Blogging Along the River of Babylon (no significance just sounds cool)

Well hello readers of my blog! Why am I addressing this as an epistle? Well, why not. Did you know that before the novel entered it's modern 19th to 20th century incarnation, epistolary fiction was a very popular form? Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for example. I learned in that my college expository writing class where I was supposed to have read a bunch of them but didn't really and still got like an A-.

Anyway, I feel like catching up on a few things with y'all. For instance, this is going to be the first of no doubt numerous blog posts on my second go around with Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This time as you know, I'm playing Alfred and at this rate when I inevitably do the show again because people do this play kind of a lot maybe I'll be Hamlet and the time after that, who knows! Anyway, so yeah, from my end of things we've had two rehearsals with the Tragedian ensemble mostly exploring physical character work type stuff through acting games, mimes and practicing dying different ways (as the player hammers him, his troupe of players are very into deaths) and a little bit of rough playing around sort of workshopping a few of the "play within a play" tableau type sequences. So far, so fun! As it turns out, we'll be the ensemble of tragedians for both the English and Spanish versions of the production. At the rehearsals I've been to, we didn't have the Player's Spanish speaking counterpart but that will be a serious trip figuring out how to coordinate those sequences in a language I don't particularly speak, para un pequito (which I think means except a little bit).

Last night was the first I'd been in a room with what was close to being but wasn't quite as if often the case the full cast for our read through, in English but trading off and stuff. And man, this play is dense. Our director Danielle has cut it down substantially in the hopes of making it run two hours or less and will probably cut it even more before we're through. To be honest, even having been in it, big parts of this play are still a little over my head. But then, I've never really put the full energy necessary to sitting down with the entire text, reading it through and putting all the pieces about the nature of drama and metaphysics together. Hearing it read again though, those things clicked for me in some new ways, so maybe I'll make it part of my blogging project this summer to chronicle both the bi-lingual experience and my own musings on the piece's dramaturgy.

As that is just now beginning to crawl along, Three Sisters is running to the finish line! But first we must overcome the massive hurdle... OF TECH WEEK. Tonight is supposed to be our first off book run, and I feel mostly ready. This past Sunday was our first stumble through and it definitely highlighted the problem passages for me, which isn't to say that this from a memorization stand point this translation is anything but problematic. But the character is there, the arc is there, the relationship with Irina is there and in theory this is the best and most fun part. Actually getting to do it!

As an actor getting the opportunity to act it's important to stop every once in a while and think "wow this is so great, I'm acting!" because hey, getting a shot at working your stuff in a room of people is hard to do so be grateful when it happens. In that way, acting is different than most creative pursuits. Painters, writers, musicians they can just sit and do there thing and take down their output even if it's going into a void. But acting doesn't exist in a void, inherently it requires an audience! Technology and Youtube and stuff has brought us closer to the model of a recording artist or writer, in that with the internet you can put yourself out into the world, but it's incredibly hard to create traction. Generally with theatre, some of that exists, although not always and that's one kind of experience that it's much more complicated to manufacture. So you know, I've hit on this theme before, remain grateful.

Speaking of being grateful, I had an experience to be grateful for yesterday, an audition for a part in a feature film. Specifically, The Way Way Back which was written and is being directed by the writers of The Descendants and will have Steve Carell in it. Exciting, right? I read for Charlie, an 18 year old hippy stoner dead head guy, who one of the leads a 14 year old kid has a brief interaction with at a beach party. It required me to act spaced out and do a sort of weird spacey dance and deliver a few lines. Which I did! I tried to keep it interesting and make fun dynamic choices while also bringing in the world of the party, the guy putting me on tape had me go gradually bigger and bigger with it, which I did hopefully without blowing out the frame, so to speak. And maybe I'll get a call back. More likely not because those are just the brakes. But again, I was grateful for the opportunity, and that's where you've gotta be.

Times Flies When You're Busy Doing Stuff

OK, time to blog! And so much so far this week worth blogging about.

For one thing, I had a callback on Monday for Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead. How'd it go? Pretty good! OK can I be honest? I feel a little weird blogging about it, because it was for Apollinaire and having worked there this past year I sort of know all those people and it feels weird blogging about our interactions because well, they might read it, right? That's the point of blogging, so people read what you write. So I do have more of a point of view then "pretty good", for example I could have prepared better. But, I was in the show, so I kind of know it. I guess I did have one epiphany worth sharing that I don't feel weird about. At the very end of the show, Rosencratz and Guildenstern realize they are going to die and they turn to the Player for answers. But, he doesn't have any for them. Guildenstern in a fit of rage, frustration and powerlessness, pulls the Player's own knife on him and threatens him with it, ultimately stabbing him (seemingly) to death. I was going over the side, trying to figure out "What does Guildenstern want and why?" and I realized it was purely vindictive, in the face of his own powerlessness he wants to feel more powerful than someone else, to take hold of some kind of control in the face of an absurd universe and the most available individual is the player. Now, maybe that's wrong, but that's what I was feeling in the audition. And I thought "man that's really heavy stuff, to be face to face with your own absurd, meaningless existence and imminent death, then to take that rage and vent into the most available human being by harming them". Now to be fair the player is kind of despicable. He prostitutes a young boy, literally. But I mean man, that's just so raw. And I don't think I was able to get that across. So probably I didn't get Guildenstern. We'll see. Whatever the case, much love to my Apollinaire peeps, I'll be back in the fall for our revival of Uncle Vanya.

Speaking of which, Uncle Vanya was nominated for three Eliot Norton awards!!! Outstanding fringe theatre production, outstanding direction in a small/fringe theatre and outstanding performance for my friend Ronald Lacey as Astrov. Man, does that feel good to say. All three feel good for different reasons. I'm super proud of and happy for Ron. I mean, he's my buddy, we were in this show together and now he's been nominated for this super prestigious award, how could I not be? And also of course the same goes for Danielle, who brought such a wonderful light touch to the material and really made the most of the space and the staging concept (and brought me in to begin with). And I feel a sense of pride in myself for being a part of it, I really feel like I'm part of our nomination for outstanding production... because hey I was part of that production! And in an integral way, obviously not more integral than anyone else, that's not what I mean. But if this had gone to a show where I was just a spear carrier, I wouldn't feel this way. I just feels great after the fact that I was included the way I was in the staging concept, with my guitar playing and then serving as the role of guide on the Serbeiakov (I totally butchered that spelling) estate. So yeah, super happy about that.

Fast forwarding to yesterday, that was quite eventful. I may not have mentioned it explicitly, but I'm not part of one of six one act plays premiering Friday, April 27th as part of Six Playwrights in Search of a Stage at Roxbury Repertory Theatre. The play I'm in is called The Apology and it's about incest! Sounds fun, right? It's actually a good challenge. On paper, it sort of looks like a Lifetime movie but reading it aloud it kind of feels like an echo of August: Osage County or something. And taking a very dramatically heightened situation like that, a son confronting his mother over the rape of his older sister by his older brother, trying to find an answer to the question "how could you let this happen?" and really grounding that, and trying to make it truthful and real... it's going to be a great acting challenge. And it's only 7 pages long, so that's a bonus. So far, the director and the actress playing my mother have been great. I'm really excited to dig into this piece.

After that was the second session of Auditioning for Film and Television with Carolyn Pickman over at CP Casting and I've already gotten my money's worth. I was looking over a side as a grocery clerk in a crime drama and I said to her "what do I do to nail this?" and she told me "look for the second choice, not the most obvious one, but the second one and do that". In this case, the most obvious choice was an "oh shit" reaction when the matriarch of a criminally connected family tries to give me a counterfeit bill. But instead, I played the first beat a little light "Oh, I'm sorry miss I can't take this" then when that doesn't work, "oh shit, what am I going to do" because the majority of auditioners are just going to be saying "oh shit" for the whole thing. If you can find that second beat though, you'll stand out. This fits with what Scott Zigler taught in Practical Aesthetics, find one tactic, then when it doesn't work, find a completely different one, and so on. So anyway, it's been great so far. I'll try to pepper in any more easily digestible nuggets as they come up.

Then after that, I played music with people for the first time in ages. Two thirty something dudes near where I live by Porter Square, and we just jammed on some blues and classic rock tunes. All Along The Watchtower, Sunny, Jammin, etc. And it was a good time. One of them plays rhythm guitar and sings, the other plays bass, so as a lead guitar kinda guy, I was a real good fit. And that felt great.

All in all, things are feeling good. Hey by the way, Crooked Arrows is being featured on Extra tomorrow, so check that out. Well, I know, it's Extra so I don't blame you if you don't. After it does, the official trailer will be released, so do check that. Until then, au revoir.

Meeting (Your Own) Expectations

So as you most likely know from my various Facebook posts, Monday was my Stagesource audition. It did not go as I expected it would, which is not to say it went poorly, but I did learn some important lessons and some things I could have done better. I did get to the BCA nice and early, which was good, I was there over an hour before my appointed time so I had ample time to chill out. Something I forgot to do however was eat properly. I'd had a decent meal earlier in the day, but by the time five o'clock rolled around and my audition was nigh my stomach was almost growling, which is not good. Why? Well I guess everybody is different, I've heard that some stand ups need to be somewhat uncomfortable to do their best performing but I think that's because stand up inherently comes from a place of tension, whereas stage performance is the lack there of. So that was a distraction, and I think it aided in sinking my first piece, which was my at this point defacto comic monologue from Eric Bogosian's "Suburbia". It's pretty lewd, but usually effective. When I got into the room though, I saw the set to Company One's Hookman looming over me, and I was indecisive as to where I should plant myself in relationship to it (if I could give one major note to the Stagesource folks, neither time when I've done it was it clear to me where the lighting in the room was strongest and it would be nice to have a sense of focused lighting in the performance area instead of the very general, kind of dim room light of Rehearsal Hall A). This indecision further threw off my already not spot on energy and when I went into my slate I stumbled through it a little, then as I went into the first piece, the piece that I felt confident I'd be hitting out of the park because I'd done it so many times successfully my energy kind of petered out, I felt the auditors shutting down and it just kind of went limp. At least that was my perception at the time. Near the end, I was able to get a few sort of chortles, then I gave a little nod to signify it was over and launched into my next piece...

Before I get there though, let's look at those moments. Things I could not have controlled were the set up of the room, which threw me for a loop. Also, the stage manager pulled me straight from the green room and I had no heads up I would be on deck, which isn't anybody's fault and probably was because they were running behind (another factor out of my control) but I could have used the time of the previous auditioner to steady myself and really focus. But I should have been doing that the entire time regardless. Also as I mentioned before, the whole day was a little behind schedule and it was 5 o'clock with the auditors having just come off a smoke break. So, if I was depending on some of the energy in the room to help power my piece it being comedic and that being how I tend to work with comedic material that wasn't going to happen.

All of which could have been subverted, had I prepared it better! Instead, I put the little time I did spend preparing into my second piece, an excerpt from Measure For Measure. You know, the one where Claudio begs his sister for his life. I found I went on an interesting journey with this piece. I enlisted the help of a director friend of mine (Thanks Scott!) and we tried out various "key signatures", that is to say levels of intensity, energy, movement, etc. In the end, we took it inward, removing all the gesturing, gesticulating and vocal variety I'd tried using to get into the life or death stakes of the piece and focused all of my energy into the act of just talking to my sister as if she were a real person. This is what I call "cutting out the bullshit" and it worked for me. Sometimes it works if I go in sort of the opposite direction, if you'd seen Our Town or Swimming in the Shallows or when I played Elbow in Measure for Measure those were all highly vibrant, colorful characters. My other piece is supposed to showcase this aspect of my work. Sometimes though, we forgot that most often in real life people just talk to other people directly and as human beings, so that's what we went for in this monologue. It did have a nice key change from when Claudio goes from describing the potential torments of the afterlife, to the more humanistic argument that his sister saving him trumped all over existing forms of morality and would become a virtuous act. So I played all that, and I felt like it went much better.

But who knows! At this point, it's totally out of my control and that's the actor's life. If nothing else, 40 copies of my headshot and resume are out in the world and that must be a good thing. And I learned a few lessons, if your going to be at an audition for a long time make sure you've eaten beforehand or if it's going to be a really long time bring a snack. Don't let anything throw you off, as soon as you know you might be on anytime soon start focusing in and don't stop. Then when you get in the room, let nothing break that focus. Oh and the most important thing, PREPARE YOUR SHIT. This year I tried to tell myself via this blog that I would do better than I did last year and actually I do think that I did but not as well as I would have liked or was capable of. In the end, that was my lack of preparation. And you know, that happened because I was so busy acting already. So I can't really complain, as long as I from moment to moment am getting better than in some sense I'm winning, I think.

Just remember dear readers, control what is under your control and everything that's not forget about.

How do you know what's right?

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

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

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

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

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

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