I believe that the best performances come from measured and calibrated dynamics. Playing each scene at a energy/intensity of 10 and then at a 1, setting the possibilities, and then the team makes the decision for where one plays the final product from there. Or in a show like the Collyer Brothers - what Langley's arc looks like....
One of the evergreen topics on the rotating menu that theatre blogs cycle through is the “fight” between professional theatremakers and community theatre makers. This is of course a radical narrative distillation of a more nuanced relationship. This week the piece making the rounds is from the venerable theatre omnibus OnStage Blog. The article, by Timothy Fitzgerald, is a perfectly cromulent defense of community theatre as an important foundational piece, particularly of the American branch of stage performance and of the communities they exist in in general. The flaw in the article is the premise. When I was writing...
Being in a show recently with some folks who are headed off into the world of undergrad theatre in the next few weeks, I got to thinking about what advice I would give to those starting out if asked. They did not ask. Here we are anyway....
Hey Christina. Hey Kate. I’ve been conversing with the two of you in my head for a couple of weeks. Turns out I did a show. Turns out neither of you showed up to boss me around, so I had to wing it.Opening weekend I repped my last three towns: I wore them under my costume. It was Twelfth Night outside with a 90s edge. I did Sir Toby. You’ve seen pictures I’m sure. And lord above but the cut is all with Twelfth Night isn’t it? This cut is a lot like your short cut Kate, very lean...
Live performance is a system of interlocking skills honed individually and together over time like any other muscle-building, and then deployed all at once. It is almost always desired that the edges of that displayed set of skills are folded under and invisible to the uninitiated, and, on the highest level, even to fellow initiates. So as one progresses, craft becomes more and more opaque. The skilled stop understanding how and why they do it and the very best seem to require no effort at all. One of those skills is line memorization. It is the favorite party trick...
I came into How High We Go in the Dark with two very distinct biases against it. The very American bias that anything free can’t be -that- good (I received a preview copy in exchange for my review), and the indignation that someone thought this thing was in any way comparable to Cloud Atlas. However it may have landed for you, Cloud Atlas is incredibly well-constructed and there’s just no way Sequoia Nagamatsu lands that sort of achievement in a debut....
The primary mode of interacting with anything on the internet is to read it as quickly as possible while performing a second task, and then explain why the content consumed is wrong or could have been better. It is the simplest way to interact with anything or anyone, and it reads as immature, because it is. It is the Level 1 way of dismissing anything. You can tell it’s level 1 because it’s easy. Because when you’re doing it yourself you can feel how little effort it is to sum up someone’s viewpoint that causes a reaction in you...
I try not to get too mystical in my approach to acting. I find a lot of that sort of vocabulary to be really off-putting. In our need to ennoble the craft we try to elevate it beyond what it usually is to make ourselves feel like more ourselves. But there are “mystical” things about the craft that you can’t dodge in the same way that carpenters can’t really avoid the fact the wood has a personality. Using the words we do makes it seem a little cartoonish, but it’s true so… there we go.With acting I trying not...
In 2009 World Theatre Day changed my life. I am a community minded sort. Often my reaction to any given event is: How could we have involved more people? How could more folks have been helped? When Rebecca Coleman mentioned on Twitter that Vancouver had celebrated a city-wide World Theatre Day in 2008 and what if we made that happen across cities? I was or course interested. I had no idea what I could do locally. I had no money, no space and no standing company to help me with either. But I could help activate Austin and push...
One of the most embarrassing moment in my life that I can recall was at post-show drinks one night. I was in the sweet spot of having a reputation in Austin such that younger folks would listen and/or ask me for advice and hadn’t yet triangulated that a reputation was just a rumor. So, at least two double tall gin and tonics in, a younger person asked about next steps in being a professional actor. One of my social flaws is that I believe you. If you tell me that you’re an accountant, I don’t ask to see your...