My Summer with The Bard

So my mom's been nagging me to write and since its been a while (and i have a free second) i will...

A lot has happened since my last post.  My 4th of July weekend was amazing!  Liz and George got in from their trip to Europe and came out to their house here in Lenox, which is conveniently 2 minutes from Shakespeare and CO.  The guys also came up with Liana and Ryan, and since it had been a while, it was nice to see them all.  I was able to get away from rehearsals and other responsibilities and spend a lot of time with them.  On the 4th we all went to their house and had a BBQ and enjoyed the first good weather of the summer!  On the 5th we went to a family friend's party where i got to see even more people that i hadn't seen in a while along with some new faces!  The party on the 5th was AMAZING!  the food was awesome, the band was great, the drinks were free!!!  But the guest list was the best part.  The Governor of MA; Deval Patrick, YoYo Ma (uncle YoYo), Diane Paulus, who directed the revival of Hair on Broadway and is the Artistic Director at ART, William Finn who is one of my favorite composers!  so i got to talk to some amazing people, eat some great food, and spend time with some family and friends!  all in all a great weekend! 

On Tuesday we started tech for Measure with a nice 10 hour rehearsal after our second day of tech, we hadn't finished so the director canceled our invited dress rehearsal.  That was annoying because it felt like people thought we (the actors) weren't ready which was not the case.  But Thursday came and with it, our first preview, which was sold out!  so we went from no audience to 160 or so people.  The show could not have gone better!  We ended to a standing ovation!  it was exhilerating!  Not only did the audience seem to like the show, but i personally felt really good about my work and what i was putting out there, which is a nice feeling.  Our second preview had a slightly smaller audience, 110 or so, but they were equally impressed.  I didn't feel as grounded this time, i think i had some expectation as to what my performnce was going to be and it didnt match it, but apparently i'm the only one who thought that cause i got even better feedback then the first show!  So, what do i know...  we have a few days off and then start previews on wednesday again till we open on Saturday! 

Today we are doing an open rehearsal for my Twelfth Night prelude, which up until now has been struggling, but the rest of the interns watched the run this morning and gave us a lot of positive feedback, which is nice.  So we'll see how it goes this evening...

Two nights ago i saw Othello and it was amazing!  John Douglas Thompson's performance was outstanding!  it made me excited to perform and get on stage!  that is ALWAYS a good sign!  It was just a beautiful production and had barely any loose ends!  I hope people get to see it this summer,  because they should!

I've been in a weird musical theater funk for the past few days and have been craving it!  While i love doing Shakespeare, singing is so deep within me that it makes me anxious and irritable when i dont do it for a while.  And its not like im not singing, i started voice lessons with Gary last week (he's teaching at Tanglewood this summer) and i sing a lot in Measure, but its something about doing a musical that i crave!  Oh, well... i guess i have to learn to deal and satisfy my cravings some other way!

The day after we open we have three days off, so i think i'm going to try to get down to Hull and spend it with my family, at least for as long as i can!  I'm looking forward to that and for people to start seeing the show that i've been working so hard on!  i guess thats all for now!

oh and here are some pics from measure

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt" Measure for Measure I.iii

Well... the weather sucks.

Not much has changed since my last post.  I'm still rehearsing a lot and learning lines, but now that we have two weeks until Measure goes into previews, we are starting a lot of individual scene work, which means i am not called all day.  Today i had rehearsal from 11-2, which gave me a lot of time to catch up on some other stuff, including a much needed run to Starbucks, which is a whopping 25 minutes away!!! but it was worth it!  Today we were rehearsing act 2 scene 1 in which i play the character Froth, a semi-wealthy idiot being brought before the judges for doing something that i am still unsure of actually.  I am really struggling with the character because he literally has one brain cell... he is a complete idiot... in fact he is so stupid that i cannot seem to figure out how he assembles a complete sentence, which makes it hard considering i have a few lines.  I haven't gotten a lot of feed back so i feel a bit perplexed as to what i should be doing, but most importantly i feel like i am a bad actor, or at least i am doing bad work because everything i am doing that the director likes seems to be the cheep jokes.  I have a feeling its only because i am not used to playing the clown and that this feeling comes with the territory.  I have faith that I'll work it out.

I have been trying to find activities that will give me a break from the life of Shakes&Co and besides watching productions of Shakespeare plays from Netflix, i found this British show that i can watch on-line called Time Team.  Its on British Discovery Channel and its pretty much realty TV meets Archeology.  This team of archaeologists travel to different locations throughout the UK and sometimes overseas and start digging for historical sites.  There has been stuff about prehistoric Britain, stone age, bronze age, iron age, roman, medieval, etc.... its AWESOME!!!  I'm a little obsessed!    Anyway, its nice to not be thinking about Shakespeare 24/7 and to give a little time to one of my other passions...

I went for a bike ride yesterday and my roommate told me about this path that he likes to run and that might be a nice ride so i decided to try it.  after the 4th major hill i thought i was going to throw up, but i made it up the hill, all my food still in my stomach, and made it back to my apartment, but it took a solid 2 hours for my legs to stop shaking... oh well, i guess you have to start somewhere. 

My dad is coming up on Monday for my day off to spend the day, which i am really excited about!  it will be nice to see a familiar face and to get away from campus for a few hours!  so I'm very excited about that!!!

For some reason, i have begun to miss my Emerson friends over this past week.  I feel like I've lost all contact with them and i have no idea whats going on in their lives, which makes me sad.  I want to visit them, but I'm sort of stuck here so thats out of the question.  hopefully when i start performing, I'll be seeing people more often and that feeling of loneliness will go away.  Speaking of Emerson friends, Garrett is auditioning today for So You Think You Can Dance in Phoenix!  Last i heard, he had been seen twice and was going in for the third time... call backs to dance for the judges are tomorrow and Sunday so hopefully he will get to do that!!!  I have my fingers crossed for him and i am SO EXCITED FOR HIM!!!!  YAY GARRETT!!! 

any ways, i have to get back to my lines... and by lines i might mean an episode of Time Team...

"Be great in act as you have been in thought."  King John V. i. 

So I've been debating whether or not i wanted to start blogging again, and as i am out here in Lenox having an amazing experience and wanting to share it with others, i decided it was probably a good idea. 

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Where to start... well i have now been at Shakespeare & Co. for about a month and it has turned out to better then i could have hoped.  A lot has happened in the past month, so i will try to give you as much detail as i can without writing too much.  i am working on a number of projects right now including, Measure for Measure, Preludes, and my understudy roles in Hamlet and Othello!  The Preludes are interesting.  Before every main stage production there is a 10-15 minute prelude that gets the audience in the mood for the show.  These pieces are written by us and can literally be anything.  The group working on Hamlet wrote a piece called Omelet the Danish: Prince of Breakfast and it is a rock musical parody of Hamlet.  The Othello group is doing a Monty Pythonesque skit with two old Elizabethan women (men in drag) discussing the social and cultural implications of the use of race in the show as well as cracking jokes about Shakes & co. I am working on the 12th Night prelude and we are having a miserable time.  It is easy to take tragedies and find something comedic about them, but taking a comedy is a little different.  We wanted our piece to be more of an homage to the beauty of Shakespeare's text, but due to conflicts within the group, coming up with a plan that will work has been difficult, in fact we don't really have one yet, which is EXTREMELY nerve-wracking!  but i have faith that something will come together... :-/

On a better note, my rehearsals for Measure for Measure are going very well.  I have never been in a situation where i am able to luxuriate in the process of putting on a show.  Last summer it was about banging out a product as quickly as possible.  But this summer i actually feel like it is the art that is most important.  The process and the integrity of the work is above everything else, which is refreshing but also scary.  I am surrounded by people who are some of the best Shakespearean actors in the country and when they are sitting in on rehearsals it can be anxiety producing.  I am trying to get over this idea of having to impress them by getting it "right" because that's not whats important but its hard.  We started the process with a technique that was developed here called "dropping in".  I'm not sure how to describe it (you kind of have to see it being done to understand it) but I'll try as best i can.  The process involves the actors in the scene sitting across from one another completely relaxed as the facilitator (one for each actor) begins saying the actor's lines one word at a time.  After the word is said the actor repeats it without shaping the word or putting any preconceived idea onto it, just speak they word and however it comes out is how it comes out.  Then the facilitator starts asking questions about the word itself or the meaning of the word or even things that pop up when someone thinks about the word.  after each question the actor merely repeats the word.  this is done quickly enough that the questions should never actually be answered but the feeling that the question stirs up informs how the word naturally comes out"  And so the process goes on word by word, line by line, for the ENTIRE script!  it took a week to do all of Measure, but it is one of the most intense experiences i have ever had.  As an actor i find things in the text that i never knew were there.  it also creates intense bonds between the actors that i still cant explain.  I am excited to see how it helps me when i start putting the show together. 

We have been rehearsing 6 days a week from around 10 am- 9 pm which leaves very little time for anything else, including learning my understudy lines , which is freaking me out a bit but I'm not going to go crazy about it.  I'll learn them as best i can and deal with it if i have to but hopefully i wont have to worry about it. 

Some other good news... i auditioned for Melia Bensussen's (chair of the performing arts dept at Emerson) production of Taming of the Shrew at Actor's Shakespeare Project in Boston and was cast as Bianca!!!  I know... Bianca... girl... but its a very interesting concept and i am excited to tackle a role i never thought i would be playing!  Rehearsals begin September 14th, which is a week after i end here at Shakes and Co. and the show opens October 18th and runs through Nov 8th!  So i will be living at home in the fall, saving money and getting paid to perform!  YIPPIE!!!  However, that means i have to put my plans to move to NYC on hold until at least Dec which I'm a little bummed about, but i know that it was a possibility that i would be in Boston for a bit. 

That's all I've got for now...

oh... for those interested here is the schedule for the summer on the shakespeare and co. website

http://www.shakespeare.org/sandco.php?pg=performance&pg_record=10

ps... If you do want to come and see me all i ask is that you DO  NOT TELL ME!  it is a very long run and i would rather not let it affect my performance.  if there is a special circumstance and you need to let me know, thats fine but i do LOVE surprises!    just so you know, the performances of Measure or July 18-Sep 5, wed-sat at 12:45pm.  previews begin July 10th.

I've been trying to familiarize myself with more of Shakespeare's plays and in the process have been finding quotes that i love, so i thought it might be fun to end these post with some of my favorites...

"Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say" King Lear, V.iii

So this past week has been an interesting one for me!  Saturday morning i woke up and took a shower and as i was getting out i felt shooting pains down my neck and spine and then i couldn't move!  this wont have been a huge problem if i hadn't been naked and getting ready to go to a dance rehearsal.  So i managed to get to my bed and get underwear on, but immediately had to lay down on the floor.  Then i couldn't get up.  People kept walking over me as i told them i couldn't get up but i guess they thought i was joking around because no one helped me up.  Then i hear the car turn on and them drive off!  luckily Steven Cuevas was home and he was able to get someone to come get us and help me up!  i got to the playhouse and immediately left for the ER, where they told me i had severe muscle spasms and a possible pinched nerve! they put me in a neck brace, which was bigger then my head, so i asked for a less intense one and they gave me one of those foam ones which worked just fine.  They then prescribed me daypro (intense aleve) and valium, which is a great help at night.  

So it has been a looooooooong time since my last post... Thinks up here have been going well.  We are now in our second week of King and I and it is going fine.  As much as i had been bitching about it, the audiences seem to love it!  so, what do i know...  We are also in our second week of rehearsals for The Producers, which is the most fun i have ever had rehearsing a show.  I am playing 8 different characters in the show, so it is a little confusing at times, but the script is so funny that we all pretty much laugh our way through rehearsals every day.  I am playing the Ticket taker, an accountant, newspaper vendor, dancing Hitler, Bavarian tap dancer, little old lady, a very friendly sailor, and prisoner of love dancer!  so its A LOT of work and it is very difficult harmonies in very long and complex dance numbers, so its a challenge.  But the cast is amazing and everyone is doing a really good job, i just hope we can put it together in time.  

So we have been rehearsing King and I for a week now and i hate it, which is sad because the show is so beautiful!  but the rehearsal process is awful!  Most directors will schedule out the rehearsals so that they know exactly what they will be working on each day and will have a sense of what they have and have not done.  This also helps the actors because they know whether or not they must be at rehearsal that day.  Our director, Ron, gives us a schedule that says, "block Act 1 and 2"... now i don't know about you, but to me that is pretty vague.  therefore, everyone in the cast must be at rehearsals all day because we have no idea what scenes we will be doing.  That would be ok if i was doing anything in the show besides standing in the back or walking in and bowing... So i literally sit there for hours doing nothing.  He also tends to forget what he has done and continuously works on the same scenes over and over again!  IT IS SO FRUSTRATING!  Ron just isn't a director, he directs pictures, not scenes.  One of his hobbies is photography, so he spends half the time creating pictures on stage and then does nothing with the actually scene itself, no acting work at all!  at this point, the scene changes have had more rehearsal then the scenes themselves.  I am playing three different types of servants and i have absolutely no idea what the difference is between them, all the characters do the same thing, come in, kneel, and bow.

So life is not all theater up here in forestburgh... though it is mostly that.  but we definitely find time to have some fun.  Last week was Alex's birthday so we went to her family's estate about 10 minutes from the playhouse and had a big party for her where we ate TONS of food and just relaxed on our day off.  we even got to take our first  group picture...

So today is our last performance of Gypsy and i am very excited!  its not that i don't like performing it, because i love it!  However, this is the longest run i have ever done and i am starting to get a little antsy.  i think the main problem is that i am rehearsing Cabaret and i am now in the mind set of that show... i'm just ready to move on!  However, we have had a few good stories from the run... there was the one night when Rose slipped on a set piece during the first act and bruised her knees and then rolled down the stairs backstage after Everything's Coming Up Roses!  she was fine, a little sore, but no major injuries!  and then a bat decided to make his stage debut during the second act and freaked a lot of people out, but we kept going even when he was flying into Louise's face during the strip number!  Overall, a very memorable performance!

So today is our last performance of Gypsy and i am very excited!  its not that i don't like performing it, because i love it!  However, this is the longest run i have ever done and i am starting to get a little antsy.  i think the main problem is that i am rehearsing Cabaret and i am now in the mind set of that show... i'm just ready to move on!  However, we have had a few good stories from the run... there was the one night when Rose slipped on a set piece during the first act and bruised her knees and then rolled down the stairs backstage after Everything's Coming Up Roses!  she was fine, a little sore, but no major injuries!  and then a bat decided to make his stage debut during the second act and freaked a lot of people out, but we kept going even when he was flying into Louise's face during the strip number!  Overall, a very memorable performance!