A workin' man.

Well, it's been over a week since I arrived back in the beautifully wet Glasgow. In that time I have secured a room in a lovely flat on the south side. I have also already worked several shifts at the classy WEST On The Corner where I served delightfully delicious German beer and food.

I have also gotten a couple of opportunities to stretch my stage combat muscles; stepping into a sword and shield class and a lovely little fight club play group as well as stretching my actual muscles again at my home away from home: the gym. 

I've seen some great theater and plan on seeing more. Met some fantastic new people and plan to meet many more. I've even gotten to check out a few places/establishments I didn't get to last trip and plan on doing plenty more of that.

Settling into the Glasgwegian life quite nicely. Next up: create some theatre magic!

Back at it.

After a whirlwind stint back in the states for the holidays, I have triumphantly returned to the magical land of Scotland and the decidedly comforting wetness of Glasgow.

I'm currently sitting in the iCafe on Sauchiehall St. revising my CV for distribution at various l Glaswegian establishments. Then it's off to another couple of flat viewings. I have a couple of nice inexpensive hopefuls already, but it always pays to have more than enough options. I've have graciously been hosted for first few days by my good buddy Bruce, but I never overstay my welcome. I made a really nice batch of chili last night so he seems quite content at the moment.

I actually was planning on staying in Glasgow right through til May after graduating from the Conservatoire, however I was lucky enough to go home and be able to revisit The Santaland Diaries at Third Avenue Playhouse which I had performed three years ago. A good solid run with a good solid cast (for a one-man show) ;-)

I capped 2015 with a nice cold plunge into Lake Michigan on New Years Day with the Jacksonport Polar Bear Club.

Rounding out my trip home was one of the best stage combat workshops I've ever had. Also got a nice little stunt school reunion and some time with friends in Chicago!

Now I'm back at it in Glasgow and ready for the next adventure!

All finished. Now, to let that sink in...

It's been almost two weeks since my final showcase at the Soho Theatre in London for my now finished MA in acting. I'm not even gonna say how many weeks it's been since my last blog. Oops...

Both showcases in Glasgow and the one in London went very well. It was nice to end on a high note! Then I got the pleasure of some quality friend time in the city for my birthday weekend and a little jaunt to Kent to ease me back into Glasgow living. The rest of my year (since my last blog post) went by so fast that I haven't really had time to process or reflect on it until now. 

After our long break following Edward II and the New York Showcase, we had a month of random workshops lasting 1-3 days each. We had a nice few days with anti-realism and Ewan Downie and several one-day sessions with various members of the artistic community including Candice from Vox Motus, Carter Ferguson, Nick Bone, story writing with Visible Fictions AD Dougie Irvine, and a lovely clown/Feldenkrais workshop with Tim Licata.

Many of us in the cohort were involved in a new works festival called On The Verge held at the Arches, which unfortunately was one of the last things held there before in was shut down. Such a shame. 

Cam and I performed an original silent film-style pie-in-the-face sketch at the grand reopening of the stage at the world famous Britannia Panopticon, the oldest surviving music hall where Stan Laurel got his start.

In June and July I had the pleasure of being part of a promenade production of Love's Labour's Lost at Bard in the Botanics. I played Constable Dull and got to escort the audience around the various locations around the gardens as well as play my bugle onstage again! I considered this my placement for the program and It has defintiely been a highlight of the year.

August basically didn't even register. After bits and pieces of workshops we finally rehearsed and performed our new writing produtions. I feel extremely lucky to have had Alan McKendrick as my playwright. I just love his style and the unique poetry of his writing. Ohh Graveyard, You Can't Hold Me Always had it's ups and downs, but mostly just ups. I got to really showcase some of my bread and butter acting styles. The vignette style piece gave way to a lot of playing and we all had ample room to stretch our avante-garde wings, as it were. Along with Dull at Bard and now Ray the cop/probation officer and Dudley the loss provention officer, I have finally started playing cops. I have a feeling that this will be a recurring theme over the bulk of my career. ;-) 

The second half of August was full of Edinburgh Fringe. Cam and I took part five days in two weeks and saw about 5/6 shows each day. SO MUCH THEATRE!!!! We saw a several things at the Traverse including An Oak Tree and Swallow. Most of what we saw was at the Assembly or Cowgate venues. We saw the amazing Superbolt group do Jurassic Park, an amazing Dublin company do a one-man show called Underneath about the soul of a mamed young girl, a dou of Shakespeare improver's, a play version of Trainspotting, a live blog with Steven Tobolowsky, an beautiful and intimate two hander called One Day When We Were Young, One-Man Hamlet Gary Busey (Quite-possibly the worst yet watchable show at the fringe, Vox Motus's Dragon, Shit-Faced Shakspeare does Merchant of Venice (I got to blow the bugle for him to drink), Robert Lepage's 887, the palpable Transcripts, Hotel Paradiso, sock puppet theatre, and a show called Fictions which happened in complete darkness.

The last week was spent on showcase rehearsals. What a whirlwind. Special thanks to my two scene partners, Sophie Kisilevsky and Kristin Morris, who were amazing and I can't imagine having done better scenes with better actresses. Amazing work.

That brings us to today. I have a cold and am waiting to go to a talk with the legendary Mike Alfreds at the CCA. After that, it's a month or so until graduation. I have a couple of prospects, maybe some directing. We'll see what trips my fancy...

OPENING NIGHT!!!!!

It's opening night of Edward II. The last few weeks have been pretty intense. I am very much looking forward to having an audience tonight. It will be good to do our final dress/tech this afternoon though. Get out all those last minute kinks...

We are also in the final strech of rehearsals for our american showcase. Come Saturday, a week in NYC will be much desired. Well, here's to the end of the Renaissance! Sounds like we're selling out shows, so yeah! 

Renaissance of 2015

It's been a crazy month since the Globe.

We finished in London with our performance of scenes from Love's Labour's Lost to a crowd that's twice as big as most residency showings at the Globe. I'm so happy my mom got to see it and meet everyone. We then had a nice weekend in and around London. Went to a few museums, saw a show, visited Hampton Court, and even got a backstage tour meet and greet with a couple of my friends from The Rose Theatre in Kingston. 

A month in London was fantastic, but I will say that I was very happy to return to my little room in Glasgow. Upon returning, I had a nice easy week of recovery from the hubbub of the big city. We even saw Bard in the Botanics five-handed touring production of Romeo & Juliet. Very good. Then spent the next week prepping up for Edward II. 

We are now starting our third week of rehearsal. As far as I'm concerned, everything has been going very well. We got through the whole play in about four days for the first crack. I am really loving my journey thus far and my bevy of characters. I'm also looking forward to our vocal support at the end of this week. It's always good to focus and solidify. 

I am also Fight Captain for both Edward II and King Lear. We've now had two sessions with our choreographer and I've been running regular fight calls with the Lear ladies. So that's nice. :-) This past Saturday we had an afternoon session working on devised battle-ography for Edward II. Then on Sunday a few of us dressed up to the nines and had some fancy drinks at the Corinthian Club. Now, back to lines... 

The Globe

Last night I was privileged to grace the boards of the Globe stage for our RCS MACCT culminating presentation of scenes from Love's Labour's Lost. We had double the audience that school presentations usually get. The air was crisp and cold, but the hearts were warm and inviting. What a truly fantastic group of actors and directors I get to work with. I have had a wonderful and challenging time this past month with some of the best educators in the world! Thank you to the staff and everybody at the Globe for making this experience a memorable one. Until next time Shakespeare...

From the groundlings to the gods!

Continuing our work at the Globe, we have intigrated as much of the technique and knowledge as our brains can handle into our scenes for this Thursdays performance. This month has gone ridiculously fast. Last week we learned our jig from the ever-effervescent Huw Prall and we had one our last classes in voice, movement, and singing. 

Yesterday, after what was collectively only about a day and a half's worth of rehearsal, we presented our director's scenes to an audience on the Globe Stage. The three scenes were from Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, Christopher Marlowe's Massacre of Paris, and my scene, Campaspe by John Lyly, in which I played Alexander the Great. I am proud to say that we are the first group to perform any of John Lyly's words on the Globe stage. I am now also completely smitten with his works! 

Today, my mom arrives in London!!! YEAH!!!! Tomorrow I get to perform on the Globe stage again!!!!! 

This week just keeps getting better!!!!

The Globe at my fingertips!

It is currently Sunday afternoon on the 18th of January, 2015. Today is my second day off and end of week 2 in our month of study at Shakespeare's Globe in London. I want to make this very clear:

I am living a dream.

It keeps hitting me in waves. I am studying at one of the best theater schools in the UK and get to learn from some of the best educators and foremost authority on Shakespeare in the world. I also have the amazing privilege to perform twice on the Globe stage AND my mom is making a last minute visit get to see me!!! I am beyond ecstatic. 

We have been doing some really fantastic work with the Globe staff. Everything is relevant and makes me never want to leave this place. I am so glad we a got to have an introductory session with Kate Sagovsky in Glasgow. Her movement work is brilliant. We have spent a lot of time on the 360 degree body and recently began to work with kinespheres and spacial relationships. SPACE IS AMAZING!!!!

Alex Bingley's voice classes have really focused us and integrate so seemlessly with our movement work as well as our singing sessions with Joseph Atkins, who is brilliant. We have learned a round that he composed for the 450 anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. He also composed, just for us, a gorgeous, haunting arrangement for "The Owl and the Cuckoo" from Love's Labour's Lost which we will sing at the end of our presentation at the end of the month. 

Nick Hutchison  is a genius and a so passionate and excited about Shakespeare and especially Love's Labour's. So much insight. Dr. Will Tosh and James Wallace have been an invaluable source of information. If everyone were more like our dance master, Huw Prall, the world would be a better place. The Globe staff in general have been very welcoming and wonderful. 

Outside of that, I have gotten to chill out in London a little bit. Found some good restaurants. I hit up Camden Market last weekend, the amazing amount of period weaponry in the Wallace Collection today and now am just finishing memorizing my lines for our presentation in two weeks. 

Life is good. 

Feel like death? Try Beechams!

Long weeks. Good weeks. We've been working with our professional playwrights these two weeks. We worked on one of their existing plays and this week we got to pick their brains and have our brains picked by them. My fantastic group of seven (Claire, Claire, Siobhan, Kristin, Lloyd, and the ever wonderful Davina) have the pleasure of working with Alan McKendrick. Alan wants to explore violence and its connotations as well as that magical place that exists between violence and comedy, whether it be comfortable of not. We read The Duchess of Malfi and discussed it's themes and plot. We brought in images and characters that turned into improvised scenes adding on to the short string of vignettes Alan wrote for us. Also wached Amateur and an amazing, weird film called Du Levande (You, The Living). 

http://youtu.be/PSqKLizpFPo

The last two days of the term were spent with our Renaissance project casts and directors. I, along with the rest of the men, are in Edward II by Marlowe. Our director, Gordon Barr, had us read the whole play continuosly switching characters. We discussed after each scene and made some nice lists and brainstormed ideas at the end. 

I am proud to say that I will be playing Spencer when we come back from the Globe in February!

After a long challenging term that went way too fast (as well as a week of being sick), we had a wonderful Christmas drinks party! Several faculty members came as well, including Mark, Eve, Ewan, and Lucien!

And on the seventh day he rested. But not for long... I got cast in a short video by one of the RCS film students interested in special effects. We had a rehearsal on the Friday and filmed outside all Saturday morning. It should look pretty cool. There are missiles and explosions and I even get a little hero shot!

On Monday, Cameron, Lloyd, and I trekked up to Glengoyne Distillery and had a grand ol' time!

That night, I went and had some drinks and said a heart-felt goodbye to buddy Cam Cam. He is off home to Colorado for Christmas. :'( 

The next couple of days were spent packing and organizing for my trip to Berlin and Switzerland. Claire and I had some nice tapas and Wednesday night before I left we had a pre-Christmas party with plenty of wine and some fabulous antipasto! Scrumptious cheeses, cured meats, jam, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and balsamic. Mmm... Thanks Claire! Wish you were hanging with me in Berlin!!!!

Coffee break

We are on day three of the first leg of our new writing project. The first two days we got a chance to meet the three writers we will be working with in the spring and now are getting some time time with each to pick their brains and get a sense of their writing style. 

I'm dizzy and my feet hurt...

We are more than half way through our Ensemble Project week with the sensational Ewan Downie of Company of Wolves. We have been exploring the awareness and how to move our body which sounds simple, but is about the farthest thing from. To truly let your body do what it wants and not hinder yourself, while also breathing (again, sounds simple), accessing, connecting or letting go is jarringly difficult. It is strangely foreign. I think it's how you would feel/react if you were a conscious animal that is not really self aware or being a baby again with the knowledge of your "adult" self. It's weird and We've also some really fun and oddly precarious idea of status and how to manipulate it both for yourself and others.

Depending on the person, it can be really easy to either one up or lower your status for different reasons. You can even lower your status to actually one up someone which then actually puts you at a higher status. The most interesting exercise was to try and match the status of a partner and maintain. It's amazing how tiny little movements, gestures or inflections of the voice either raised or lowered your status in the room with you hardly knowing it. This work has certainly made me more self conscious of my behavior in the real world. Some things I was taken aback to think I actually do that! Likewise, there were ways I was proud of how I could manipulate status. This was accentuated by behavior lists that suggested a certain type of person. 

Yesterday we looked at focus and where the eyes go and physically and mentally. You can have a close, medium, and distant focus. Then there is soft focus and "coning" which is similar to zoning out, but like the rest of our explorations, most about letting the body do what it wants. So you let your eyes just looking everywhere without actually focusing. Then we deep-eyed each other. Like a baby, you sort of close range cone into someone's eyes essentially drawing them in. It's kinda trippy. We then deep-eyed in the form of a teenage dance party. After we created lists of insults and had some boring improvs that were then layered with our lists. 

On top of it all, we are working on Wole Soyinka's adaption of The Bacchae by Euripides. What a ridiculous productions. So epic. Those greeks were really demented and genius. We've done some interesting exercises including a lot of stomping and running (my feet hurt), found some cool new ways to read the text. 

Everything is very free and I feel very comfortable working. However, after having several weeks of small groups, being thrown back into the whole 23 of us, which I thought would be fantastic, has actually left me a bit distant and I find myself feeling slightly isolated and internal. Maybe thats a good thing. Maybe I ate something weird. Maybe it's the nature of the work. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. Perhaps things will come to light these last two days.  

Change bags and dirty bowls...

The last two weeks have been kind of bizarre and surreal. It feels like I've been here for a lot longer than I have. In a week and a half I'll have been in Glasgow two months. Every week brings a new challenge and the work continues to get more focused and intensity levels rise.

Since my last post we finished our realism project which culminated in a showing of our scenes from Three Sisters. At the time, I wanted it to be done and move on to the next thing. Looking back on it now I wish we had had another week. In general, I thought our scene went very well. I felt great about the work I did. The things we explored in our rehearsals were all warranted and helpful in at least some way. Some were amazing. Some exercises just didn't do it for me. We did some really interesting and wonderfully insightful improvs in our characters at different ages and with different circumstances. I particularly liked the improv we did where it was the first christmas after the Prozorov patriarch passed. The gifts we each gave to one another were beautiful, poignant, and heart-breaking. I also felt like our dynamic as a family was accentuated by our good chemistry, especially the Masha/Andrew relationship. The improvs that explored them were really insightful and had a lasting impact on me and the character.

Our follow up meetings with Mark and Eve were very helpful. I knew that certain things would come up in terms of my habits and what I needed to work on. It can be jarring sometimes and even disheartening to hear your "problems" or as I like to call them, "oppotunities for learning". The nice thing about this project for me was that we did have the time and space to explore how to really dig into a scene and a character. In hindsight (mine happens to be 20/20) I would have benefitted from another week if only to be able to explore my "opportunities for learning" within the scene that was now in my body as well as find the depths of Andrew that I still don't know existed. They say the best/real work only comes after you think you've got it or have exhausted it. I don't know who "they" are or if that even makes sense, but I like the notion. 

The following week was spent partially recovering froma very fun halloween weekend. We also had auditions with Mark and Gordon Barr who will be directing our Renaissance project (King Lear and Edward II, respectively). We also had very meetings concerning our showcase material. I know I have one scene that has some amazing dramatic internal struggle, but I'm still sort of on the look out for a good contrasting high-energy funny scene. We've got months, so I'm sure something will turn up. :-)

At the end of the week I had a barrage of theater experiences. I finally got over to A Play, A Pie, and A Pint. The pie and the pint part was great, as was the company (thanks Claire and Sophie for letting me tag along), the play left a lot to be desired, but was engaging in the way it's hard to look away from a homeless person going crazy on the opposite side of the street. Some pretty atrocious stage combat, but none the less "enjoyable". 

I also saw both shows produced by the RCS BA 3rd years. I didn't enjoy the Hypochondriac. The actors did a fine job, I just don't like that play or its characters. It's Moliere at his worst in my opinion, full of long winded speeches and crude/downright disgusting potty humour. In contrast, The Country Wife was a delightfully funny well-executed play. It's also a better script and story. Glad I ended the week with that one.

Saturday, we started our ensemble project with Ewan Downie, of Company of Wolves. Lots of physical movement exploration. He is fantastic to work with. We've been sort of rough staging and exploring the Wole Soyinka adaptation of The Bacchae by Euripidies through exercises. Wow, what an epic freaking show. I would have loved to see how they did this at the National Theater. I also can't imagine it being done anywhere else just in terms of scale. 

Last night also marked my fourth Stage Combat class. We reviewed pushes, slaps, and punches. Then started on falls and I even got in a little whip cracking tutorial. 

Whew... I gotta blog less words more often. Can't wait for our Friendsgiving celebration this weekend!

Cheers!

Ready for Realism

As I sit at the Tinderbox coffee shop above Paperchase, I reflect on my past week with Andrew in the Three Sisters and my free cappuccino. We have done some very interesting and enlightening exercises in order to explore our little scene at the end of act III. Thee improv sessions have been particularly expanding. We improvised the few moments before Masha's wedding to Kulygin, the leaving of Moscow as children, the first Christmas without the Prozorov patriarch (I especially liked this one. We each described the gifts we would give each other.), Natasha imploring Irna to move into Olga's room, and the day of Sophie's christening. We  even did a couple of avante-garde exercises as children and with interpretive dance. All of these gave each of us something new to play with and a deeper understanding of our relationship/history with each other as well as our own behavior/wants/needs/twitches/speech patterns. Very fascinating. It  all makes me hope that I will be able to get at least some of this type of exploration work and development in the real world. I know most of the time that it "isn't possible" because of "time constraints". Too many directors are worried about "blocking" a play, instead of creating a story and experience for the audience. In the relatively minimal amount of time last week spent on these explorations, I know my character better, my fellow characters better, my lines make sense and were easier to memorize, and I know I am conveying the story with more complexity with less effort. 

My next task for the upcoming week is finding a physical/psychological gesture for my character and really nailing down my obectives and subtextual wants for each beat of the scene. I also have to read some plays and continue looking for showcase material. Tonight were are going to the Arches for a new Page to Stage reading and tomorrow I have my second unarmed combat class. PUNCHES! BOOMTOWN! Wednesday night choir. Friday is the showing of our scenes. Gonna be a big week. Maybe I should get another coffee...

Birthday Party!!!

Our first birthday party of the year! AND it's both of our lovely Irish friends on the same day! Thaat deserves a delicious hot apple Dan pie!

From Combat to Chekhov!

Monday marked our first first official day of rehearsal for our realism project. We are using scenes from Chekhov's Three Sisters. I am playing Andrew, the only brother of the girls, with Nicole Ubbelohde as Olga, Claire See as Masha, and Claire Winkleblack as Irina. Special guest appearances with Keith Warwick as the wretched Ferapont and Becky Ormond as the confused and loathsome Natasha.

In these first two days we have gotten through the first half of the scene. Monday's sessions and Tuesday morning's session was only the girls. Today, we finally got to Andrew's entrance which threw a nice wrench into the dynamic the girls had been creating. We have been doing some great base work going through wants/obstacles/subtextual wants beat by beat. It has also been nice to warm up together on top of some nice "family" discussions.
Today we even did a little improv. We made up a scene as if the siblings father's funeral had just ended. The first time there was some forced talking and some coaxed speeches. The second time through we tried doing the scene without speaking. It was very interesting. There were a few times when I felt like Andrew should speak, to break the tension, but then didn't. The levels of emotion, tension, and awkwardness/shock that were created between each character's relationship with each other was fascinating. I thought it gave me a lot deeper understanding of the family dynamic and Andrew himself. There was also a surprising amount of humor/light-heartedness during our little improvs. I took this as a good sign. It certainly felt like I was in a Chekhov play.

On Monday I taught my first of hopefully many stage combat classes in basic unarmed to the cohort. It went very well. Everyone seemed very engaged and they were mostly picking everything up fairly efficiently. It's always interesting for me as a teacher to lightly push the bounds and see how far into left field I can take students, especially on the first day when activities are relatively easy. This is my first teaching opportunity in a classroom with a full group of beginners since I finished my Dueling Arts International Teacher Training Workshop this past June. It's very exciting! I immediately felt at ease in front of the group leading warm ups (which I love and probably do to many of instead of start class). It has also been great for me to be able to incorporate elements from techniques and exercises we have been exposed to in the past few weeks as part of our training. Because many of them are similar to things I've done in the past I can put my Dan twist on them. We did some great partnering exercises and got through two kinds of pushing and shoving and everybody learned the basics behind a good 'ol fashioned proscenium slap. Next class will develop some more partnering skills and they will find themselves slapping and punching each other in different ways! Yeah! FUN!

Also on Monday night we took a nice field trip to see Ewan Downie's Company of Wolves devised work of Seven Hungers. It is definitely a bit of a stretch for the non theater person, but I found it fascinating. More than anything, I wanted to be in it and doing it. Digging in. Exploring the work. There were some really nice yet haunting a cappella songs sung in I believe what was Russian. On of the most jarring events was when they took turns being eaten by the others who had the demeanor of feral beasts/wolves.

The exploration of hunger as it relates to other wants including love and affection as well as actual hunger/bloodlust was really interesting. I was especially engaged during a scene where one of the men and one of the women tested each other out by tapping on each other's body parts using a live microphone. The place they got to when the microphone was sort of both on their teeth with them mouthing each side of the mic was quite funny and sweet and innocent. I love which innosense on stage. It is so unbelievably captivating. I think that's why I like mask work so much.

Well, here's to understanding more Chekhov this week.

Three Sisters In Time Of Strife

Thursday night a gaggle of us went to see John Byrnes adaptation of The Three Sisters at the Tron Theater. I thought it was in general, ok. I really didn't think the setting worked or the "adaptation" (which seemed more like just a translation with a scottish twist). I felt like I mostly enjoyed myself, but it didn't really like it. There were some really nice moments and in general the acting was good, great in some cases. The Irina character was certainly one of the strongest actors on stage. I really liked Masha and Kulygin. They had a unique dynamic and definitely solidified the time period of the '60s in style and behavior more so than really any element in the show. The Chebutykin character, played by the whimsical Sylvester McCoy, was fun to watch and added a nice bit of quirky comedy. 

I did think first half was very good. Unfortunately, the second half fell quite short of the emotional and cathartic journey I was hoping for. The adaptation also turned into an almost word for word translation. 

The cast of the Prozorov Family was also a lot older than the script suggests. It just seemed like there were some great ideas or at least potentially interesting ideas that weren't explored fully or fell flat because of the plays parameters. I stand by that I enjoyed myself and am glad I saw it.  

Friday was our last day of our three weeks of class work. I like to refer to them as performance techniques and skills work. We had a nice voice session with Melanie Drake in the morning. She explored with us how to transition our Nadine George technique into an individual practice. We also did a very surreal exercise with sound. Everyone stands in a circle with three people in the middle with their eyes closed. The circle starts voicing open tones at all different pitches and a leader indicates the circle silently walk in both directions at some point, raising volume and end tones together.

It is a haunting and surprisingly visual exercise. Some people saw colors. Some saw shapes. Some saw elements and weird random stuff. It was simple and cool.

Our afternoon session was the last movement class with Mark. We had a great exploration and discussion on what a warm up is and what it should do/consist of. Then we did a really nice session on some basic mask work. Mark has a beautiful collection of handmade leather masks that we got to use.  It's actually quite difficult to be a neutral human being exploring space and body. It is also very disconcerting to see yourself, or anyone else for that matter, without your face. The leather is just close enough to a vague yet real human face that it is more creepy than a less human mask. It's also hard to not add extra character or "act" with it. Classic acting problems... to just be (or not to be?)

Anyway, the best and most amazing exercise we did was one on awareness. We all lined up against one wall and as a group, ran as fast as we could to the other side, turned around, and tried to picture the displacement of space and air that we just ran through. It was the easiest and simplest way to get a group of actors to share the space and most importantly just be aware and engaged with the whole space. We became the ultimate greek chorus.

The weekend was very strange and yet still a lot of fun. I went to the matinee at the Citizens Theater of In Time of Strife which was fantastic. Live music, 90min, no intermission, emotive, heart-wrenching, and it was in a fairly extreme scottish brogue including a ton of scottish words I couldn't understand. However, we happened to be at one of the only performances that had sur-titles. SO helpful. 

The show was about the union strikes and had some of the most guttural, grounded, and gratifying use of dance and music I've seen on stage. Everything was so scottish. It was brilliant. Also, almost all of the actors were graduates from my school.
That night we had an impromptu dance party in the cinema room at Claire's apartment building. Then a handful of us were going to meet up with a few others at this club on the west end called The Garage. First of all, every step we took closer to the club took us further into the bowels of Satan. It was just the worst cesspool of people, which of course should have been a sign for us to go home or at least anywhere on the planet far from there. Stupidly, we kept going and got in the club with relative ease and it was surprisingly empty. Of course, twenty minutes later when the clock struck midnight, all the pubs closed and every group of douchebag guys and flock of skankerific girls descended upon the toilet bowl that was the garage. Again, we should have called it quits and just sucked up the 5 pounds we paid to get in. After, being pushed, slightly groped, live tweeting, having crappy alcoholic drinks being thrown over us, a couple of near-miss confrontations, and general hearing loss, we finally called it quits. Yuck... I hate clubs. Unfortunately, I needed a reminder to never go again, ever.

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. Big two weeks of Chekhov ahead of us. and even some stage combat!!!

I am a bubble!!!

Today we had yet another interesting session concerning our research projects. It wasn't greatly helpful and I still feel mostly in the dark about this part of my degree as a whole, but I think, I think, I'm grasping little wisps here and there and forming ideas. Hopefully things will come into focus sometime soon and my path will be clear. At least until I change my mind completely.

Then, after lunch and a short meeting with the MA musical theater students discussing the "On The Verge" and "Cabaret"/"Creative Voice" Projects we had a movement class with Lucien Lindsay-MacDougall and Benedicte Seierup. Wow. What a joy to observe and learn from this amazing team. They had such a precise and "bubbly" repertoire with each other. They would nearly finish each other's... sandwiches.
They were so in tune with each other and the work they were exploring with us. They also were actively exploring WITH us. There were ways we did some of the exercises that they had never done like that before. It is so refreshing to see teachers who are constantly reinventing and discovering with their students, even though it was perfectly clear that they had done this work a million times before. They mostly work with the BA cohorts and didn't even get a chance to work with the CCT's last year. I am so grateful that we got to work with them. Their movement work mostly consists of using the natural world/elements/materials to find new ways of exploring the body and how to manipulate it. We played with the idea of being a stretched rubber band, a compressed piece of floral wrap that is expanding, a sugar cube dissolving in a glass of water, and the life of bubbles.
It was utterly fascinating to watch most of these items that I have seen many times throughout my life and yet today they seemed to have a soul, a sense of awareness, or some sort of life to them that really shouldn't be there. Also, watching others watch these things and hearing what it was like watching me do these things sort of blew my mind. (We are now midweek in the third week of our year and I think everyone is bit punch-drunk in one way or another.)

I particularly enjoyed watching the sugar cube dissolve and applying that to my body. It so desperately wanted to stay a cube.

The crumpled paper seemed to have the most life/journey. We all audibly gasped and awed at it's triumphs and struggle to get back to stasis. I found it the hardest to replicate by myself, but the tableau we created with the humanization of it was extremely intriguing.

The rubber band being stretched to the point of breaking and either retracting or actually breaking really hit home in regards to human relationships.

The bubble was the most fun to play with. From the being "born" to the frolicking and being effected by the wind or other objects including other bubbles, to the ultimately sad ignorant death.

Well, that seems like a good note to stop on. Back to my all night Chekhov session.

For a hefty hefty Pooh.

It was a long day of class, but in the best possible way. He had our last session with Bill on voice today ;-( We did a ton of exploratory exercises with the Measure For Measure text we got. We discussed what each of the words/phrases meant in each line of text. It's always fascinating to me that there are so many different ways of looking at one word and how it relates to all the other individual words in a given speech. Shakespeare's play-on-words is fantastically astounding. How many ways can we say one word and also how can we say one word and be talking about/conjuring so many ideas/meanings.

We went through grammar and did several moving exercises focusing on that or just vowels/consonants. Then we explored a few of the billion ways to say the words including whispering it in someone's ear, finding the spectrum of two emotions and the transitions, speed, and even giving the speech as a museum tour guide. Every exploration gave a slightly different approach to the text in ways that worked for some, surprised some, and didn't work for others.

It's great. It's like going on a shopping spree! Now I have all these new shiny tools in my belt to use!

Speaking of which, our second session today was with Ewan Downie from Company of Wolves. He will be working with us on our ensemble project in a few weeks. The movement work we explored with him today was visceral, organic, internal while maintaining awareness, and makes me chortle at the fact that if some outsider walked into the room they would discover a bunch of people contorting around doing "theater bullshit" that we get ever so stereotyped for. Poor unfortunate souls... They'll just never know. (I particularly liked the "golden oil" exploration.)

I for one, love this work and CANNOT WAIT to do more with Ewan. And for that matter, Kate Sagovsky.

Tangent:

On Friday, we had the pleasure of working with Kate Sagovsky. Last years cohort had her at the Globe for movement and loved her so much that Mark decided to bring her in special to work with us. I can see why. She has this wonderful bubbly energy with a modern twang to her and is surprisingly young for being a major movement teacher/associate with the Globe, RSC, National Theater. Boy does she know her stuff though. It was apparent within the first few minutes of working that I was gonna like the session, but after the first 30 min, I realized that I was going to continue to use this work far down my career path. 

Kate started with a focus/awareness "game" along the same vain as ones I do a lot in stage combat warm up. As part of that we did one of the fastest and most painless name games I've ever seen. The rule of Bob was also instigated. The rule of Bob is simple, and yet...

If you can't think of someone's name on the spot just call them Bob. No questions asked. Own it. Furthermore, if the words you wants aren't at the tip of your tongue, Bob it. No apologies. No stutters. The rule of Bob is the simplest way to train yourself to just keep going. No matter what. The show must go on!

We continued our work by walking the space and expanding the "game" of focus and awareness. Every little detail Kate added made us better at the "game". By mid class, I could literally feel myself improving and at the same time, I was so focused on the task at hand that sometimes it didn't occur until we went back to the "game". She did some foreshadowing exercises that came around in the end for us to have something other than the "game" as well as another perspective on how the work affects us and/or the audience. By the time we started working on text ("To be" speech specifically) we had tuned into our bodies and in retrospect only then were we ready to explore how to explore. (Dat's deep...) 

The 360 degree body is an amazing thing. It especially made sense in context with the Globe stage, but I can't see myself turning back now that I've tasted the pie...

I can't wait to work with Kate again and hope that I retain and continue to grow with this knowledge. With great power comes great responsibility.

Back to Ewan:

After our animal transformation exercise, we did more of the ever popular walking-the-space. Trying to keep the empty spaces filled, my mind was reminded of the work we did with Kate. It's amazing the change it makes both physically and mentally. Ewan furthered this by giving us the 5 basic ways to use the space: standing, walking (journey of the foot, heel-toe), jogging (toe-heel), sprinting (foot pad/toes), and jumping. This made the "game" much more active. Then we did a pair at a time in the center of the room using the 5 moves. No speaking. Dropping the breath. Being aware. 

This was very intriguing. It was hard for some people to let the mood change and drop the breath. I was reminded of dogs interacting in the dog run. In particular, one of my dogs, Riley. Riley would do all 5 moves as he saw fit when the moment hit him, No inhibitions. Of course. Why would he? He's a dog. It is definitely how I felt when I was paired up. At times I would feel playful and other times unsure. Depending on what I got from my partner, I was really ready to play, intimidate, pounce, be aggressive, avoid, etc. at any given notice. 

Our last exercise was a lesson/exploration in rhythm and listening and breathing of course. We di several patterns of stomps in different times. It was a definitely a test of stamina and reminded me and in particularly my feet of my suzuki training. Uff-da!

After class Claire, Sophie and I went for a a quick drink at the Butterfly and the Pig. I finally found a good dark beer I like from Scotland! HUZZAH! So definitely a good day. :-)

busy day

Totally rockin' it today. Video editing, coffee, emailing, getting a Scottish bank account, Shakespeare scansion, Chekhov textual analysis, reading plays, program meeting and somewhere finding time to eat. Mmmnomnomnommmm...

Tomorrow

A group of us went to the Tramway Theater tonight to see a Vanishing Point production called Tomorrow. It. Was. Stunning.

Probably the most engaging, sad, immersive, heart-wrenching, simple, devastating, sweet, funny, guilty, haunting play I've seen in a long time. It was certainly one of the most unique theater experiences I've attended. Tomorrow dealt with alzheimer's disease. But it was so much more than that. It brought the audience into the mind and forced you into this sort of out of body experience. The atmosphere that was created was so chilling and alienating and yet when it got comforting and warm at times, I almost felt guilty and at the same time relieved. The superb use of fog and lights set the tone more masterfully than any stage production I've ever seen. 

It started out in darkness. Slowly, a wilting violin piece played and a piercing yet heavy and antique side light came up on people at a table prepping these extraordinary full head and shoulder masks. One by one the players came in took the masks gently and coldly off through the side doorways down stage. As the scene faded an old man bent at the waist shuffled in holding a bunch of flowers. It started snowing. He struggled around for a while. (It was a beautiful lesson in movement and patience with yourself.) He finally dropped the flowers just before a young, well-dressed man in a tie came jolting across the stage (on his way to the hospital where his wife was giving birth). We saw his reluctant decision to help the old man. The oldman crumpled and then started fighting the young man. He remained hunched over with his head between the young man's legs and would not let go of his knees. After waves of awkwardness, intesity, sympathy, and humor with in the struggle, he finally got the old man to sit on a chair (bench) down stage right. When he got a glimpse of the old man's face something in him stopped. and then he closed in and pulled out the old man's tie. This created a definite shift in energy. The young man backed away confused toward his previous destination. The lights subtly shifted and as the young man turned back the old man had vanished. (Seemless theater magic.) As the scene changed, the young man exited and re-entered to a "hospital" with a nurse and met a girl  he new and asked about his wife. He was invited to sit and the nurse came back with one of the old man masks from the start of the play. The following action was some of the most jarring/disturbing/alienating parts of the play. In short, the young man was forced into the old man mask and a change of clothes. He was now the the old man from his encounter and himself.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many moments that hooked me. I especially liked the sequence shown in the above picture. The fog floated out into the audience. There were only three flashlights used all roaming and shining at the audience. I loved how there was the constant low banter from the nurses as a kind of reminder of location, but also ambient noise and really maintaining the only constant these victims had. As the lights wondered through the audience a figure would appear seemingly out of nowhere and the lights would focus slightly on the patient meandering through the dark haze and once again disappearing.

It was hard to laugh even though there were some very amusing lines and things the patients did. One man was drawing raunchy pictures. One man scooted along with a walker and could never catch a break. Someone always got to the chair he wanted just before he shuffled there and he never got picked in the nurse's game of if-you-had-to-shag-one.  One of the women was a balding former debutante who was obsessed with everyone else's hair. She was a good source of humor throughout. The male nurse would wear her wig and she'd slap him on the ass. He was also sort of a nice comic relief. At one point he started teaching the group some dance moves. "Pick the apple. Pick the apple. Put it in a pie. Put it in a pie. Sunshiiiiine and Raaaain."

I will certainly be thinking about this truly amazing theatrical experience for a long time. It was so poignant and real. It is also universally relatable because everyone knows someone who goes through some stage of alzheimers.