First of all, let's think about the title of this piece for a second. Or don't, if you don't want to, like if you don't have the same filthy, perpetually sexually frustrated imagination that I do, you're not obligated to imagine me rubbing shoulders with a man named Alan as he achieves orgasm.
A fun fact though while I'm on this bodily riff, someone I told my Alan Cumming story to once related an anecdote that he'd tested a series of cosmetic and hygienic products, including a shampoo line called "Cumming In Your Hair", and I'm sure he thought about a face cream, am I right? Cumming On Your Face? Did I really need to type that? Well I did.
So I was actually inspired to write this by my friend and collaborator on a few projects (including my first ever play in New York) Mark Blickley and his piece Waiting For Robin Williams about a chance encounter with, you guessed it, Robin Williams, that left an impact in his life.
It got me thinking about an idea for a historical fiction novel series I had, imagining my own life and career through the lens of Horatio Hornblower or whatever, except instead of advancing through the British navy and fighting Napoleon while bearing witness to various historical events, it would be a young artist, it's a little convenient but let's say he's an actor, writer, comedian and musician who adventures through the art world and has his ups and downs and successes and failures personally and artistically, meeting the occasional famous people, observing events, etc.
This would be a scene from that series, one of my first acting jobs in New York was an extra on an Amazon Prime series, "The New Yorker Presents", the concept being a series of video pieces, filmed essays, short documentaries and sketches reflecting what you'd read in an issue of The New Yorker. I found this particular gig on Actor's Access, it was SAG affiliated, I'd literally just moved to New York and didn't have anything going on, so I took a weird random day of extra work for $50 bucks and trekked out to Brooklyn somewhere to be an extra in this comedy sketch featuring Bret Gelman (who's a comedian and character actor you can google, you might recognize him) as a homeless person imagining himself talking to God, as played by Alan Cumming.
Unremarkable anecdote, I was hanging out in craft services at the beginning of the day, loading up on coffee to tolerate waking up at like 6 am for the 8 am call time in Brooklyn and of course the free food because what else do you do on set, when Alan Cumming came in, and I didn't register it was Nightcrawler from X Men 2. I overheard later was unhappy about the lack of vegan options, which yeah you could say is diva-ish, but it's like, I'm sure his people communicated he was vegan and it's craft services job to make sure there's stuff for people to eat. So yeah.
Later we were on set, and I was assigned to pass by the shot of the two of them talking outside the grocery store where we were shooting the scene, and one of the passes Alan Cumming jumps up as I pass by and walks next to me, shoulder to shoulder, I imagine to try and create the effect of God disappearing behind this rather tall, messy haired, kinda brawny hipster looking Brooklynite who's walking by like he just doesn't give a fuck. Which I didn't! Part of that was my intention, obviously I was just doing background work, but I was trying to make my walk as naturalistic as possible and not regard the action happening next to me, like if you're going to be on set you might as well try and practice something, right? And additionally, I was going through a rather rough break up with my ex girlfriend who I'd left in Boston to pursue my acting dreams in New York, so I really didn't give a fuck. I was somewhere else. I gave negative fucks, and I wonder if they could tell from my "performance" and because of that and my look as a Brooklyn character I was chosen for that moment.
Or maybe Alan Cumming was fucking around? I don't know. Funnily enough, I really wasn't happy about being featured, because I worried it would effect my ability to be cast in the future if the show went to series (I believe this was for the pilot) if I was recognizable from this piece.
I also remember at the time as it was happening thinking "OK be cool, Alan Cumming is walking next to you, literally rubbing up against your shoulder, don't do anything different, don't change your focus, just keep walking until they call cut", and because I was an extra and like, as an extra you don't talk to anyone unless they talk to you except for the other extras and the PAs in charge of extra wrangling, I didn't say like "Hey, Alan Cumming, what was that beat just now where you walked next to me?" But I kind of wish I had, cause like, fuck it, I didn't deliberately rub shoulders with Alan Cumming, he got next to me.
I don't know where I'm going with this story. If you read Mark Blickley's piece, linked above and which I recommend, his chance encounter with Robin Williams ultimately lead to him taking a chance and getting his first literary agent through a series of events. Maybe if I'd reached out to Alan Cumming, something indirectly would have come of it (or cum of it, get it?) but probably not, and that's fine.
What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. I just though it was kinda cool.
Showing posts with label acting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acting. Show all posts
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Making Connections
Making Connections
Hey blog.
Long time no blog.
I used to use this space to talk about my creative projects and reflect on the processes involved; this was like four years ago. I was actively updating, and then I went through a really harsh break up and fell out of the habit. Since then I've written a few posts, and a lot has happened to me personally and professionally.
Most recently, I made my Netflix debut.
Here I am in Friends From College.
Wait, that's actually not accurate, one of the films I have a bit part in, Crooked Arrows, was on Netflix for some time before the contract expired and they took it down. So I guess that was my Netflix debut. What came out this week was Friends from College, in which I have an even smaller bit part. But people are actually watching this, unlike Crooked Arrows which, to be fair, was targeted towards 8-13 year old lacrosse players anyway.
Fun fact, one time I got a random piece of fan mail to my email from this guy who watched Crooked Arrows with his kids. It seemed very sincere, like clearly it meant something to his family and he was like "who is that guy who plays the announcer? He does a good job, I should let him know." And my email is connected to my IMDB page, so that's probably how he got it. It was still kinda weird.
Anyway, Friends From College is especially cool because I play literally myself. Well I literally play the character I portrayed at the time at Jekyll and Hyde, where the scene is set and where I work in real life. And I mean, it doesn't take a lot to guess that it's because I work there in real life that I got the part in the TV show that happened to be shooting a scene there. It was a stroke of luck that I met the guy from the locations department who was scouting it, who got my info to casting, etc. Success in art really is a combination of luck and preparedness, all of my other acting roles in big things like this (I've had three now, total) were a similar combination of those factors.
And yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm really proud of the work I do at Jekyll and Hyde. There, I said it. Actually I say it all the time in Facebook posts detailing the various interactions I have with kids while I’m working there. If you're reading this, chances are good you know me, so you do you know this: I'm a devout secular humanist and leftist and I try to imbue that into my work with people. I always have in all of my jobs as a performer, be it running a trivia night (which I did for a while), as a historical tour guide on a Segway or in colonial garb (both of which I've done) or most recently as a character in a haunted theme restaurant.
I try to relate to people on some real level, like I see them, and I understand what they’re going through. I just ask them questions, where are you from, what are you doing while you're in New York, that kind of stuff. And I try to make them laugh, at me, at themselves and at each other. My new favorite bit I do as my mad scientist character (in the show I'm a butler but now I play a mad scientist) is I walk out onto the floor of the restaurant, and just cackle like a mad scientist, you know "BWA-HA-HA-HA!" and then I stop and say "I don't know why I'm laughing, sometimes what can you do but laugh, am I right folks?" but in my deep, sort of growley Dr. Horrible voice.
Yes, my character's name is Dr. Horrible. No, I don't have a sing along blog. That's part of the joke. Dr. Horrible’s backstory: Joss Whedon met me during the writer's strike and based a movie on me, but instead of having me play myself, he hired Neil Patrick Harris, my super talented and handsome arch nemesis. I do that bit when people ask me about it. It's very silly.
But I really believe that as a life philosophy, "Sometimes what can you do but laugh?" I acknowledge that in my case it comes from a place of economic and societal privilege. Like if I was homeless or truly hungry or desperate, I might notlaugh. But when something hurts, be it heartbreak or rejection (which, come to think of it, are the main forms of pain I experience) I try to remember it. And when people come to the restaurant, I try to share that with them, and just do whatever I can to make them laugh.
With the kids I do a little more. I very deliberately interact with them, almost to the point of interviewing them. I ask them their name, how old they are, I ask how them how that's going. Like, "Oh Suzy, so you're eleven. How's that going? Do you like being eleven?" Sometimes they say "yeah it's great". Other times they’re having a hard time, usually if they’re a few years older. They'll admit it’s not great, and I'llsay "Yeah I know, I totally feelz you dawg," again in my mad scientist voice. It's silly, I know, but I actually do. And I want them to feel seen by me at least, like the clown sees you, and wants to know what yourinterests are, what do you like in school, what are you doing this summer you're excited about, how are you really, that sort of thing.
I base a lot of my approach on an article I read a long time ago about how to talk to little girls. It suggests, instead of emphasizing their appearance, that we get to know them and appreciate their personality, what their interests and aspirations are, that sort of thing. Then, whatever they like, I'll try to engage with them about it. If they like math I'll do multiplication with them, or tell them how algebra is actually an Arabic word meaning "to bring into balance". If they like science I'll find out what they know or have learned and try to elaborate on it as best as I can, as the son of science teachers. There was a really sweet moment I had with a little girl this week. She was like 11, and when I asked her what her favorite subject was, she said writing. I asked her, what do you write? She said stories. And I said, oh, so you write stories? And she was like, yeah but just in school. And I said but still, that means you write your own stories. And she said, yeah I do write my own stories! With a note of brightness in her voice, like she might not have realized that was something she did, and could do.
Will that little girl grow up to be a writer? I'll never know, maybe not. But hopefully I gave her a sense of agency. I only remember that interaction because it happened this week. I've talked, at this point, to hundreds if not thousands of children, and had similar interactions. Other times it's less overtly inspiring, sometimes it's just something short or silly, or easy or difficult. I'm always trying for moments like that.
So it felt appropriate that at the same time as that bit of my Jekyll and Hyde character came out, I discovered this poem: Ode to the Women on Long Island, by Olivia Gatwood.
As a poem, I do have some mixed feelings about it. I feel like the author is speaking to a specifically white, middle class experience. But if that's her experience, she should speak to it. And as a feminist, when I come across art that speaks to the experience of women, where so much media is about men and masculinity in ways both direct and indirect, I really try to listen. And listening in this case, I realized I've met many of these women. And just like with their children, I try to relate to them as well, as much as I'm ultimately able to.
I talk a lot in my stand up, and in my life, about being a feminist. And as much as I might joke about it, and I try to remain mildly and appropriately self deprecating as a straight white cis male, I'm really not fucking around. The condition of women and girls is deteriorating globally before our very eyes (in spite of the progress we made in the 20th century), and it's up to all of us to stop it, to do whatever we can.
This video from the Population Reference Bureau does a good job of breaking down the statistics.
For me, it's telling jokes.
Long time no blog.
I used to use this space to talk about my creative projects and reflect on the processes involved; this was like four years ago. I was actively updating, and then I went through a really harsh break up and fell out of the habit. Since then I've written a few posts, and a lot has happened to me personally and professionally.
Most recently, I made my Netflix debut.
Here I am in Friends From College.
Wait, that's actually not accurate, one of the films I have a bit part in, Crooked Arrows, was on Netflix for some time before the contract expired and they took it down. So I guess that was my Netflix debut. What came out this week was Friends from College, in which I have an even smaller bit part. But people are actually watching this, unlike Crooked Arrows which, to be fair, was targeted towards 8-13 year old lacrosse players anyway.
Fun fact, one time I got a random piece of fan mail to my email from this guy who watched Crooked Arrows with his kids. It seemed very sincere, like clearly it meant something to his family and he was like "who is that guy who plays the announcer? He does a good job, I should let him know." And my email is connected to my IMDB page, so that's probably how he got it. It was still kinda weird.
Anyway, Friends From College is especially cool because I play literally myself. Well I literally play the character I portrayed at the time at Jekyll and Hyde, where the scene is set and where I work in real life. And I mean, it doesn't take a lot to guess that it's because I work there in real life that I got the part in the TV show that happened to be shooting a scene there. It was a stroke of luck that I met the guy from the locations department who was scouting it, who got my info to casting, etc. Success in art really is a combination of luck and preparedness, all of my other acting roles in big things like this (I've had three now, total) were a similar combination of those factors.
And yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. And I'm really proud of the work I do at Jekyll and Hyde. There, I said it. Actually I say it all the time in Facebook posts detailing the various interactions I have with kids while I’m working there. If you're reading this, chances are good you know me, so you do you know this: I'm a devout secular humanist and leftist and I try to imbue that into my work with people. I always have in all of my jobs as a performer, be it running a trivia night (which I did for a while), as a historical tour guide on a Segway or in colonial garb (both of which I've done) or most recently as a character in a haunted theme restaurant.
I try to relate to people on some real level, like I see them, and I understand what they’re going through. I just ask them questions, where are you from, what are you doing while you're in New York, that kind of stuff. And I try to make them laugh, at me, at themselves and at each other. My new favorite bit I do as my mad scientist character (in the show I'm a butler but now I play a mad scientist) is I walk out onto the floor of the restaurant, and just cackle like a mad scientist, you know "BWA-HA-HA-HA!" and then I stop and say "I don't know why I'm laughing, sometimes what can you do but laugh, am I right folks?" but in my deep, sort of growley Dr. Horrible voice.
Yes, my character's name is Dr. Horrible. No, I don't have a sing along blog. That's part of the joke. Dr. Horrible’s backstory: Joss Whedon met me during the writer's strike and based a movie on me, but instead of having me play myself, he hired Neil Patrick Harris, my super talented and handsome arch nemesis. I do that bit when people ask me about it. It's very silly.
But I really believe that as a life philosophy, "Sometimes what can you do but laugh?" I acknowledge that in my case it comes from a place of economic and societal privilege. Like if I was homeless or truly hungry or desperate, I might notlaugh. But when something hurts, be it heartbreak or rejection (which, come to think of it, are the main forms of pain I experience) I try to remember it. And when people come to the restaurant, I try to share that with them, and just do whatever I can to make them laugh.
With the kids I do a little more. I very deliberately interact with them, almost to the point of interviewing them. I ask them their name, how old they are, I ask how them how that's going. Like, "Oh Suzy, so you're eleven. How's that going? Do you like being eleven?" Sometimes they say "yeah it's great". Other times they’re having a hard time, usually if they’re a few years older. They'll admit it’s not great, and I'llsay "Yeah I know, I totally feelz you dawg," again in my mad scientist voice. It's silly, I know, but I actually do. And I want them to feel seen by me at least, like the clown sees you, and wants to know what yourinterests are, what do you like in school, what are you doing this summer you're excited about, how are you really, that sort of thing.
I base a lot of my approach on an article I read a long time ago about how to talk to little girls. It suggests, instead of emphasizing their appearance, that we get to know them and appreciate their personality, what their interests and aspirations are, that sort of thing. Then, whatever they like, I'll try to engage with them about it. If they like math I'll do multiplication with them, or tell them how algebra is actually an Arabic word meaning "to bring into balance". If they like science I'll find out what they know or have learned and try to elaborate on it as best as I can, as the son of science teachers. There was a really sweet moment I had with a little girl this week. She was like 11, and when I asked her what her favorite subject was, she said writing. I asked her, what do you write? She said stories. And I said, oh, so you write stories? And she was like, yeah but just in school. And I said but still, that means you write your own stories. And she said, yeah I do write my own stories! With a note of brightness in her voice, like she might not have realized that was something she did, and could do.
Will that little girl grow up to be a writer? I'll never know, maybe not. But hopefully I gave her a sense of agency. I only remember that interaction because it happened this week. I've talked, at this point, to hundreds if not thousands of children, and had similar interactions. Other times it's less overtly inspiring, sometimes it's just something short or silly, or easy or difficult. I'm always trying for moments like that.
So it felt appropriate that at the same time as that bit of my Jekyll and Hyde character came out, I discovered this poem: Ode to the Women on Long Island, by Olivia Gatwood.
As a poem, I do have some mixed feelings about it. I feel like the author is speaking to a specifically white, middle class experience. But if that's her experience, she should speak to it. And as a feminist, when I come across art that speaks to the experience of women, where so much media is about men and masculinity in ways both direct and indirect, I really try to listen. And listening in this case, I realized I've met many of these women. And just like with their children, I try to relate to them as well, as much as I'm ultimately able to.
I talk a lot in my stand up, and in my life, about being a feminist. And as much as I might joke about it, and I try to remain mildly and appropriately self deprecating as a straight white cis male, I'm really not fucking around. The condition of women and girls is deteriorating globally before our very eyes (in spite of the progress we made in the 20th century), and it's up to all of us to stop it, to do whatever we can.
This video from the Population Reference Bureau does a good job of breaking down the statistics.
For me, it's telling jokes.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Moments of Anticipation
I've realized I need to become less precious with the communications I share via this blog. Since coming back from Shakespeare and Company this February (wow hard to believe it's been that long) I've started to write a whole bunch of blog posts and then either stopped and not finished them or meant to go back to them or what have you.
Part of this I think had to do with how Shakespeare and Company dealt with the subject of communication in their training, in that they teach you to talk about things as succinctly and specifically as possible. This lead to a struggle in my writing to continue doing that, and when I've felt like I don't completely or succinctly communicate something in a first pass, I get frustrated and want to write it over until I get annoyed with writing it or move on to something else and then I have no writing to share!
That's silly. I have observed my writing process is that I'm most likely to actually get a blog post at the end of a writing session if I commit fully to writing down the thoughts I have in a given moment, ideally doing a quick pass of an edit, and then sharing it and moving on. The blessing and the curse of the internet is how easy it is to access quantity in a sense that it's removed from the expenses of physical media, so you can quickly and cheaply create things and so there are lots of things being created. Vast numbers of things, so many that it becomes counter productive at a certain point to spend too much time worrying about the quality.
But that's another blog post.
I'm pretty far into rehearsals for Caucasian Chalk Circle, we've been getting into the really rough and difficult parts of the "birthing" as it were of this piece of art. Is that an appropriate analogy? There's a lot of collective pain and suffering as we work through the gritty details and logistics of mastering the text, smoothing over the staging, sweating out blocking and staging. For many of us in particular a big part of this has been mastering our Spanish lines, I know it has been for me! I studied Spanish a good deal in school, so I'm not coming in completely ignorant to how it works, but back then I never worked very hard at it, or was ever a preternatural talent for the language, I don't think. So that's been very challenging. But also pretty cool and kind of rewarding. I really like the Spanish text and it's fun getting to work with different sets of actors on the same scenes but in different languages. It's basically equivalent to rehearsing two shows at once. On the hand, that sucks, you're rehearsing two shows at once and it's a lot of work. But also, I'm getting to rehearse two shows at once, so I feel like I'm growing perhaps faster or at least exercising new and different muscles than I normally do as an actor and that's really rewarding.
I talked in that last process about how creating theatre feels like giving birth. Obviously, I haven't ever and will never get the chance to experience that particular component of the human experience, which is honestly something I sort of regret. If I could do it, I would do it. Is that weird and over sharey? I remember talking to my mother as a younger person about her experiences birthing myself and my two brothers. She talked about doing it naturally, and that when I was conceived the philosophy was that the feeling of giving birth can be perceived as being pain but that it's not, it's something else and if you can learn to experience it as that something else pain killers become unnecessary.
So maybe this analogy is stretching it a little bit, but what the hell. For us as artists, what other people might perceive as the tedious, frustrating or painful work of putting something together maybe what sets us apart is that we're able to see the process of birthing work as that something else, something joyful.
This is especially true in theatre, where getting to that final result is such an ecstatic experience, sharing work with an audience, sharing moments with cast members, getting to relive and redo and retry each individual moment night after night and watch it grow and change. I find myself in a series of moments of anticipation as we're on the verge of those final contractions before we can share our creation with the world. I see all the beautiful things beginning to happen, I can see all the things I've already discovered and can already imagine the moments of discovery to come. It's an amazing feeling.
Remind me to make sure I get back into the habit of blogging about it, OK? Thanks.
Part of this I think had to do with how Shakespeare and Company dealt with the subject of communication in their training, in that they teach you to talk about things as succinctly and specifically as possible. This lead to a struggle in my writing to continue doing that, and when I've felt like I don't completely or succinctly communicate something in a first pass, I get frustrated and want to write it over until I get annoyed with writing it or move on to something else and then I have no writing to share!
That's silly. I have observed my writing process is that I'm most likely to actually get a blog post at the end of a writing session if I commit fully to writing down the thoughts I have in a given moment, ideally doing a quick pass of an edit, and then sharing it and moving on. The blessing and the curse of the internet is how easy it is to access quantity in a sense that it's removed from the expenses of physical media, so you can quickly and cheaply create things and so there are lots of things being created. Vast numbers of things, so many that it becomes counter productive at a certain point to spend too much time worrying about the quality.
But that's another blog post.
I'm pretty far into rehearsals for Caucasian Chalk Circle, we've been getting into the really rough and difficult parts of the "birthing" as it were of this piece of art. Is that an appropriate analogy? There's a lot of collective pain and suffering as we work through the gritty details and logistics of mastering the text, smoothing over the staging, sweating out blocking and staging. For many of us in particular a big part of this has been mastering our Spanish lines, I know it has been for me! I studied Spanish a good deal in school, so I'm not coming in completely ignorant to how it works, but back then I never worked very hard at it, or was ever a preternatural talent for the language, I don't think. So that's been very challenging. But also pretty cool and kind of rewarding. I really like the Spanish text and it's fun getting to work with different sets of actors on the same scenes but in different languages. It's basically equivalent to rehearsing two shows at once. On the hand, that sucks, you're rehearsing two shows at once and it's a lot of work. But also, I'm getting to rehearse two shows at once, so I feel like I'm growing perhaps faster or at least exercising new and different muscles than I normally do as an actor and that's really rewarding.
I talked in that last process about how creating theatre feels like giving birth. Obviously, I haven't ever and will never get the chance to experience that particular component of the human experience, which is honestly something I sort of regret. If I could do it, I would do it. Is that weird and over sharey? I remember talking to my mother as a younger person about her experiences birthing myself and my two brothers. She talked about doing it naturally, and that when I was conceived the philosophy was that the feeling of giving birth can be perceived as being pain but that it's not, it's something else and if you can learn to experience it as that something else pain killers become unnecessary.
So maybe this analogy is stretching it a little bit, but what the hell. For us as artists, what other people might perceive as the tedious, frustrating or painful work of putting something together maybe what sets us apart is that we're able to see the process of birthing work as that something else, something joyful.
This is especially true in theatre, where getting to that final result is such an ecstatic experience, sharing work with an audience, sharing moments with cast members, getting to relive and redo and retry each individual moment night after night and watch it grow and change. I find myself in a series of moments of anticipation as we're on the verge of those final contractions before we can share our creation with the world. I see all the beautiful things beginning to happen, I can see all the things I've already discovered and can already imagine the moments of discovery to come. It's an amazing feeling.
Remind me to make sure I get back into the habit of blogging about it, OK? Thanks.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Hello, how have you been? Here's what I've been up to.
Hello blog. How long has it been? It feels like ages. Writing has been proving itself to be challenging! (What, writing? Challenging? Never) For a while, when I felt a surge of creative energy, I'd be putting it into my podcast. Other times, when I felt the need to write, I'd be paralyzed by the impossibility of authentically communicating everything I was experiencing, which was most definitely a by product of my Shakespeare and Company experience (which if you're thinking about doing you should still totally do, don't get me wrong).
In the months, oh wow it really has been months, since I've gotten back I've spent a lot of that time in rehearsals for She Kills Monsters, the ass kicking New England premiere of Qui Nguyen (a New York based writer and artistic director of Vampire Cowboys, a post modern theatre company based I think in Brooklyn) bad ass new play. I'm using that language to describe it because it's highly appropriate to the tone of the play. Which you'll find out if you see it when we open on April 13th!
Oh wow, a huge part of that journey has transpired, and I haven't been writing anything about it. Well let's fix that! So, in the show, I play Chuck Biggs but my homies call me DM Biggs, cause you know, I'm big where it counts (this is a quote from the show) as in my BRAIN! Not because I'm fat.
OK done quoting. A big part of the action of the show transpires in the world of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure concocted by the protagonists now deceased younger sister, which she's playing in order to better understand her now dead sibling who she never really got to know in real life. And in order to play Dungeons and Dragons, you need a dungeon master, or DM, who basically is the guy who rolls the dice for the characters and bad guys not being played by the players, and generally sets up and runs the world of the game through descriptions and charts and so on and so forth. So that's what I do! It's pretty fun. Chuck is a riff on the archetypal "nerd" we all conceive when we think of someone who'd be into that stuff, which I was as a younger person and still am in a very passing extent (I'm totally down to throw down on some board games any time anyone wants to) to the point that in our cast and crew of about fifteen I probably have the most knowledge about what it's like to actually play Dungeons and Dragons and how it works, or at least I'm most willing to talk about it and explain things. Which has been complicated somewhat, by the fact that the play wright really isn't interested in the actual mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons and more so in telling a compelling story. Which I'm totally on board with! But we've also tried to reconcile things and sometimes it's complicated.
But that's another post on the dramaturgy of the play, the sort which I've been known to write and maybe will at some point if you ask nicely. This is about my experience acting. So yeah, in case you didn't know me as a sixteen year old and chances are you didn't, I was very awkward, very intellectual, very cerebral, capable of vicious sarcasm for no good reason (some things never completely leave you), and into some pretty geeky things. I also had a pretty hard time functioning, just in general, being all of these things tended to leave me rather lonely and isolated. Oh and did I mention how insecure I was? That too.
Initially, it was tempting to bring those elements of myself into the character of Chuck. Except, Chuck isn't that kind of nerd. I think a lot of ways he's written to be almost the inverse of the nerd that many of nerdier types were, and the awesome self image of our selves we wish we could have inhabited, funny, self confident, joyous, has an easy time talking to girls (he primarily interacts with Agnes who in the world of the play and hey in real life too is an attractive twenty something) etc. He's also oddly mature for his age, at certain moments, and surprisingly self aware at others.
Arguably, he actually has his shit the most together of anyone in the play AND he gets a lot of the funniest dialogue AND he gets to wear a super cool cape. Basically, this part has been awesome to play. And it's been awesome to work with Company One, which has been one of my professional goals of late, because they do really cool stuff really consistently (and for a non union company in Boston, pay pretty well). They also bring in really cool directors, like Shira (hi Shira!) and Rob who's our fight director (hey wassup Rob) both of whom have done cool stuff other places and are bringing all kinds of awesomeness to the show, which I can't wait for you to see.
The show has been really challenging to put together, it feels like every other scene is a gigantic set piece of fighting or dancing or puppetry or some combination of those but I think the end result with lights and sound and everything else will be spectacular.
She Kills Monsters! Opens April 13th. Go here for tickets and stuff: http://www.bostontheatrescene.com/season/iShe-Kills-Monstersi/
Next time on I Think Therefore Iambic: I'll try and talk about the work I've been doing on my physical instrument since I got back from Shakespeare and Company, and maybe about my guitar playing, which I've been meaning to do as well.
In the months, oh wow it really has been months, since I've gotten back I've spent a lot of that time in rehearsals for She Kills Monsters, the ass kicking New England premiere of Qui Nguyen (a New York based writer and artistic director of Vampire Cowboys, a post modern theatre company based I think in Brooklyn) bad ass new play. I'm using that language to describe it because it's highly appropriate to the tone of the play. Which you'll find out if you see it when we open on April 13th!
Oh wow, a huge part of that journey has transpired, and I haven't been writing anything about it. Well let's fix that! So, in the show, I play Chuck Biggs but my homies call me DM Biggs, cause you know, I'm big where it counts (this is a quote from the show) as in my BRAIN! Not because I'm fat.
OK done quoting. A big part of the action of the show transpires in the world of a Dungeons and Dragons adventure concocted by the protagonists now deceased younger sister, which she's playing in order to better understand her now dead sibling who she never really got to know in real life. And in order to play Dungeons and Dragons, you need a dungeon master, or DM, who basically is the guy who rolls the dice for the characters and bad guys not being played by the players, and generally sets up and runs the world of the game through descriptions and charts and so on and so forth. So that's what I do! It's pretty fun. Chuck is a riff on the archetypal "nerd" we all conceive when we think of someone who'd be into that stuff, which I was as a younger person and still am in a very passing extent (I'm totally down to throw down on some board games any time anyone wants to) to the point that in our cast and crew of about fifteen I probably have the most knowledge about what it's like to actually play Dungeons and Dragons and how it works, or at least I'm most willing to talk about it and explain things. Which has been complicated somewhat, by the fact that the play wright really isn't interested in the actual mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons and more so in telling a compelling story. Which I'm totally on board with! But we've also tried to reconcile things and sometimes it's complicated.
But that's another post on the dramaturgy of the play, the sort which I've been known to write and maybe will at some point if you ask nicely. This is about my experience acting. So yeah, in case you didn't know me as a sixteen year old and chances are you didn't, I was very awkward, very intellectual, very cerebral, capable of vicious sarcasm for no good reason (some things never completely leave you), and into some pretty geeky things. I also had a pretty hard time functioning, just in general, being all of these things tended to leave me rather lonely and isolated. Oh and did I mention how insecure I was? That too.
Initially, it was tempting to bring those elements of myself into the character of Chuck. Except, Chuck isn't that kind of nerd. I think a lot of ways he's written to be almost the inverse of the nerd that many of nerdier types were, and the awesome self image of our selves we wish we could have inhabited, funny, self confident, joyous, has an easy time talking to girls (he primarily interacts with Agnes who in the world of the play and hey in real life too is an attractive twenty something) etc. He's also oddly mature for his age, at certain moments, and surprisingly self aware at others.
Arguably, he actually has his shit the most together of anyone in the play AND he gets a lot of the funniest dialogue AND he gets to wear a super cool cape. Basically, this part has been awesome to play. And it's been awesome to work with Company One, which has been one of my professional goals of late, because they do really cool stuff really consistently (and for a non union company in Boston, pay pretty well). They also bring in really cool directors, like Shira (hi Shira!) and Rob who's our fight director (hey wassup Rob) both of whom have done cool stuff other places and are bringing all kinds of awesomeness to the show, which I can't wait for you to see.
The show has been really challenging to put together, it feels like every other scene is a gigantic set piece of fighting or dancing or puppetry or some combination of those but I think the end result with lights and sound and everything else will be spectacular.
She Kills Monsters! Opens April 13th. Go here for tickets and stuff: http://www.bostontheatrescene.com/season/iShe-Kills-Monstersi/
Next time on I Think Therefore Iambic: I'll try and talk about the work I've been doing on my physical instrument since I got back from Shakespeare and Company, and maybe about my guitar playing, which I've been meaning to do as well.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Shakes and Co Day Two: The Journey I Have BegunJourney (Fuck Fuck Fuck)
I am drinking a beer as of this moment, taking all the sights, smells and sounds of my "boot camp for actors", as one of the faculty members at Shakespeare and Company just referred to it as.
I will say this about my second day at Shakespeare and Company as it's sitting with me in this moment, I did some of the most textually connected work I've ever done. Inevitably, that's what happens when I have a good teacher poking and prodding me to cut out the bullshit, but today that happened to the Nth degree.
This training regime is incredibly intense, in every possible way. The nature of the work is such that I have to be careful, for the safety of the other participants, how much more I describe about the process thus far. I will say, I am incredibly far outside of my Harvard Extension acting class comfort zone, in ways I wasn't initially completely on board with about the nature of this training, but after today I'm done "trying" to be on board and just here, experiencing everything that's happening, moment to moment.
Yoda said of course, "there is only do or do not, there is no try" and from this moment, I'm done trying. I am going to do, or I will fail and try again. And again. And again. And so forth.
That is my mantra. There is no try, there is only do, or do not and trying again. I'm also celebrating the power of "fuck", as a word. And acting from your junk. And yourself. And all the other good shit. Yeah.
I promise I'll make time to write a more meaningful blog post later. When I actually have some free time. Which will likely be never.
I will say this about my second day at Shakespeare and Company as it's sitting with me in this moment, I did some of the most textually connected work I've ever done. Inevitably, that's what happens when I have a good teacher poking and prodding me to cut out the bullshit, but today that happened to the Nth degree.
This training regime is incredibly intense, in every possible way. The nature of the work is such that I have to be careful, for the safety of the other participants, how much more I describe about the process thus far. I will say, I am incredibly far outside of my Harvard Extension acting class comfort zone, in ways I wasn't initially completely on board with about the nature of this training, but after today I'm done "trying" to be on board and just here, experiencing everything that's happening, moment to moment.
Yoda said of course, "there is only do or do not, there is no try" and from this moment, I'm done trying. I am going to do, or I will fail and try again. And again. And again. And so forth.
That is my mantra. There is no try, there is only do, or do not and trying again. I'm also celebrating the power of "fuck", as a word. And acting from your junk. And yourself. And all the other good shit. Yeah.
I promise I'll make time to write a more meaningful blog post later. When I actually have some free time. Which will likely be never.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Directing
Reading other people's blogs lead me to realize that someone with whom I've been collaborating had collaborated with previously another person with whom I had also collaborated in a production which meant a great deal to me, and upon looking up found pictures of I didn't realize existed and... wow. What a trip down memory lane. Oh I guess I'll tell you it was John Kuntz's blog, the person is Adam Stone and he directed the production of Pericles I did several moons ago, which... man what an incredible show that was. I don't even know how to describe it. We turned the entire theatre into Diana's temple. It was there the entire time under white butcher paper, and then at the most pivotal moment she came to Pericles and revealed it, and it was just amazing. I also got to play a bad guy, a really, really bad guy, which was awesome. And I had one of my most incredible on stage experiences. OK so basically Pericles is this Mediterranean prince during like the Roman era and he's traveling around and he comes to Antioch and the court of Antiochus to try and marry his daughter, who is renowned for her beauty and stuff. Except Antiochus, who is super evil (and in our version wore an Iron Maiden shirt and was super metal, if you've seen my Iron Maiden shirt that's where it's from) has this riddle and if you can't figure it out he chops off your head, except the answer is that he's having sex with his daughter, which Pericles realizes and manages to squirrel his way out of. After that, Antiochus comes back super pissed that he figured it out and plots to kill Pericles. So the second night, I wasn't feeling it so much as the previous night and was trying to do something different so I took a rubber head from my pile of heads and was addressing my speech to it but then I thought "this isn't working it's too Hamlet" at which point I threw the head against the ground in rage... it being rubber, it bounced off the ground, spun in the air above my head and came back down... right back into my hands.
The crowd erupts in laughter. It takes all my will power as a performer to keep it together, wait for the laughter to go down to start my next line and put the head back down onto the table which is on stage with me. That was one of the most incredible, serendipitous acting moments I've ever had and since I got started about Pericles, I had to share it.
And then thinking about Pericles and more recently Our Town both of which were fantastic productions due in large part to the strong directorial visions of Adam Stone and Jason Weber respectively, got me to thinking about directing. When I really start thinking about it, I think it's something I would like to do, except... I'm afraid. I directed a few scenes for classes while I was an undergrad, but I've never directed an entire piece. Part of what intimidates me is that I feel before I could really do something I would need a work that spoke to me on such a deep level that I could find a story within it that absolutely had to be told. Or something pretentious like that. Basically I would need to find something that I really, really like. But that I feel is within my power to pull off. For example, I really like Othello. There is no way I could pull that show off though as a director. It's up there with King Lear and Hamlet on the "difficult to make work" scale. Part of me also feels like I couldn't resist my own urge to act, and I would inevitably cast myself and be unable to effectively direct myself or the play at the same time and everything would inevitably suffer.
Still, I imagine it would be an incredible experience... having that level of ownership and creative control over something, to be able to conceive and execute a vision all your own (with the help and influence of numerous collaborators, of course) and see that on stage. Maybe, probably, someday. In the meantime, I can fantasize.
The crowd erupts in laughter. It takes all my will power as a performer to keep it together, wait for the laughter to go down to start my next line and put the head back down onto the table which is on stage with me. That was one of the most incredible, serendipitous acting moments I've ever had and since I got started about Pericles, I had to share it.
And then thinking about Pericles and more recently Our Town both of which were fantastic productions due in large part to the strong directorial visions of Adam Stone and Jason Weber respectively, got me to thinking about directing. When I really start thinking about it, I think it's something I would like to do, except... I'm afraid. I directed a few scenes for classes while I was an undergrad, but I've never directed an entire piece. Part of what intimidates me is that I feel before I could really do something I would need a work that spoke to me on such a deep level that I could find a story within it that absolutely had to be told. Or something pretentious like that. Basically I would need to find something that I really, really like. But that I feel is within my power to pull off. For example, I really like Othello. There is no way I could pull that show off though as a director. It's up there with King Lear and Hamlet on the "difficult to make work" scale. Part of me also feels like I couldn't resist my own urge to act, and I would inevitably cast myself and be unable to effectively direct myself or the play at the same time and everything would inevitably suffer.
Still, I imagine it would be an incredible experience... having that level of ownership and creative control over something, to be able to conceive and execute a vision all your own (with the help and influence of numerous collaborators, of course) and see that on stage. Maybe, probably, someday. In the meantime, I can fantasize.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Excitement
I'm inexplicably part of a very exciting collaboration, the members of which convened this morning to discuss it's current state and future implications. I'm being all vague because I feel like if I bring up who's involved or what it is or what we are thinking of doing with it (I shouldn't really say "we", I pretty much feel like I'm along for the ride) it could jinx it. Anyway it's an exciting prospect, and here I am at the ground floor! I don't know, I just came away from our meeting this morning feeling all excited, you know? I guess I'll admit it's a new play, one which I previously blogged about being a part of, so if you really want you can search through my previous posts and you'll figure it out (not that you are that invested). But it's just cool being part of the shaping of something like this, and the aspect of it being shaped around me and my personality as an actor. And did I mention the people involved? I guess I did indirectly. Well, they are super awesome. And it's not like it's just me and some dudes sitting around and dreaming, this is a committed group with a solid piece in the process of being fleshed out, and that's exciting.
It makes me think of one of the main things missing from my life artistically; writing. I guess I'm writing this, that's something. But I really should be developing more stuff for myself, skits, movie and play ideas, *cough* stand up *cough*. Whether or not any of this stuff is any good, I mean it won't be at first, getting the bad stuff out of the way now I'll be ready for when it actually matters later in my career, when I'm in a place where I really need to start making opportunities for myself by doing what artists and actors inevitably do, creating for myself.
I saw Three Viewings at New Rep tonight, and enjoyed it throughly. There were a handful of aspects I have reservations about, in particular the age of the actress of the middle piece didn't feel like it added it up with the time line of events her story was telling, but overall it was a very well acted, well designed piece and I found it worth going to.
Uncle Vanya is going well. I'm particularly excited for next week, when I get to sit and just watch Johnny Kuntz work. Did I mention I love Chekov? Because I do.
I don't know where this second piece in a row came from. Well, I guess the excitement of this morning combined with reading blog entries from earlier in the year, it felt like I was much less precious about what I wrote. I need to get back into that mind set. Writing is one thing, editing is another, you know what I mean? You write, write, and write some more, and then edit it later. That's how it work.
It makes me think of one of the main things missing from my life artistically; writing. I guess I'm writing this, that's something. But I really should be developing more stuff for myself, skits, movie and play ideas, *cough* stand up *cough*. Whether or not any of this stuff is any good, I mean it won't be at first, getting the bad stuff out of the way now I'll be ready for when it actually matters later in my career, when I'm in a place where I really need to start making opportunities for myself by doing what artists and actors inevitably do, creating for myself.
I saw Three Viewings at New Rep tonight, and enjoyed it throughly. There were a handful of aspects I have reservations about, in particular the age of the actress of the middle piece didn't feel like it added it up with the time line of events her story was telling, but overall it was a very well acted, well designed piece and I found it worth going to.
Uncle Vanya is going well. I'm particularly excited for next week, when I get to sit and just watch Johnny Kuntz work. Did I mention I love Chekov? Because I do.
I don't know where this second piece in a row came from. Well, I guess the excitement of this morning combined with reading blog entries from earlier in the year, it felt like I was much less precious about what I wrote. I need to get back into that mind set. Writing is one thing, editing is another, you know what I mean? You write, write, and write some more, and then edit it later. That's how it work.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Audition A/Audition B
Well, Our Town came and went. It was a pretty fantastic experience, every performance had some new discovery for me, and overall it was maybe the most satisfying live theatre experience I've yet to have in my career. That's pretty funny, considering I never thought I'd be doing Our Town when I was younger and if I knew I was I'd be more likely to guess I'd be playing George Gibbs and not Mr. Webb, but life is always full of unexpected surprises. I met some great people, made some new friends whom I hope will stand the test of time. It's an experience I'll look back on for a long time.
Also ending this past week, was Company One's Professional Development for Actor's class, which has been taking up my Tuesdays these past eight weeks. Yet another learning and growing experience, where I met a whole different group of talented individuals whom I hope to see in the near future. Tuesday was our show case, and we kicked it's ass! Particularly, I received positive feed back from audience members for a scene I did from Biloxi Blues, where the naive Neil Simon analogue (played by Matthew Broderick in the movie) loses his virginity to a prostitute. I also did more dramatic scenes from The Glass Menagerie (playing Jim! Jim and not Tom! Another role I wouldn't expect to find myself in) and Dinner With Friends by Donald Margulies both of which I was very happy with. Another great experience, worth reflecting on for some time.
The title of this post reflects my day today. This morning, I went to the BCA for Meals For Monologues, an event organized by CP Casting where actors could donate dried or canned goods to do two minutes of material in the form of a monologue for Carolyn Pickman of CP Casting and the head casting director for LDI Casting in Rhode Island. Prior to leaving my apartment this morning, I had thought I would use a piece from Crossing Delancey a romantic comedy where a pickle salesman tries to convince his more up town love interest of his inherent worth and to make him see what about him is lovable. I've only really used this piece once though, and knew it would be a risk to use it in this context and instead decided to go with a much more well worn and comedic piece from Suburbia by Eric Bogosian. My thought process was that they would be seeing a whole bunch of heavy handed "dramatic" monologues all day, and it would make more of an impact and also play more to my strengths as an actor to do something comedic. One possible complication, I hadn't used this particular piece in months, and I was standing in line waiting to go in for my two minute time slot, I had to think "wait how much of this piece do I actually remember?" and dig through my brain for all the verbs and wording and such not. If going up by myself in front of a couple of influential New England casting directors wasn't enough pressure, now I had to make sure I actually knew my piece, which I did but it made for a serious adrenaline cocktail.
Standing outside the door of the audition, I applied the Alexander Technique I've been working on these past few months to relieve my tension, get centered and find focus as well as put myself in a place to present my best self, the confident person with good posture and stuff. With the help of the technique and the need to do well, I went through the door, focused my adrenaline and hit the piece out of the park. It was probably the best I've ever done with the piece, I started out slow and simple and as the piece escalated and I felt the casting directors following my build up, discovered bits of physical comedy I hadn't done before and really worked each individual moment. At the end they were laughing out loud, and Carolyn told me "very well done" as I walked out the door. In short, I nailed it! Why couldn't I have done that in Stagesource? Oh well you win some and you lose some.
Later that night I had another audition back at the BCA with much smaller stakes, it just being for a small theatre company I think doing it's first real show in Boston, so I took that opportunity to test drive the other, more dramatic piece I rejected earlier in the day. If you put the two performances side by side, you might think they were completely different people because it was no where near the level I was performing at earlier in the day. This came down to several factors, I had none of the adrenaline I had earlier in the day. I've barely done this piece, I tried doing it sitting down which is not something I'd tried before or even rehearsed with. I really don't rehearse like I should for auditions, sometimes this pays off like it did earlier in the day, all the physical comedy came to me in the moment and it really worked because of it whereas in this case it caused me to more self conscious then necessary. I still felt OK about the audition, and afterwards I did a side which I thought was pretty good. Also considering the number of headshots I saw on the table, frankly I wouldn't be shocked if I got a call back but if not, oh well.
So that's a snap shot of where I'm at. Things coming up, a bunch of improv shows! I wrote last time about my front burner and back burner and improv is definitely going to get some time to itself now that I have Sundays and I'm not in the middle of rehearsing or performing a show. I am at the beginning of working on Uncle Vanya however, so that will be taking more and more priority as the weeks go by. And in the beginning of December, I'm doing a little Shakespeare scene recital thing with Hyperion, a group I worked was an undergrad. It seems to me like life (like time) is relative, it only appears to slow down, but it never actually does.
Also ending this past week, was Company One's Professional Development for Actor's class, which has been taking up my Tuesdays these past eight weeks. Yet another learning and growing experience, where I met a whole different group of talented individuals whom I hope to see in the near future. Tuesday was our show case, and we kicked it's ass! Particularly, I received positive feed back from audience members for a scene I did from Biloxi Blues, where the naive Neil Simon analogue (played by Matthew Broderick in the movie) loses his virginity to a prostitute. I also did more dramatic scenes from The Glass Menagerie (playing Jim! Jim and not Tom! Another role I wouldn't expect to find myself in) and Dinner With Friends by Donald Margulies both of which I was very happy with. Another great experience, worth reflecting on for some time.
The title of this post reflects my day today. This morning, I went to the BCA for Meals For Monologues, an event organized by CP Casting where actors could donate dried or canned goods to do two minutes of material in the form of a monologue for Carolyn Pickman of CP Casting and the head casting director for LDI Casting in Rhode Island. Prior to leaving my apartment this morning, I had thought I would use a piece from Crossing Delancey a romantic comedy where a pickle salesman tries to convince his more up town love interest of his inherent worth and to make him see what about him is lovable. I've only really used this piece once though, and knew it would be a risk to use it in this context and instead decided to go with a much more well worn and comedic piece from Suburbia by Eric Bogosian. My thought process was that they would be seeing a whole bunch of heavy handed "dramatic" monologues all day, and it would make more of an impact and also play more to my strengths as an actor to do something comedic. One possible complication, I hadn't used this particular piece in months, and I was standing in line waiting to go in for my two minute time slot, I had to think "wait how much of this piece do I actually remember?" and dig through my brain for all the verbs and wording and such not. If going up by myself in front of a couple of influential New England casting directors wasn't enough pressure, now I had to make sure I actually knew my piece, which I did but it made for a serious adrenaline cocktail.
Standing outside the door of the audition, I applied the Alexander Technique I've been working on these past few months to relieve my tension, get centered and find focus as well as put myself in a place to present my best self, the confident person with good posture and stuff. With the help of the technique and the need to do well, I went through the door, focused my adrenaline and hit the piece out of the park. It was probably the best I've ever done with the piece, I started out slow and simple and as the piece escalated and I felt the casting directors following my build up, discovered bits of physical comedy I hadn't done before and really worked each individual moment. At the end they were laughing out loud, and Carolyn told me "very well done" as I walked out the door. In short, I nailed it! Why couldn't I have done that in Stagesource? Oh well you win some and you lose some.
Later that night I had another audition back at the BCA with much smaller stakes, it just being for a small theatre company I think doing it's first real show in Boston, so I took that opportunity to test drive the other, more dramatic piece I rejected earlier in the day. If you put the two performances side by side, you might think they were completely different people because it was no where near the level I was performing at earlier in the day. This came down to several factors, I had none of the adrenaline I had earlier in the day. I've barely done this piece, I tried doing it sitting down which is not something I'd tried before or even rehearsed with. I really don't rehearse like I should for auditions, sometimes this pays off like it did earlier in the day, all the physical comedy came to me in the moment and it really worked because of it whereas in this case it caused me to more self conscious then necessary. I still felt OK about the audition, and afterwards I did a side which I thought was pretty good. Also considering the number of headshots I saw on the table, frankly I wouldn't be shocked if I got a call back but if not, oh well.
So that's a snap shot of where I'm at. Things coming up, a bunch of improv shows! I wrote last time about my front burner and back burner and improv is definitely going to get some time to itself now that I have Sundays and I'm not in the middle of rehearsing or performing a show. I am at the beginning of working on Uncle Vanya however, so that will be taking more and more priority as the weeks go by. And in the beginning of December, I'm doing a little Shakespeare scene recital thing with Hyperion, a group I worked was an undergrad. It seems to me like life (like time) is relative, it only appears to slow down, but it never actually does.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Finding the Punch
Another post about stand up. Tuesday is the next Middle East open mic, I'm back on forth on whether to go and do it or not. I talked to a friend in my improv troupe yesterday who spent many years doing work as a stand up, and she was encouraging, which was nice. One suggestion she had, which I'm aware of but haven't started doing yet, is recording yourself on stage to listen to later, which I think whenever I do it next I'll be trying.
I feel anxiety about the preparedness of my material. Not having really throughly prepared material hasn't stopped me from going up and doing it the past two weeks, but I feel like I need to fix that, that I need to get into a mode of WORKING on jokes (call back to a conversation I had with my friend James about working, don't worry you aren't supposed to get it), actively crafting them, but I don't feel the motivation, or the sense that I'd really know where to start in honing them and finding the punch (as in punch line) behind them. I have several premises, one or two one liners and several other ideas and stories floating in my head, a few of which I've tried to varying levels of success. It's tough only having five minutes, or this last time I did it when I got cut off early (which is what I get for showing up late) to work through material. Which is an argument for working on it off stage, and going up as much as possible.
Except I feel... lazy. Stand up isn't the same rush for me as is acting. But I feel compelled to pursue it. Ironic that I'm simultaneously lazy. People are impressed when I tell them about it, which is cool I guess. They say it must be exciting, and I respond "well it's very difficult".
This reminds me of an extremely awkward encounter I had waiting for the red line the other day. An elderly woman comes up to me, "are you Mike Handelman?" I tell that yes, I am, she lives around the corner from the Loeb and saw me last summer in Speech and Debate and then in Measure for Measure and wanted to know if I was doing Harvard Summer Theatre again which no, I am not, and I thanked her. It's nice to think that something about what I did in those shows made her remember my name, and that she wanted to see more of my work. It was awkward meeting a fan. I stumbled over my words somewhat in speaking to her, not because I was nervous but because it was simply strange and new.
Other things... I had a callback today. Not sure if I got it, haven't heard anything. Fingers crossed, although if I do get it, it will make things complicated with my other show which goes up about a month before. I did this same thing all of this past year, and it was pretty difficult, not crazy about repeating the process. But I need the experience and the credits, so if I do get it I'll have to say yes.
Tomorrow (today? it's Monday which I guess technically is today already) is my last Shakespeare class. What a ride it's been, I've certainly learned a lot. I'm a little nervous for our final presentation in front of a small audience. I'm sure I'll be fine, but I'd really like for my scene to go well, and it's been a challenge getting it from point A to point B.
In the meantime it's June going on July, I'm not rehearsing anything (yet), I'm just in summer mode. Summertime, and the living is easy, etc. I think I want to apply to grad schools this year. I just realized if I'm going to do that, I need to start sooner rather than later. Would you like to write me a letter of recommendation? No, I'm kidding. But seriously would you?
Friday, May 27, 2011
Clever enough title for you?
I think, therefore iambic pentameter. Clever, no?
I was trying to think of a title, and the phrase "I think therefore I am" came to mind. I remember first encountering that phrase in a chincy Star Wars expanded universe short story collection my Mom and I read when I was 8 or 9 called "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" (if you were at one time as much of a sci fi/star wars geek as I was, you may have seen or read it) and it had this super awesome IG88 short story about how he gains sentience and does all this cool stuff and takes over the second Death Star, at which point it kind of goes over the rails for me, but it was a cool book and I remember when he first breaks out of the imperial lab where he's created he stabs a scientist through the chest and his robotic hand comes out the other side clutching his still beating heart. This was like, the most violent thing I'd encountered in my young life at that point, with maybe a few exceptions but in general really extreme violence kind of freaked me out, but in this case it was pretty thrilling.
What does that have to do with my starting a new blog for the first time in several years? I don't know, I just want things to talk about. In general, I want to reflect my mental state and events as they occur to me, primarily around my budding acting career, but also more generally. If I can't go off on a tangent in my own blog, where else can I do so? In conversation with strangers? That does happen, I'll admit.
I hear someone shouting what sounds like weirdly militaristic commands outside the open window of my apartment. Probably a crazy person.
Back to the short story collection, I associate that memory very vividly from my childhood visiting California with my family while my brother must have been going to UC Santa Cruz. My earliest memories are of California, even though I was born in and consider myself to be "from" Boston, where I've resided since I was about 7, I suppose. I remember loving the place for the time I spent there that Spring or Summer, and wanting to get back to it for a long time after. Before becoming fixated on New York as my eventual future place of residence, I wanted to go to college and/or move out to northern California. I remember I was going to be a scientist, and marry someone in the arts, that was the plan at the ages of 12 and 13. Ironically, I'm pursuing the arts, and my girlfriend wants to be a pharmacist, ten years later.
I miss allowing the associations of moments and memories to bounce around and on to the page. I used to do that in my poetry, but then I stopped writing it, I think because I worked through what I needed to work through, my loneliness, the passing of a very dear friend, among other things. But this blog can be that! And more topical, as I chronicle my transition from student to starving artist, hurray!
Artistically, a lot has been going on this year. I've counted, and I did *counts on fingers* six plays from January to now in 2011, that's so much acting! And I didn't make any money for it! Actually, that's not true, the other day I did a shoot for the Dana Farber Institute, playing a medical assistant demonstrating how not to abandon a cancer patient in a hallway by... abandoning a cancer patient in a hallway! Played by one my fellow Harvard Extension acting classmates, which I thought was funny. That paid $40. Next month I start running a bar quiz in Kendall Square, that'll pay $50 a night plus $25 in free food and drinks, my first real income. I've also shot some cool film stuff, I played a character on drugs for a webseries, and half of a podcasting duo, a leading role (!) in another webseries which was super awesome fun cause I got to do whatever I wanted in the scenes, within the framework given, and ohhhh I did.
Now that I've graduated, I'm starting to think about how I can expand my craft. In particular, I want to learn to start writing and performing for myself, possibly by doing *gulp* stand-up, or writing and filming or performing my own sketch stuff. I say gulp, because in case you weren't aware, stand up is fucking difficult. How do I know that!? I've never done it! You say! Well I've been listening to hours of WTF with Marc Maron, and before that The Sound of Young America, and from my podcasting that is the impression I get. It takes a lot of time and effort to do it well. But then again, I'm really funny. And I do improv, and I'm good at that, and that's basically like writing spontaneously, so if I can get the juices going in the right direction, shouldn't I be able to apply that to other forms, ala sketch and improv?
These are the things I've been thinking about. Also, auditions. I have a bunch of them coming up. Including Stagesource, which I'm yet to start seriously preparing for, tick-tock, tick-tock, etc. I've been trying to arrange some monologue coaching and kind of failing, if all else fails I can start emailing professors or director/actor friends and generally preparing on my own. I have a callback for a kind of wonky sounding production of Hamlet this Sunday, then over the next few weeks, Rosencratz And Guildenstern Are Dead, a short film at the Art Institute, Boston Actors Theatre, Happy Medium Theatre Company and... Stagesource. Probably more will pop up too. I sort of feel like I should take a break from acting in plays, being in so many over such a short period of time has kind of drained me. But after a week or two of not doing anything, I'll probably be hungry to get back in rehearsals and on stage.
Oh shit! I'm burning through topics for future blog posts! Better cut this off. I think it'll be nice to repost old poems from when I used to write, in tribute to my former livejournal. Until next time. If there is a next time.
---
California Murmurs
From my memory, murmurs of California
Snippets of people and places surround me
Consuming what serenity I possess.
I'm haunted by voices from the playground
The sand beneath my feet at Santa Cruz beach.
Sealion's song rises to the boardwalk
Raising with it nostalgia to take me
And sweetly overcome my five senses,
Pulling me back to San Francisco Bay.
A chilled wind comes in on the ocean tide
I pull in the woolen cloak of memory
To keep whatever warmth will remain
Before the breeze brings back the present.
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