her review is of course quite biased, if I were to select a tagline from it she called it "a transcendent production" or something to that effect. And I agree it's very good. Everybody on that stage really acts their asses off, and it's such a pleasure getting to watch them doing so.

And for my own part, really going for it tonight, I felt it in a way I hadn't previously. I think of my teacher Scott Zigler, who asked me in the culmination of my studies with him after I had just done a scene where my scene partner put me in an incredibly uncomfortable position he asked "and how did that make you feel?" Not in any kind of wonky psychoanalytical way, just what was that experience like? And it was very difficult. It was uncomfortable. And it worked because the character was uncomfortable, and I was in an indirect way experiencing what the character was experiencing.

Which brings me back to Tuzenbach, who experiences the culmination of years of dreaming and fantasy... he gets to marry his beloved Irina, and to go off and be good workers and pursue happiness. Except she doesn't and can't find it within herself to love him. And because of that, more than the realization of his dream becoming meaningless, he's driven insane. And so he provokes the duel with Solyony and so dies. At least that's my take on it.

And it's especially taxing because I've known people who've felt that way, some of whom are no longer with us. Not that I draw on those experiences to create the role, but I can't help thinking of them. And that brings me back to that acting class, where Scott said "acting isn't always fun, sometimes it's stressful and if you want to do it professionally you have to be committed to do doing the work well, even when it crosses that threshold" or something to that effect. And that's true. And I felt that tonight. And I'm very proud of my work on this production. I can now say I've had the opportunity to play one of my dream roles. The next one probably being Konstantin in the Seagull... who boy does that guy go through some shit. And there is no question, he deliberately goes off and kills himself. OK I take it back, Trofimov in the Cherry Orchard would be good too, I'll take that instead. And even if none of those other dream roles ever come to fruition, I'll be able to say I had Tuzenbach and that is something to be proud of.