Theatricaling

Oh my... so! Let's blog some shit! Yeah!

What have I been doing? Uncle Vanya, that's what, five times a week for the past four weeks, that's how much. After tonight's show, a young guy introduced himself to me, and complimenting my guitar playing, asked "so how is doing this show for you? Stressful?" and I said "stressful? Shit no. I hang out, play some guitar, chill out back stage, do my three lines, play some more guitar, hang out some more, do a few cues off stage and then have a beer." And that's the way life should be. My friend Anne, who's playing Nanny, said to me the other night "you're probably ready to play a bigger role now, right?" And thinking about it, I've made so many little discoveries with the music from night to night, and with my few little interactions on stage, as "small" as my part has been I've got nothing to complain about. Especially with my guitar playing... I've gotten to be so much better of a musician from this show. There's something very pure and simple about jamming out on a few russian folk tunes for thirty minutes every night, solo on stage. You really do develop a different level of chops playing in front of people, which despite the fact that I've been playing since I was 17 (which is what, six or seven years now?) I haven't done that much of in my guitar playing career. So that's been really satisfying. And hearing myself develop and change how I approach the music night after night, finding new nuances, new variations, new ideas in these simple melodies. Again, totally solo. And in front of crowds of thirty people, which forces you to focus and when an idea gets tired move on from it because even though it's a very private moment on stage, ultimately I'm performing for a room full of people. Among other things, I hope it's really solidified my confidence as a musician. As an actor, I have no problem doing my thing in front of people because that's what it's all about. But like I said, I haven't done a lot of live music performance before this and the times in the past when I had I used to get surprisingly nervous, believe it or not. But I think I have my sea legs under me. And it helps I played these tunes for the entire duration of the last run of the show, and now coming back to them and playing them for four more weeks I really know them in and out.

And I've discovered so many new things in the process about playing the classical guitar, for the first three weeks of the run completely with my fingers, a technique I've become light years more comfortable with (again that thing of chops from playing in front of people) and now this week I've started bringing my very anachronistic plastic, bright red "jazz" style guitar pick on stage with me (jazz style in this case refers to the dimensions of the pick which are very small and subsequently make it ideal for the kind of precise technical stuff you'd be doing in a jazz setting, that's it) and discovering brand new things in the process.

So that's all been very fun. Don't tell the cast, but I've been meaning to sit down and record all of this music at home to make a nice CD to give everyone as a memento of our experience. Oh wait probably some of my cast will read this... well don't tell those other people! Or do, and then they'll be expecting it and I'll be forced to put up or shut up and get it done this week because only five more shows to go, oh my god!

In other news, I've begun auditioning for things as opportunities that fit within my schedule have been springing up. In between the relatively close proximity of this show with Rosencratz and Guildenstern and that show with Three Sisters, I haven't been able to audition for a lot of things I would have liked to have gone out for, but oh well. And now I'm doing the winter intensive at Shakespeare and Company, which is very, very exciting, but limits even further what I'm able to audition for. But, now things are coming down the pipeline that don't start rehearsing until February, and as they trickle through Stagesource I've been responding. What are they? I don't feel like saying, because two of them I didn't get and the third isn't until next weekend and I don't want to go and jinx it!

Other than that, with Uncle Vanya wrapping up I can look forward to getting out and seeing more of the local theatre (with a Boston accent, theatuh)! This afternoon, I made it out to 44 Plays for 44 Presidents from Bad Habit Productions and directed by my buddy, Jeff Mosser! Who I interviewed about it! So I was pretty excited, because the last show I saw from Bad Habit in this same space, Much Ado About Nothing With A Twist was awesome so I'm a fan of the company and of Jeff. How was it?Well, I can't be critically distant because it's Jeff, but I liked it! It brought up some really interesting questions about how we interpret history and also the darker epochs that reveal themselves of colonial aggression, genocide, racism and war that make up the fabric of American history. I mean, have you ever thought that essentially the entire political climate beginning from the decision to allow slavery to be abolished in the North and continue in the South was one big build up to the Civil War? One of the most violent conflicts in world history up that point? Have you? Well I did after seeing this show! Oh and it was very funny and entertaining. So I recommend checking it out! Here's a tagline for Bad Habit, "Both fun and thought provoking, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents is a People's HILARIOUS History of the United States!" There you go! Use it, I dare you.

To Train Or Not To Train? (it's a rhetorical question)

Hello blog. I'm writing this chunk of blog post from backstage at Uncle Vanya. Which, have you bought your ticket to yet? Its pretty great. Anyway this is week two, and we've been extended through November 11th! So there goes your excuse to miss this once in a life time piece of theatrical inspiration. 

So speaking of which, I saw the Globe Theatre's production of Hamlet today at Emerson. How was it? I liked it. I enjoyed having such a young Hamlet, it put the play in a context that made sense for me. My closest connection to the text was from doing that sort of anti Hamlet in college that I've referenced which actually had a vaguely similar conceit. And I liked all the minimal staging and the effort to bring some of the atmosphere of the old globe to the Paramount. Anyway, I'm going to try and read it this week and come up with more of a response. 

During intermission, I got an email confirming I'd been accepted to the month long intensive training with Shakespeare and Company, out in Lenox. Before you congratulate me on anything, it's not an accomplishment so much as an inevitably of my application. Which is to say, it's $4000, for the month of January in Western Mass, and considering the economic situation of most actors I don't imagine it's especially competitive. But it's sort of ironic that I received my official acceptance while watching a Shakespeare play, and since I wasn't cast in that show I blogged about going up in that same time frame, I'll probably do it.

And I'm looking forward to it. All of the people I know who've gone through the training speak very highly of it, and this will be my first exposure to a conservatory-esque environment, as opposed to all the evening and extension classes that have made up my training, I'll live and breath acting and Shakespeare for at least a month, and that's exciting, right? It'll be hard too, being away from home and my friends and family and especially my girlfriend. But worth it, I hope.

So thats where I'm at, and also figuring out what to do next. The trouble is it will keep me from doing a show until March or April, which will leave December relatively barren, and that kind of worries me, as I always feel my best when I'm active creatively and doing stuff and having a reason to leave my apartment. Especially during the winter time, which is always tough, with the cold and reduced day light, etc.

But I have this blog, my music, oh and my podcast which has been going actually pretty well. It took me a few tries after the first one to get in a groove but I released a new one and have another on the editing dock I'm happy with. So far I've had three "guests", one of them recurring in the form of my friend Jesse, and some other peeps I have in mind to invite on. My goal starting out was just to get to where I dont suck and I feel I'm accomplishing that. The question now is, when do I go on iTunes? Usually in your first day or two on the service you get listed as a new show and with that some base number of downloads which then drops off. How much it drops off depends on how good your product is. I've moved to a new, higher quality recording method, and have gotten much slicker at editing. Sooner or later I've gotta bite the bullet and take those steps. Which, actually I'm excited to do.  

And excited for what the future holds! Which, well, is anxiety until I get cast in my next thing. But there auditions, and since I keep booking things I must be doing something right. Whatever that is, I've just got to keep on keeping on, doing what I do. 

Dealing with Disappointment (And remaining grateful)

So, I had an audition and was called back for a local educational Shakespeare theatre company this week. You know the one. For the callback, I was asked to prepare sides for Mercutio and Bottom, two of my dream roles. Normally in these situations, I've learned to distance myself from the possibility of being cast, but seeing as I really wanted the gig, and also to work with the director, someone I know and respect quite a lot, I didnt. I allowed myself to want it, to think about getting it and that maybe i could and would. I really tried to prep the sides as best as i could.

Of the sides, one was Queen Mab, which I actually mostly know having learned it for another audition at Stoneham, previously blogged about. So i tried to relearn it. In addition, we were given the first scene between Demitrius and Helena. But the thing that really took me was Bottom's Dream, and what a dream of a piece it is. 

I read Midsummer Night's Dream when I was in middle school and then saw it in the round at Northshore music theatre, as we would do with Romeo and Juliet the next year. It was my first real exposure to Shakespeare. I remember liking the production, and Puck in particular. I'd hadn't given much thought to Midsummer since, it's one of those plays everybody does that theatre people poo poo as being safe or redundant as a production choice. I always figured, being a comedic actor, I'd do Bottom sooner or later. I did all the clowns in Shakespeare plays in college and at one time sort of aspired to make them my bread and butter. Little did I know just what a role Bottom is, and realizing that sucked me down the rabbit hole of desire that often leads to disappointment. 

I don't often indulge myself that way, of really wanting something like that, unless it's something with someone I know pretty well and can count on getting something in, and even then I temper my expectations. Because disappointment is painful. We've all been tnere, it's nothing new. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I maybe focused too much on Bottom and not enough on the two person scene that i did first and which was really my audition. My scene partner was great, she played the role and attacked it with a lot of energy, which I responded to and we improvised all sorts of fun stuff, it was really cool. But who knows how good I actually was, I don't, and it doesn't really matter. What they needed were people to drive to schools and do stage combat (the shows were Midsummer, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, far amount of sword fighting), I have neither a car or stage combat experience, so there you go. I shouldn't say that, of course they needed talented people, and there were plenty of them at the callback to choose from (who did have cars and stage combat experience). After that reading, I was released and I basically knew what that meant. But another girl in that position asked to read her second piece and they let her. I'm sure it didnt matter in the long run but if nothing else I wanted to show someone my Bottom (haha I'd already gotten into the character!) so i asked to stay and read it. They were very kind in indulging me, and laughed politely and complimented the piece. I thought it was pretty funny, but who ever knows, and ultimately irrelevant.

No, not irrelevant, being defeatist about it doesn't accomplish anything. The optimistic rationalist in me, the voice of other people who maybe don't work in this business for example is saying "but maybe they saw something and will think of you for something else because of it" and yeah, maybe. And of course it didn't hurt. And it gave me something else to take away, another layer to the experience, in that I was at the audition and I did my best to get in the most auditioning while I was there and try out this piece I'd been working on. One of the auditioners even said, when I expressed my delight at discovering Bottom, "if nothing else you have a new audition piece". 

I found out from a friend at the callback, while waiting to do last night's performance of Vanya, that he'd gotten the role and my heart sunk. It was offficial. I tried not to wallow in my disappointment but it was with me through preshow and the first act. I think my castmates sensed it and tried to indirectly cheer me up which was very sweet of them. By the time of act 4, I was busy doing show stuff I have to, and feeling better. After a beer, a glass of wine and some cathartic guitar playing at the reception my spirits were feeling buyoed. Such is the power of music, theatre, and alcohol, right? Oh and of course, the most important of all, friendship.

And now its on to the next thing. I have an audition Monday, oh and three more weeks of Vanya to do. I thought of writing "to get through" but the show's such a pleasure to be a part of, get through what? Perform in a beautiful production of a play i love by my favorite writer ever with people I like and enjoy being around? To quote the Vanya, "what a rough deal. Where's the rough part?" And furthermore "to gratitude!" 

Review! Uncle Vanya at Apollinaire Theatre through November 6th (putting on my critic's hat for once)

Well, hello! Lately I've been thinking about reviews, seeing as I just opened a show and my cast mates and I have been hoping that someone would come over the river for a second time to give our revival of Uncle Vanya a write up, and move us closer to the goal of a sold out run like last time.

So I thought to myself, "I have a blog, why don't I review the show?" Normally, I don't use this space for theatrical criticism of local work, because being a part of the local theatre community and inevitably having personal relationships to someone or something or some aspect to any given production I see, I can't hope to be critically objective. Nor do I want to be when I go to the theatre. I always go into a show, no matter what it is or who I know in it or what I know about it, really wanting to like it, right? Don't we all want to see something worthwhile? Especially when we have friends involved! Then you have even more impetus to authentically enjoy the work! Well, I'm friends with everyone in the Vanya cast and crew, and getting to watch them work night after night through rehearsals, tech and now performances with an audience and all that entails... it's simply a delight. And it deserves to be written up in review form, so that's what I'm going to do, throwing any and all pretense of critical objectivity right out the window where it belongs.

Thus far, audience reactions have been uniformly, profoundly positive, as they should be, because it's a beautiful production. Comparing the current iteration of the production to last year's, is apples and oranges. And I say that with a strong sense of objective conviction. But I can say assuredly that the performances of my compatriots from that previous version, Ron Lacey as Astrov, Ann Marie Shea as Marie, Kevin Fennessy as Telegin, Ann Carpenter as Nanny and Erin Eva Butcher as Sonya, have only grown deeper with time and continue to grow new, subtle and wonderful levels of meaning while also shifting to accomodate the new energies brought by Kate Paulsen as Yelena, Jack Schultz as the Professor and Diego Arciniegas in the title role. I've seen these performers go through the process of first rediscovering everything about the previous production while also exploring everything new brought by the additional cast. Whom for their part have enhanced the existing frame work of the production by bringing their new discoveries which then combined with the expansion of the work laid out... is simply breathtaking. I wrote previously of how conscious this time around of the play's sense of breath, and how perfectly laid out every beat of the story is. Danielle Fauteux Jacques has explicitly directed each and every beat of that story, and Chekhov's poetic contrasts and flawed characters feel as modern as the moment we are living in with her skilled and subtle hand.

This is to say nothing of the production's design, with elegantly constructed, period accurate costumes by Toni Bratton Elliott, effective sound design by Emily Ledger which takes advantage of the buildings natural acoustics... which brings us to the productions most novel and perhaps brilliant aspect which ties all of these parts together, it's site specific staging with set designs by Nathan K. Lee which make you feel the three dimensional weight of the estate around you as you travel from room to room.

Guiding you on this journey, and periodically serenading you, while making occasional appearances in the action... is Mike Handelman. Who is writing this blog post (it just got meta). It's all pretty effective, the whole effect of him playing music through the preshow, leading the audience from room to room and acting as the bridge between the audience and the world of the estate. And you know, he does an OK job at it. Alright he's pretty good. (I can't give myself too high praise, now can I?) (Oh no I accidentally gave myself most of a paragraph)

This is truly a marvelous and unique piece of the theatre the likes of which have never been seen in Boston to my knowledge. It is truly a once in a lifetime production... revived! And maybe made even better. Miss out at your own risk, last time the run sold out quickly and it's due to do so again!

PHEW that was really difficult. Just like, coming up with different adjectives for everything and stuff... that's the last time I try to write a review. But I felt it was necessary to celebrate the work being done in this production by my friends, the cast and crew, and I feel a review is a fitting extension of the experiential nature of this blogging endeavor. Wouldn't you agree?

Well that's my exercise in self promotion. Oh if you want tickets, go here: http://www.apollinairetheatre.com/productions/productions.html

Revisiting Friends at the Serebryakov Estate

Well, hello there blogosphere! God I hate that word. Well, hello there people who read my blog! I realize it's been a while, my posts have become much more erratic since I was writing like a man possessed this past summer... well, I'll try to be better about it. Even though I still owe a post, partially written down the pipeline, on the intensive in Lecoq technique I took two, almost three weekends ago and also my foray into modern dance at Boston Ballet with my dance teacher... after tonight's rehearsal of the revival of Uncle Vanya, I just can't help blogging about it!

This is my second time revisiting a previously mounted production with an altered cast, the previous time having been when we did The Muse for Turtle Lane's Young Actor's Winter Festival and then it was accepted into the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, and because the actor who'd played my counterpart had to work all that summer, we recast the role, with the other actor out of the cast of three remaining constant. And that was quite an interesting experience seeing how the play changed but fundamentally remained the same production.

It was also in many ways like visiting with an old friend, especially when we did it again for another festival the play was in consideration for where we quickly rehearsed and filmed it, again with another actor. Relearning the lines was like putting on a familiar suit, or I don't know something else you only wear for specific occasions, you come up with a metaphor.

In this case, I am reconnecting with old friends, specifically all the returning cast from our previous go around with this show, a few of whom I've had the pleasure of working with in the intervening time. It's also meant revisiting the music I learned to play on the guitar for the show last December, which is coming at a quite a good time for me musically actually, as in the last few months I've gotten back into guitar playing in a way I hadn't felt for sometime.

In addition of course I'm being reunited with Chekov's play... have I written enough about Chekhov in this blog? Frankly I have not! I remember being introduced to Chekhov in I guess what was basically my junior year of college, right before turning 21. In fact, it would have been right around this time that I would have been starting my Chekhov themed acting class with my teacher Scott Zigler whom I credit for first giving me many of the tools I use in my work today, much of it coming through that class.

I remember vividly how stuck I'd become in my work the previous year after working for two semesters with a very, very far out college director on productions of Suddenly, Last Summer in the autumn (which I actually thought was very good and nearly could have been disaster) and then Hamlet in the Spring (which was, in fact, a complete disaster and was the worst experience working in theatre I've ever had and if anything ever eclipses it God help me). This kid was super duper artsy and avant garde, I mean seriously, and I was 19 or 20 or whatever at the time so of course I was super into it and it came at a time when I'd been away from doing theatre for over a year, but that particular semester was when I discovered Common Casting at Harvard. Since Harvard doesn't have a proper theatre department, all of the shows on campus are completely extra curricular and run by volunteer students with support from technical and administrative staff at the American Repertory Theatre and the Office for the Fine Arts at Harvard. This applies to the casting process as well, which is completely open to anyone who wanders into the Loeb or other spaces where auditions are held and wants to sign up. After going through this process half a dozen times through my time at the Extension school, it's usually Harvard College kids who get parts. To be cast as a non Harvard College student (being part of the Extension school, I was not one of them) you needed to be very talented or very lucky or happen to audition for someone very much on the fringe of the theatre scene aka somebody craaaazy, which I later realized this director was, in a very particular way that was in part a response but stemming from the Ivy League environment and his own desire to be an artistic rebel. Ah, college! Anyway, working with this kid was an exercise in extreme stylization, which I was into at the time, and it's possible you've subsequently seen me give some pretty big performances, and that's what he was all about. The bigger, the crazier, the better. Anyway, to make a long story short, after two semesters working with this guy I'd practically forgotten how to act naturalistically. Mind you, before working with him in the first place I was still really figuring out how exactly to do that like you do when you're a teenager and I think in high school I came pretty close but who's to say?

Don't you wish sometimes you had footage of your high school plays? I'm thinking of one in particular where I was the lead, my first time doing anything dramatic. I felt at the time, even being about as self critical back then as I am now, that I did pretty well and I received some very positive feedback but oh wait Chekhov...

So anyway, working in that really crazy stylized environment I'd lost sight of what it meant to act like a human being after two semesters of doing crazy voices and crawling around on the floor. Being exposed to Chekhov at that time, who wrote for people to act like real people on stage and did so as beautifully as anyone has ever done, I think, from my limited exposure to world drama. At the time, I appreciated as an actor how wonderfully nuanced his scenes are. A case study in this was the first week of presented work, myself and two other groups presented the "seduction" scene from Uncle Vanya, featuring three very different pairs of Astrovs and Yelenas presenting three very different interpretations of the scene and final products later on. In fact, they were completely different, and maybe the juiciest thing for me about Chekhov is the sheer geometry of his writing, you can come at every line and character from so many different angles there's no one direction in the text, it's wide open to whatever you find within it. And that's what I needed to rediscover, being in a real moment and finding the things that make them real to you and to the characters and stepping away from the crutch of silly voices, like I'd been doing.

And in Vanya particularly, there are so many beautiful things to be found. Today for the first time I watched the full, new cast in action, as we rehearsed Act III, the play's climatic act with the seduction and the gun shot and it was the first time I'd seen my cast mates working largely off book and the first time I'd seen the act from start to finish, ever, come to think of it. Seeing it done, and connecting it with when I'd recently watched acts I and II I saw how our production came to be so popular, but also really came to appreciate Chekhov's skill with dramatic structure in a way that made me really want to go back and reread the major plays. Uncle Vanya in particular breathes and arcs so incredibly beautifully. Diego Arciniegas (maybe you've heard of him? He'll be playing Vanya this time) commented tonight in rehearsal the way that the lines of the play are so well distributed and it's true, it's really an ensemble piece. And that speaks to the way that each act begins with an intimate spark, with just a few characters on stage, which builds to a fire involving most of the cast and then disperses and settles again into another moment of sublime intimacy.

This Russian guy really knew what he was doing when he wrote these plays. And let me take a moment and point out the same is true for our cast and director, who are really crafting a unique and electric piece of theatre which I could not be prouder to be a part of. It's been really cool to watch, because basically the whole play had been staged ahead of time, so we've been working at a much more accelerated pace then I've become accustomed to, not that I really have all that much acting work but it's still cool to compare. Especially doing the play again with three new actors in leads, everything being in one way the same but also being so new and different, wow what an experience.

And that's why I just had to blog about it, because the experience will continue to evolve as we rapidly throttle towards opening... Yikes! October 10th! By which time I'll be 24. Did you know that? It's true. Lots of other things have been going on, I've had lots of ideas for blog posts, but lacked the focus and energy to put them down. Well, here's this one! Boom! Don't worry, I'll be back blogging at you soon.

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.

Guitar Post

I've been playing guitar a lot lately. It's funny how these things happen. Guitar took on a really important role in my life from when I first started, and later started taking lessons getting more serious but I started finding real success of a kind with acting it took a back seat, and that frustrated me a little, that I couldn't keep taking it to the next level in the way I knew I could if I really focused. Of course, I've never set out to be a professional musician, music has always been about catharsis for me, and it continues to serve that role. It's always come in handy in my theatrical life, like when I played arrangements of the RC Peaslee score to Marat/Sade on my guitar which elevated my role from a very minor ensemble member to something more vital and it felt fantastic to be creative on stage in that way. A similar thing has happened with Uncle Vanya, the director saw an opportunity with my guitar skills, first to have me instruct my cast mate who needed to learn to play for the show and then use my musical ability as atmosphere. So, in the course of doing that show, I've been a lot of guitar. Mainly Russian sounding classical guitar, a couple of pieces the sound designer picked out and my guitar teacher helped me arrange and some improvisation on my part. It's been a cool experience, the whole thing. I've been playing mainly acoustic guitar, but today I picked up my electric and got the microphone directed at my amp and into Garageband and just noodled out this jam without thinking too much about it (which was the point of the exercise, to capture a spontaneous moment of music). I was feeling a blues, but a happy one. So there's plenty of major pentatonics in with the minor, and some wonky, jazzy, diminished stuff. Check it out, this is where I'm at.