Getting There!

Swimming in the Shallows is swimming along towards our opening March 8th... holy crap that's soon! Well, it's not too soon, because I think the show has been in really great shape. This week for me was about tying my performance down to Earth, to the reality of the character's situations and really listening to my fellow actors. I think my best strongest assest as a performer is the energy I bring on stage, I'm full of it! This works well for a lot of my roles, it helps me do what I do comedically and when I can really focus and harness it, I think it makes me particularly well suited for certain kinds of film roles (when Crooked Arrows comes out, you'll see what I mean). Sometimes this can get in out of hand, especially in a fast paced show like this one, with a heightened reality and heightened language. At times it's almost reminiscent of my old friend, the farce. But it's not! And I realized that was the mistake I had been making, was to treat this material as if it were out sized and non realistic... which it is, to a point, but the characters don't know that. Nick doesn't think it's strange that he would be in love with a shark, to him it's completely a part of his world. And this is true of everything he says to the characters, so I've been thinking of each moment where my energy had been getting out of hand, and sort of dying it down to the ground, "grounding it", so to speak.

And I think it's been working! I think. My director, Scott, sent me some notes on some sections where the connection to the situation and to the characters can be stronger so my work this week will be to make those connections really as solid as they can be. And now that we're all off book and the show is picking up steam, really running it and polishing it and all that good stuff. Like I said, the show is in a really great place, having been in as many shows as I've been in, I feel pretty competent about that.

Another breakthrough from this week, my fellow actor playing the Shark and I crossed over into actually doing our same sex kiss. And you know what? It's not that big of a deal! I mean, of course it never was, but hey this stuff can be pretty hard and awkward. I'm glad we didn't rush into doing it, because it feels more meaningful and truthful now that we've had time to develop the characters and generally get to know one another. I think it's going to be a great, truthful, touching moment. Exciting!

In other news, I've contracted the services of a monologue coach and I've been thinking about what pieces to start working on for potential usage in Stagesource and also for other auditions that are coming up. What auditions, you ask? Well today I auditioned for Bye Bye Liver: The Boston Drinking Play. It sounds like it comes in a mold similar to a Fishnet, Flanagan's Wake, you know Shear Madness knock offs but with more a sketch element and less of a narrative through line. I thought it went well! I'm pretty good at sketch stuff, and I read for a drag queen, which is strangely enough one of my strong suits... moving on, the auditions on the horizon are The Three Sisters at Footlight Club, directed by Caitlin Lowans who's directing the Romeo and Juliet I blogged about auditioning for in Stoneham. Three Sisters is one of my favorite plays, since it's by Chekov and he's probably my favorite play write. It also has one of my favorite roles of Chekov's, one which is on my sort of actor's bucket list of roles to play at some point in my career, Tuzenbach. If you've read Three Sisters, you know what I'm talking about. The other big audition is Coriolanus with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. This will be second time auditioning for CSC, I have no particular reason to expect that my audition will warrant a callback or what have you. But hey it's worth a try! If nothing else, I can try and get my pieces down to two minutes and make it a test run for Stagesource.

In other, more guitar related news, I've been dabbling again in recording. A few weeks ago I bought a new recording toy, a Shure X2U XLR to USB signal adaptor. I think it sounds pretty good, technical mumbo jumba-what aside. Give it a listen, if you'd like.