So. Cal. @ South. Coast.

DAY 25

2010-07-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

Another Friday! It's hard to describe how the breathing exercises in Greg's Voice class help to fill our entire bodies with resonance and sound. It's the difference between someone who is pushing to try and speak loudly from their throat or chest, and the person who seems to just naturally and effortlessly boom out sound from somewhere in their torso. After our hour and a half of de-structuring our breathing (forcing it away from a normal breath pattern through all of the tremor-ing), we all find ourselves in the latter, booming category.

In Joanne's Audition class, we spent the day doing cold readings in pairs. She (and several of our teachers this summer) have emphasized the importance of reading out loud every single day. We took turns reading scenes about five minutes long, and every time the sides ended we were all desperate to know what happened to the characters in the end. Since we can't all have a personal Joanne with a vast knowledge of great plays to make recommendations at our disposal, I thought I'd mention a few of the ones that we read selections from, although I'm not sure if they are all published yet: What They Have by Kate Robbins, Completeness by Itamar Moses, King of Shadows by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Happy Face by David West Read, and Incendiary by Adam Szymkowicz.

In Hal's combined afternoon Advanced Technique class, we could pick any combination of the techniques we've learned so far (movement qualities, imaginary centers, tempos, atmospheres, etc) two create characters. He set up a table and chairs, and we went up two at a time, with our characters and techniques in mind. One person sat down first, then the next came out and had to start the scene by asking, "You come here often?" It was really entertaining and interesting to see how many ways the scenario could play out, for better or for worse. It's fun for us to be able to use these ideas, which at first glance can seem technical or abstract, in an improvisation to illustrate how useful they can be when working on a "real" character in a production.

DAY 24

2010-07-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

What advice did wildly successful television director Lee Shallat have for a room of aspiring actors?

"The best thing you can do is become a Buddhist."

She was only kind of joking- most of the advice she gave us was the encouragement to keep pursuing our careers, whether going to fruitless audition after fruitless audition or continuing to direct after a flopped show. She described her own initial failures and struggles when she made the switch from directing theatre to film without having any camera training as "being like a zombie... I kept coming back from the dead." That kind of perseverance has led her to direct such shows as Family Ties, The Nanny, Mad About You, Spin City, Arrested Development, The Bernie Mac Show, and Gilmore Girls.

She did give us some great audition tips for the world of film and television, and I'll list them here, as frantically scribbled down by a completely inexperienced film actress:

- The best ways to be seen by a casting director: Go to casting workshops, or be in an independent film that gets seen by influential people.

- In an audition, never feel like you NEED to get the job, or you will not be in the best mental place you can be, which is a centered, loose place.

- Read sides OUT LOUD on your feet a million times before the audition. It can never be stale or over-prepared... if you get the part you're going to have to do it in front of the camera a million times anyway.

- Read stage directions for character clues.

- Know where the character stands dramatically and psychologically in the scene.

- Be aware of where the "point" of the scene is.

- Don't "decorate" unnecessarily- if you're supposed to be the straight man, don't try to be funny.

- Don't ask yourself to get it perfectly right the first second: It's impossible. Just go in the moment.

-When you leave, let it go!

- Breathe life into the scene.

- If you are comfortable with it, they will be comfortable with you.

- They'll never tell you the truth. [Yikes!]

- DO NOT do a "stretch" piece in a general audition. Show off everything that's great about you, not your liabilities.

- Know who you are and how you come across.

Finally, one of my favorite bits of advice that she gave us was to put the "story you make up about yourself" (all the doubts and fears and self-criticism) out of your head. Keep the pure feelings (adrenaline, excitement), and be comfortable with yourself in them, because they will be there regardless, and use them to your advantage.

DAY 23

2010-07-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

Today we were so lucky to spend the first half of our day listening to actress Marin Hinkle (most recently well known for her role as Jon Cryer's shrew ex-wife on Two and a Half Men) talk about her experience as an actress balancing theatre, television, and family.

She told us the story of how her early life led her to acting: Born in Africa to parents (a lawyer and a professor) who met in the Peace Corps, she spent her childhood as a dancer before an injury left her to focus on academics and college. Knowing she was unable to dance but still in love with the stage, she decided to enroll as a theatre major at Brown. I related so much to her description of finding the theatre as a place where you can be something beyond what your family situation (or expectations of being proper and academic) dictate, allowing you to be something beyond the "good girl." My favorite anecdote was her description of her attempt at playing Emily in Our Town, which was failing as she acted it from a dancer's aesthetic, each line fully expressed with body motions and big faces. Laura Linney, who was a friend a few years her senior at Brown, kindly told her over burgers, "... you could simplify."

She took that advice to get her MFA at NYU, and began working in regional theatres and Off Broadway. Her theatre career picked up, she got married, and got a recurring role on Once and Again as Sela Ward's sister, moving out to Los Angeles from New York. After that ended she returned to regional theatre work, and after finding out she and her husband were pregnant, landed her current role on Two and a Half Men. It was so interesting to hear about the differences she has experienced between theatre and television work. She described the television set as an often joyless, sometimes "soulless" environment facing deadlines with a business mindedness, not with the theatrical creative, ensemble process. However, this job has afforded her the opportunity to pay off student loans, buy a home, and raise her child. There is no room for discussion about her character, as she commented, "Clearly the writers are angry at their ex-wives."

Day 22

2010-07-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

This morning we had Karen's Rehearsal class on the Argyros stage. It's so tempting, in such a big and intimidating theatre, to fall back to all of our bad actor habits to try and fill the space. It was also our last day working on The Three Sisters and there was a general sadness at being done with these characters that we've spent so much time with over the past month. I did one last Irina speech, and at one point at which I was sort of whispering/confiding in another character, Karen told me that such a whisper could not be heard at the back of such a large house. The cheat solution she offered me was to make the sentences on either side of the secret louder than normal so that the secret can be a normal volume, but still sound quieter and more hushed than the rest.

After lunch we had our final day of shooting Girl, Interrupted in Scott's Camera class. The last scene that we had to shoot was my close up. We did two takes, and after watching the playback we all generally agreed that the second one was better. One of my off camera scene partners remarked that it's always easier to have your best performance when the camera is not pointing right at your face. Scott seemed to take this idea to heart because he told me to do it one more time, just as a rehearsal run-through without the camera. We did it, and afterward he said, "Cut! Callie, did you know we were actually shooting?" I had to admit that I did- no one holds the boom mic for a rehearsal. It was a good directorial trick, though.

Lastly we had Hisa's Shakespeare class. I didn't present today, but I did enjoy watching my classmates perform and I think that I am going to use one of their monologues as my comedic selection: The Julia monologue from Two Gentlemen of Verona in which she berates herself for ripping up a love letter is funny even outside of the context of the show.

Day 21- WEEK FIVE

2010-07-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

No class today in honor of the Fourth of July!

I spent some of my time off reading Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire. Wow. I know I'm a couple years late on discovering this play, but, man, talk about writing some punch-you-in-the-gut-emotion into characters: A couple struggles in the year after the accidental death of their four-year-old son to redefine their own lives and relationships. I'm not a mother (and obviously Mr. Lindsay-Abaire isn't either) but the grief of a woman who has lost her child is heart-wrenchingly palpable in the dialogue.

Also, a note on the blog format: The date and time stamp at the top of each entry is the time at which I post it, not necessarily the day being described in the entry. If anyone knows a way to change it at the time of posting, let me know!

DAY 20

2010-07-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

Friday! This morning we were lucky enough to have Voice class with Greg on the Argyros Stage, one of the two main stages at SCR. It was so cool to be in such a renowned space, and our group was especially lucky to have this class first thing in the morning to relax and get our voices warmed up before the rest of the day. Greg had some of us go out into the house to listen to others say lines from their monologues to see how the acoustics in the house sound and vice versa. Then we did our full Fitzmaurice warm-up of stretching, tremor-ing, and breathing while saying text. At the end of class we tried our pieces again, and it was amazing how much fuller and more supported everyone sounded.

Secondly we had Audition class with Joanne on the Nicholas stage. Today was a mock-audition, and we went through the class each pretending as if it was the annual SCR generals: Walk in the room, slate, say your piece, say thank you, and walk out. We also timed each person; an ideal audition (and the usual requirement) is somewhere between one to three minutes. I felt pretty good about my piece, which is a Pooty monologue (great character name, huh?) from Reckless by Craig Lucas. My next task is to find a good contrasting piece. Joanne suggested I look at plays by Theresa Rebeck, who I'd never heard of (sometimes I feel like an ignorant fool when confronted with all the plays and writers I've never heard of) but apparently writes great edgy and funny female roles.

In the afternoon we had a combined Advanced Technique class with Hal. We worked with the idea of Tempos for the first time. This technique works with the concept that each character has an inner and outer tempo, and the atmosphere they interact in has its own tempo. A character's inner tempo is the rate at which a character thinks, feels, visualizes, etc, and can be categorized as very fast, fast, normal, slow, or very slow. A character's outer tempo is the rate at which a character moves, speaks, handles objects, etc, and can be fast, normal, or slow. The tempo of the atmosphere, or its pulse or heartbeat, can be very fast, fast, normal, or slow. We all got to take turns making up characters with any combination of tempos. I chose a sharp old lady (inner tempo: quick, outer tempo: slow) and a bouncy little girl (inner tempo: slow, outer tempo: very fast). For those of us who didn't get to do a scene playing with Atmosphere on Wednesday, we got to go this afternoon. I played a scene in which my husband was leaving me, and I was trying to get him to stay. The first atmosphere was despair and the second, anger. Playing despair, I made myself cry again.

It's the small victories in life.

DAY 19

2010-07-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

This morning we had a double Audition class with Joanne talking about the difference between film and television auditions versus theatre auditions. Personally, I still think that the film and TV audition process sounds much more nerve-wracking, probably because I've never done it before. When you think about it, it can either be awful or wonderful that your talent doesn't (really) matter and it's all about your look- on the one hand, not getting the job doesn't mean you didn't do well and so it's not personal, on the other hand, you can't really control your look, you just have to hope that you match the image in the casting associate's head. We also talked about how important cold reading skills are, especially in the film medium where you often have to cold read without knowing anything about the story or character. We practiced a bit with Luna Park, a book of unrelated monologues and scenes by Donald Margulies. (Note: Although it's usually not ideal to do monologues that aren't from plays for auditions, Joanne suggested that anything from this book would be alright because it is by such a well-respected playwright, not just an Acting 101 monologue book.)

After lunch we had Acting for the Camera with Scott, and we got to shoot most of the close-ups for Girl, Interrupted. It's an interesting experience being the out-of-shot actor, because (for me and some of my classmates, at least) there's less of that self-conscious feeling when you know you're not being recorded. It's also an interesting transition when, in all of your theatre training, you've been told to be "bigger" and then on film you need to "tone it down" or else you look like the world's biggest over-actor.

Lastly we had a Three Sisters Rehearsal class with Karen. She had given us the option of preparing a scene as a character other than the role we had been cast in for today's class. It was really fun to see people find characters entirely against their type and still play them wonderfully. My favorite was a transformation from Vershinin (leading man) to the Doctor (drunken old man). Karen even surprised one classmate who had not prepared an opposite character by asking her to go from Natasha (evil shrew) to Masha (heart-broken mess).

DAY 18

2010-07-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

This morning's Improv class with Greg found all of us suddenly having a terrible time with the simpler games. A mid-week funk, if you will. We moved on to a new game, which was similar to one that we played in Hal's class a few weeks ago, playing with mock job interviews. One person would be doing the interviewing, and the other would have to come up with three distinct characters to interview for the job. It was interesting afterward to pick apart how some turns in their conversations had either helped or hindered the scene: Any time someone gave their scene partner good detailed information, it was greatly beneficial, but if the person didn't receive it or accept what they said as true (breaking one of the holiest improv rules) the scene tanked.

In Hal's Advanced Technique class we continued to focus on Atmospheres and Psychological Gestures. I feel that Atmospheres and the Qualities that we worked on in the earlier weeks have largely the same effect for me, just with different ways of using the imagination: Either that it comes from your surroundings or inside your body, whatever "it" is (the feeling you get from an atmosphere of power versus the carving quality feel similar to me). We worked on finding a Psychological Gesture for our Three Sisters characters, which can be hard to do for intellectual characters, and especially hard for intellectual actors. The gesture is supposed to be a sort of gut reaction to the character, in one simple physical movement, that symbolizes their objective and situation. A character looking for love while feeling trapped could perhaps lunge forward, arms outstretched, without quite reaching what they need. It can feel silly to do such huge movements that are not at all realistic if you think too much about it; it is more of an intuitive response.

In Hisa's Shakespeare class I got up to do my Helena monologue from All's Well. I was so focused on not being "promiscuous with my pauses" that I sped through it pretty quickly the first time around. Then she had me go back and do it again focusing on clarifying each image (and not moving my non-paper-carrying hand like a crazy person). I connect so deeply to Helena in what she's saying in this monologue, and I became a bit overwhelmed by it and unable to connect that emotion to the words off the page. By next class I will be memorized so that I don't have to be hiding behind the paper while I speak.

DAY 17

2010-06-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

This morning we had a double-session with Karen, finishing up the speeches we each selected, as several people were absent yesterday. I think that we've come to the point in the summer where we're all hovering around emotional exhaustion, after about a month of this training and real life marching on as well: A few people had overwhelming emotional moments in class not found in The Three Sisters, but managed to harness it to use it in their work. Personal troubles always find a way to come at the busiest times, and I'm so glad that our class is being so professional and supportive. We all continue to try to connect our thoughts to the words, instead of having the thought in a pause and then speaking after the fact.

In Acting For The Camera with Scott we finished the close-ups for American Psycho and Ghost World and, I must say, I think I may have missed my true calling: The marker. Who wouldn't love clapping that little board and announcing what's about to happen? The power can go to your head.

I didn't do my monologue in Hisa's Shakespeare class today, but of course learned just as much from watching my classmates go. I love the way Hisa describes the characters, and when a Luciana (from Comedy of Errors) had finished the first time, she explained how the character would see the world, and finally settled on "She has kitten posters in her room, you know?" A big focus for today was using the structure of the language for our own creative purposes, instead of being tied down to a certain way of saying it.

DAY 16- WEEK FOUR

2010-06-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Our hour with Karen this morning was a little unorthodox as it consisted of brief one-on-one meetings discussing our personal progress instead of rehearsal. In my meeting, we agreed that the number one thing I need to continue to focus on is my vocal range and variety. Also, not slouching... my mother would be so ashamed.

We then had Improv with Greg for an hour, which felt strange because several people from our group were missing, for personal reasons or for auditions, so our team was a little off. We played the "Name Six" game and I couldn't think of famous bald men. As soon as the water bottle came back to me, I realized I could have just picked six Lakers and I would have been fine: "Kobe, damn it!" We also did an exercise where we each had to stand in front of the class and answer some sort of personal question. We had the option to lie if we didn't want to tell the truth, but we just had to convince the rest of the class. When it came time to pick apart who we thought had lied and why, it turned out most of our group had just told the truth. Clearly, we have no shame.

After lunch we had our normal, full-session Rehearsal class with Karen in which we showed off the speeches we'd selected for our characters. All of the women had to wear corsets for the first time, and I thought my ribs might explode. Turned out, it was a great tool for me because when it was my turn to do my speech, my hysterical laughter just about caused a panic attack for my lungs which made me able to cry, on stage, for the first time. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, not just shuddering and sounds to look like crying: real live water works. The next thing she had me work on was pausing less in between thoughts, or, as she likes to say, not being "promiscuous with your pauses."

Lastly, we had Advanced Technique with Hal. We worked with the idea of "Atmospheres" in which you imagine the atmosphere of your location or situation and absorbing the feelings it creates- for example, the feeling of reverence inside of a cathedral, or sorrow at a funeral. Going along with the church theme, Hal made us a sort of make-shift chapel using flats and blocks, and had us (and by us I mean the girls in the class) pretend to be nuns in a small Italian chapel, and the other half (the boys) be trouble-making, drunk American tourists. It was so funny to see how they could not keep up their shouting ways once they entered the atmosphere we were practically spitting out at them.

Day 15

2010-06-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

This morning we got to start off our day in Voice class with Greg. Our group is especially lucky because we get to have this class first, stretching out our "oh-man-it's-the-last-day-of-the-week-and-I'm-exhausted" bodies, breathing, and relaxing, before going into any of our more stress-inducing classes. As we move from one modified yoga position to the next, our limbs involuntarily tremor and shake (or, that's the goal, at least), like when you are trying to do one last push-up and your arms quiver all over the place. Letting that tremor happen while breathing allows the breath to fill different parts of the body, and when you are in an unusual position, it can feel quite strange and vulnerable. We also did some partner stretching, and I am pretty sure I am going to be sore tomorrow.

Our second class of the morning was Audition with Joanne. We talked about headshots and resumes, and fortunately I had brought mine up to speed the night before. I also told everyone looking to get new headshots about The Rock Studio's current special (which is detailed on the image above). Then someone asked Joanne about how SCR became so damn successful, and she told us the whole story (read about it here: http://www.scr.org/about/scrstory.aspx) about how Martin and David and their friends started an acting company after college, moved it to Orange County, and became one of the most successful theatres in the country over a few short decades. It wasn't necessarily audition-related, but it was a pretty inspiring tale of overcoming the odds, which always seem to be stacked against you in an audition room.

In the afternoon, we had Advanced Technique with Hal as a combined large class. We briefly discussed Psychological Gestures, but mostly kept working on the imaginary life of our characters. One exercise involved imagining how a character would walk into a room, find a book, and open the book to find a note inside telling them that their greatest wish had come true. We got up in front of the class to act out what we had envisioned in our imaginations one by one, and it was interesting to see who decided to stick to what they had planned to do in their heads, and who decided to try something completely new once they were in the moment.

DAY 14

2010-06-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

This morning we had our Audition class with Joanne. We all went through our monologues to see the progress that we are making with them, etc, as some still need to be shortened a bit. We then started talking about pictures and resumes and letting Joanne look at them to edit them and make recommendations. When I saw everyone else's resumes I was too embarrassed to show mine today: It was formatted all pretty, with different colors and fonts. Apparently, that's not okay. So tonight I am going to re-do all of the formatting and show her tomorrow my new, black and white, standard edition resume. Also, she told someone else in the class that they needed to leave out their high school credits, and so I'll be taking off mine as well, which will make the whole thing a lot shorter. Sigh.

In Scott's Camera class we began filming the close-ups for our scenes. Girl, Interrupted didn't shoot today, so we were assigned different crew tasks. I was in charge of the script supervisor sheet, writing down the description of the scene and the time stamp for each shot, to be given to the editor so that he or she knows which take to print.

In Karen's Rehearsal class today we attacked Act IV of The Three Sisters, which is essentially where it hits the fan emotionally speaking. I did the Irina scene where she tells the Baron she doesn't love him and can't do anything about it. Karen had us (literally) run laps across the front of the stage and do it again, heart rates up and out of breath, and this time it was so much more high stakes and high emotions- we were both fuming. Then she had us put our scripts down and do the scene using our own words, which basically led to us shouting at each other. Then we moved on to the scene where Masha and Vershinin have to say goodbye to one another. Both actor pairs playing these parts broke my heart in this scene, it was so beautiful and heart-breaking. I played Irina both times, and the scene immediately following the kiss goodbye was so different each time, but both ended up with laughter through tears. The only down side to the class for me was when I asked what we were looking at through the fourth wall. As soon as it left my mouth, I knew it was a stupid question. Karen was not amused.

DAY 13

2010-06-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today in Greg's Improvisation class we played a new game in which one person volunteers and sits in a chair in front of the rest of the class to show the life story of their character. The thing is, they have no idea who their character is, and it is up to the rest of the class to jump up and start doing a scene, in no chronological order, from any point of their life, giving the person clues as to who their character is. One person jumps up and starts talking about their life in the retirement home, another person gets up and asks them to prom, another person starts asking them for milk and cookies, and it becomes apparent what the relationships are in a matter of seconds: Grandma, girlfriend, mommy. The only time it didn't go well was when someone would jump up and start a scene without giving the person enough information about who they were or what the situation was.

In Hal's class we began to move on from imaginary centers toward the imaginary life of a character. This work is all about the imagination, and how you would imagine your character, when you see them in your mind's eye, walking, sitting, or gesturing. The physical posture of the actor/character affects us so much, even subconsciously. Hal had us say the simple line "What's the matter with me?" not with any particular character in mind, but in five different sitting positions. It was amazing how different the line delivery was in each position, without any motivation or circumstances dictating it. The difference between saying it with the head lowered versus arms extended up was the most dramatic and most interesting.

I got to work on my new monologue from All's Well That Ends Well in Hisa's Shakespeare class. It's funny how sometimes obvious things can be overlooked when you are working on just a monologue instead of the whole scene or play: I was so focused on what I was saying in the monologue that I completely neglected the relationship to the person I was saying it to- in this case, Bertram's mother. The monologue is more about Helena's relationship to her than it is describing Helena's love for Bertram. Which, now that it's been pointed out to me, is beyond obvious, but I had not even really considered it before. My new challenge, now that I've exchanged my own clipped way of speaking for a more drawn out vocal release for Shakespeare is to keep "fresh minting" each idea when it changes, shifts, or gets bigger. Hisa has such a great way of describing how each character needs this heightened language. My favorite quote from class today: "In this world, all we have is language. And occasionally poison and daggers."

DAY 12

2010-06-26T12:03:00.001-07:00

Today we all left Karen's Rehearsal class completely high on our Three Sisters work. It was like everyone had their own revelatory breakthrough about their character. The literal and figurative coloring of our scripts really worked, and we were all able to find the most surprising range of emotions in seemingly one-note speeches. Even Karen was thrilled about it, and made us all breath a huge sigh of "finally! we did it!" relief.

In Scott's Camera class, we had to reshoot the master shot for Girl, Interrupted because when we were shooting last week, the memory chip reached capacity but the camera kept rolling, so we had no idea that what we were doing was not being saved. We re-shot our scene and finished up the last of the master shots for the other scenes. Ultimately (apparently) very little of these shots will be seen in the final product except to set up the first image as location and character spacial relations- everything else will be varied close-ups jumping back and forth.

Shakespeare with Hisa was helpful, as it always is. Even when you are not necessarily the person working a monologue or scene, it's often times easier to see what she's talking about when watching someone else go through it. When it's you up there, it can be harder to hear what she's diagnosing in your own voice. We only have time to get through about half the class, so I did not go today, but just listening to others work to achieve the "have the thought-need the words" reaction was very informative.

DAY 11- Week Three

2010-06-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

This morning we had Improvisation with Greg. We played the "frantically name six of an item before the water bottle gets passed back to you" game, and finally, three weeks later, I got caught with the bottle. Name six of what, you ask? The last few weeks it's been things like movies featuring animals as main characters, musicals with one word titles, names of American first ladies. But the six items I was to name? "Restaurants that serve primarily chicken." For those of you who don't know me, my family owns and operates Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. I am literally a third generation KFC kid. I swear I could not name one other chicken restaurant. In my defense, we never frequented the competition when I was growing up. El Pollo Loco? Didn't go until I was 18. Fortunately, we played another game so I could try to redeem myself. Our new task was to speak for a solid minute about some fictional topic he assigned us as if we were a leading expert at a conference. This was much easier for me and everyone was able to complete the minute with very funny success.

In Karen's rehearsal class we continued with our The Three Sisters rehearsal. Our current assignment is to go through the script with literal colors (pencils, crayons, what have you) to designate each thought with its own emotion. We are also continuing to discuss how to negotiate with directors and other actors via what Karen calls "self-defense acting." This involves backing up all opinions about your character with proof from the text, examples from previous productions, or famous articles or books. There's nothing worse than getting direction or notes from another actor, however, ahem, well-meaning they may be, and part of the negotiation is the tact to sometimes say "That's interesting..." and walk away, and to sometimes defend your choices until you get what you want.

In Hal's Advanced Techniques class, we talked about objectives. While it's a pretty basic idea in acting, it's sometimes easy to bypass for that very reason. The more specific an action verb can be, the easier time you will having picking tactics as to how you will complete that specific action to get what you want or need.

DAY 10

2010-06-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Where have the last two weeks gone? I feel like I only just got used to which staircase leads where and now we're a third of the way done with the program. This morning we did all kinds of crazy Fitzmaurice breathing, stretching, and voice work in the morning with Greg. Then we continued our Advanced Techniques with Hal combining our movement qualities and imaginary centers.

The real business of the day came after lunch, when we had a combined Audition class with Joanne all afternoon, which was a giant question/answer/lecture session about the ins and outs of getting jobs. So, without further ado, here are Joanne's tips and tricks of the trade, as frantically scribbled down by a non-Equity, non-represented actress.

1. Know what play you're auditioning for and who you are auditioning for- know about every person who will be in the room and what they've done (i.e. don't let the playwright be sitting in the room unacknowledged because you don't know what they look like).

2. Know the theatre and its history.

3. Don't pass up roles/auditions for better roles/auditions that "might" happen.

4. If you have an agent, tell them specifically that you want theatre work. Sometimes they don't pass on theatre audition notices if it's pilot season, etc, unless you've asked.

5. NEVER say you didn't read the whole play (I thought that was a pretty obvious one, but apparently it's a common mistake).

6. EPA stands for Equity Principal Auditions, and you can attend them (if they are not closed) if you are non-Equity.

7. If you are in contact with casting agents, keep them informed about what you are working on.

8. DO NOT be off-book for sides. Always keep them in your hands.

9. It is okay to say, "Can I start again?" if your beginning was miserable and you need to start over.

10. It is okay to send the casting director a thank-you note after the production in which they cast you, but is not necessary after the audition.

11. DO wear the exact same thing you wore to the audition if you are called back.

12. Dress the flavor of the role (Shakespeare: peasant top; Contemporary: T-shirt, jeans or movement clothes).

13. DO NOT wear or do anything to call attention to anything other than your performance.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Now let's all go get hired...

DAY 9

2010-06-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

This morning we had our Audition class with Joanne. The woman is a genius. In a matter of days since initially meeting all of us, she found monologues that fit us each perfectly. She gave me a piece from Reckless by Craig Lucas in which the character confesses she is not, in fact, deaf and mute, but has just been pretending to be so to get the attention of her love interest. Other popular pieces were from Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan, Oleanna by David Mamet, Hitchcock Blonde by Terry Johnson, and Autobahn by Neil LaBute. Everyone was very happy to be handed a monologue that was just right for them, as the process for finding one for yourself can take weeks... or just remain unfound.

In Scott's Camera class we shot the master shots of our scenes. It's really interesting for me to see the technical side of film in little ways, like holding the boom for a scene: I had no idea about any of it. We continued to work on our Girl, Interrupted scene, and I got to use Hal's "mentally disturbed" imaginary center technique. We'll see how well it worked when we see the playback next Tuesday.

Finally we had Karen's rehearsal class and worked through Act II of The Three Sisters. It seems like no matter how much research and prep I do, she still always comes up with questions that make me think, "How the hell did I not think of that before?" It is so fun doing scene work with such talented classmates, especially in a text that we all seem to be fairly unfamiliar with, stumbling through and making discoveries about the text together. Our voice teacher Greg played Vershinin for a while, adding an interesting (and obviously more experienced) layer to our group. Our homework for the weekend is to create a character bio in which we fill in all of the details, reasons, and answers that Chekhov didn't specify.

DAY 8

2010-06-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

Another hysterical morning with Greg in Improvisation class. We played our usual games and learned a few new ones as well. As much crap as Greg gives us as we fail miserably during these games, he always gives us the most inspirational talks in the last half of class. He gave us a list of improv rules, including always making eye contact, trusting your partner, always adapting to changes/never denying information from your partner, being truthful, never physically fighting (which I think is kind of funny... he's obviously had problems with this in the past?), and knowing that there are exceptions to every rule.

We then had Advanced Techniques with Hal, who continued to work with us on "imaginary centers." Today we added a technique for playing mentally disturbed, which involves imagining the center far in the distance and giving it a strong magnetic quality. Watching Hal and my classmates focus their eyes this way, they certainly looked deranged, so I think it was a pretty good trick.

Our final class was Shakespeare with Hisa. I got to do my monologue, which was from All's Well That Ends Well. She showed me an even better Helena monologue two scenes after my selection that I will work on for next class. She also gave me the note that while it's great that I can speak Shakespeare in my own natural speech pattern, it would be better if I could draw out and elongate my words to match the heightened language with vocal emotional release, instead of my own quick, clipped pace of speech.

DAY 7

2010-06-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Today we had Karen's Audition class all morning, in which we got our roles for The Three Sisters that we will be rehearsing over the next four weeks. I've been cast as Irina, who is the ingénue of the sisters. I've never really played the ingénue before because I usually play the quirky/funny/outsider character (which is why I initially read for Natasha), so I'm excited to try something new and challenging... mostly because I have the worst time crying on command and this girl cries every other line. We had a discussion about the play based off of the research we had done over the weekend, and Karen tried to break us of the habit of starting any statement with "I think" or "I feel." I had no idea I started phrases that way, so it was a hard one to break. We read through the first act and will continue on to the second next class. Our big challenge is to find multiple and conflicting emotions in each speech, instead of just playing sad, happy, or angry.

Our next class was Camera with Scott. We are doing a scene from Girl, Interrupted and shot a couple practice runs of it. Scott recommended a great website to us, which is www.script-o-rama.com, and in it are hundreds of film and television scripts you can download for free. We had to replace one of our characters as one of our classmates had to drop the program, so the reading was a little awkward. The playback was also the first time I have really seen myself on film close up... wow. Are my cheeks really that big?

Finally we had Shakespeare with Hisa. There wasn't time for everyone to present their monologues but I learned so much just from watching others go. Overall, the challenge for us with this heightened language is connecting the sometimes foreign words to original thought, instead of "acting" and then reciting pretty words. We need to have the thought, need the language, and thus think, act, and speak all at once. Not as easy as it sounds. She also uses a great phrase which is "Fresh mint it!" meaning in a monologue, you have to keep coming up with fresh new thoughts and reasons to keep speaking instead of just waiting for the person to respond or marching off stage all together.

DAY 6- Week 2

2010-06-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

I have a distinct feeling that any day with an Improvisation class with Greg is going to be my favorite day. I just laugh so hard the entire time. Again we were with both groups, playing large group games and then discussing how conflict and empathy on stage make for interesting entertainment. We played the "frantically name six of a category while a water bottle is being passed back to you" game again, and still no one was able to get all of them. We also played a game where you have to say a word that begins with whatever was the last letter of the word you were just given while sticking to a certain rhythm. He described improv as being "a playwright on your feet"- you create your own plot and circumstances; the team has to be able to play along with you.

We then had Rehearsal class with Karen, in which we had "callbacks" for The Three Sisters. I read for Natasha, and I am finding that my bad nervous habit is to read too quickly. It is interesting to see a group of really fine actors be called out on their bad nervous habits- we all have a distinct one we are now aware of and are trying to break. Even with my overly-speedy initial read I think it went well. We find out our cast list tomorrow. Not that there isn't any thing at stake here (again, please hire me SCR), but it is funny how seriously we all get about it when you label it "auditions"- even for a play that we will never perform. Also, we got to practice our audition schmoozing tactics: "Is there anything you would like me to know before I begin? ... Thank you, that adjustment was so helpful... Would you like to see it another way? ... Thanks so much, I really appreciate you calling me in to read... It looks like a very exciting project." Consider yourself schmoozed.

We then had Advanced Techniques with Hal, who gave us the idea of the "imaginary center," or the place where a character holds their "emotional and mental headquarters." From this center, which can be anywhere in, on, or around the body, a character trait can be built: Superman might have his in the center of his chest, leading the way with his perfect posture. This imaginary gravitational pull can also be used for more specific purposes, like drunkenness, in which case the center may be moving back and forth in front of you as you struggle to keep focus on it. Obviously, we all ended class having to come down from our fake buzz.

DAY 5

2010-06-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, Friday. We definitely had an "ahhh" kind of morning in our first voice class with Dr. Greg Ungar today. After a quick game of communist tag (that's right) we got to lay on the floor, focusing on breathing and stretching to relieve all tension. Our group got super lucky to relax first thing in the morning before rushing off to all of our other (more stress-inducing) classes. Greg teaches the Fitzmaurice approach to opening the voice, which I have had the pleasure of studying with Ben Mathes at USD. It was a great way to start off our last day of week one.

Next we had Audition class with Joanne, who gave us feedback on our monologue selection. For most of us, it was a simple "No!" or "No way!" or "Get rid of it." I loved her honesty. She told me the Equivocation piece was interesting but not long enough. She then had us stand up so she could appraise us physically, and gave us each the age range we should be auditioning for. She gave me mid-twenties, possibly younger with my hair in a pony tail.

We ended the day with a longer Advanced Techniques class with Hal with both groups combined, all twenty-seven of us adopting different qualities as instructed. Our improv exercise was to go up in pairs and do a mock job interview, with both the interview-er and -ee picking different qualities and creating scenarios on the spot.

DAY 4

2010-06-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

This morning we had our first Audition class with Joanne Denaut, casting director at South Coast Rep. She literally makes the casting decisions for every show at this theatre, so I was pretty nervous going in, obviously wanting to make a good impression. I'm so excited for this class, especially because I will be making the rounds of MFA auditions this academic year and need to be prepared for such potentially life-altering audition decisions. Just thinking about what monologue I should pick for my UCI audition makes me sweat, so it will be great have such an expert opinion about what to choose. She asked us all what we would do with our lives if acting was suddenly no longer an option, making the point that our other interests support our acting, and our acting supports our other interests. We all performed our monologues for her (my current one is from Equivocation by Bill Cain) and I am interested to see what she has to say about them tomorrow.

In our camera class, Scott gave us some scenes to try reading aloud to see if we are interested in working on them to eventually do on camera. We all read about two and all ended up picking the ones he originally suggested, of course. A few other women and I will be working on a scene from Girl, Interrupted which I have never seen but plan on reading over the weekend. Everyone was somewhat cast to type, and I got crazy girl. Of course!

In Karen's Rehearsal class, we did cold read auditions for Chekhov's The Three Sisters, which, naturally, of his most famous plays, is the one I'm completely unfamiliar with. We will be working on this play over the next four weeks, working through an entire rehearsal process without ever actually performing it. I read for Olga, at first way too quickly, and Karen had to slow me down. I later read again for Irina, and after doing one of her speeches, Karen told me that I read too naturalistically/modern/one-note-y. I completely agree that I need to work on that, and, as she puts it, "add more colors" to my vocal range onstage. We have callbacks on Monday, and will be coming back having read and researched the play with a character picked out and ready to show off.

DAY 3

2010-06-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

This morning we had our first Improvisation class with Greg Atkins. I. laughed. so. hard. Coincidentally, it's not even a comedy improv class, but rather general improvisation skills for the actor. He taught us a few improv games, which we completely failed at, which gave him a ton of material with which to mock us. My favorite: We had to stand in a circle passing around a bottle of water, and whenever he said stop, the person caught holding the bottle had to name eight of a certain item (vegetables that aren't green; candy bars that don't have nuts) before the bottle made it around the circle back to them. Of course, under pressure, it becomes infinitely more difficult to categorize common information. The whole point was that if this kind of pressure can stump you, what happens when "hundred dollar bills are being burned" on a film set and you need to step up and say your one line? After the game he gave us a great talk about relationships, professional and personal, and how those connections are all that matters in this business.

In our Shakespeare class, Hisa gave us more information about verse, prose, and syllables than I could wrap my mind around in an hour and a half. This is probably common knowledge, but my favorite tidbit is that (generally speaking) higher status people speak in verse, and lower class people speak in prose. She gave us a bunch of great handouts, and I'll type out a guideline for operative words at the bottom of this post.

Hal's Advanced Techniques class was a continuation of the "qualities" that we worked on last time and a few new ones- staccato and legato. He has a great phrase for using these qualities physically in a character: He "infuses" the quality to maintain the physical feeling while focusing on the dialogue or task at hand.

So, here we are midweek of week one. I leave you with this list, courtesy of Hisa Takakuwa and A Noise Within Theatre (of which she is a founding artistic member):

GUIDELINES FOR IDENTIFYING OPERATIVE WORDS & IMAGE WORDS:

1. Stress not the negative. "No" and "not" are almost never operative. The operative word is, instead, the word that is being negated. Example: "Go not till you here from me." "I love thee not; therefore pursue me not."

2. Verbs of being are never operative. The operative words are the words that explain the kind or quality of being. Example: "I am happy." "He is my brother."

3. Avoid stressing pronouns whenever it is possible to do so ("he", "she", "it", etc). Whenever there is any alternative that makes sense, use it. This includes possessive pronouns ("his", "her", etc).

4. Possessive nouns are never less important than the word they posses Example: "My father's house."

5. Articles ("a", "an", "the"), prepositions ("to", "from", "on", etc) and conjunctions ("and", "but", "or", etc) are never operative. They contain no images, but serve to show the relationships between the images. Find the word with the images.

6. Adjectives and adverbs are treated as part of the noun or verb they modify. The key operative word is the noun or verb, with the adjective or adverb incorporated in the image as a modifier.

7. An image that is repeated is not operative. What is operative is any new quality that is added in the repetition. This is called repetitive contrast. Stress the new information.

DAY 2

2010-06-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday program director Karen Hensel gave us a two-page scene with no real content to memorize to perform in class today with our assigned partner. The dialogue was not particularly enlightening, but she gave us each a circumstance ("It's a horror film... It's a romantic comedy... You were roommates and it ended badly") and we had to make it work. We all performed our scenes and they were all vastly different, and then bam: She gave us about five minutes to come up with a new scenario and perform them again. Like yesterday, her whole point was that the actor has the power over the words (not the other way around) and we need to be able to control them in any possible way in case a director or casting person asks us to make a change in a split second.

Our next class was film, which thoroughly frightened me because I have no experience in it. Not only am I inexperienced, I am baffled: Just weep/fall in love/laugh/scream/whatever immediately after they slap that clapboard in your face? No warm-up? No scene partner? Nothing? It sounds awful. Fortunately, our instructor, Scott Reiniger, seems like a very patient guy.

Our final class of the day was Shakespeare, taught by Hisa Takakuwa. I also have no experience being in Shakespeare productions, but I am very familiar (Thanks, English 280) and have seen some great productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in London, and in New York, so I feel much more comfortable in this arena despite my inexperience. Hisa told us that there are two rules to doing Shakespeare well: 1. Being specific and 2. Being present. Without those two things, it becomes boring, and even if it's well-spoken, it's not "lived" and puts us all to sleep.

Day 2 left me a little overwhelmed by my own lack of experience, but excited to hopefully speed up the learning curve over the course of this summer.

DAY 1

2010-06-09T08:00:00.001-07:00

In February, I auditioned for South Coast Repertory's Professional Acting Intensive and, a week later, I got a letter in the mail saying that I was accepted. I promptly freaked out.

So I am very excited to be spending the next two months at the theatre every day, and because I convinced USD to give me some units for this endeavor, I will be blogging every day as my journal to later go back and write a massive paper about the experience. But, in the mean time, I will be sharing my daily experiences and my favorite tips and tidbits from the fabulous instructors that I am learning from every day.

My first morning, I was incredibly nervous, which is not a feeling I experience often, but the potential for my career after doing this program (hire me SCR! give me my Equity card!) is really intimidating. There are about 26 other actors this summer, with varying degrees of experience, training, and age. We took a tour of the theatre (I get a key!) and it's like starting school all over again: The building is a huge labyrinth of staircases, classrooms, offices, and of course the main stages, and I have no idea where any of my classrooms are. At one point I stepped away from the group to go to the bathroom in between classes and got thoroughly lost.

Our first class, with program director Karen Hensel, was a blast. We all came to class prepared with a monologue, and she put us on stage in pairs, gave us some given circumstances ("You're picking up a girl at a bar", "You're at your uncle's funeral"), and instructed us to do the scene using the text from our monologue. The result was sometimes hilarious and sometimes worked out weirdly well. Her entire point was that as an actor, "You control the words. The words do not control you." You need to be able to change the delivery of the words to fit what you're trying to communicate, because, especially in an audition situation, you need to be able to change at the drop of a hat if the casting people have something else in mind. She also made us solemnly swear to never leave an audition without asking the casting director: "Would you like to see it another way? Is there something you'd like to see that I didn't give you?"

Our next class of the day was with Hal Landon (he plays Scrooge every year in a Christmas Carol) and is called "Advanced Techniques." It is essentially a Michael Chekhov class, which is great because I recently took a class with Liz Shipman at USD that is very similar, so I've already gotten over the awkwardness of "move like you're surrounded by clay" or "radiate light toward this wall." (What?) This type of work was really strange for me before I took Liz's class, so I'm glad I'm a little bit more prepared for this one.

I left exhausted and excited for the next day. More to come!

Crimes of the Heart

2010-05-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Lenny is not having a good birthday. Not that anyone remembers that she is turning 30, but her beloved horse was just struck down by lightening, her grandfather is getting worse in the hospital, and she can't contact her much prettier sister to tell her that the youngest sister is in jail for shooting her own damn husband because she "didn't like his looks."

This immediate series of unfortunate events at South Coast Repertory's Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley is quite a bit to handle in the first ten minutes of a play, but the humorous absurdity of it all (horse struck by lightening? Really?) is quickly counterbalanced by the deep dysfunction and tragedy of a family legacy in the deep South. The three unfortunate sisters discovered the body of their suicidal mother at a young age; the national attention they received from a mother who hanged herself (oh, and hanged their cat) in the basement still haunting them in adulthood.

Lenny, played with an awkward humor by Blair Sams, is tied to the family home, taking care of the ailing Granddaddy that raised them after their mother's death and not taking time to find love for herself. Meg, played with a self-aware sexuality by Jennifer Lyon, has a completely failed singing career in California, has had "too many men" and her own recent nervous breakdown. And, as the catalyst for their reunion, Babe (Kate Rylie) has just shot her abusive husband in the stomach after he came home unexpectedly, catching her spending time with the fifteen-year-old black boy she has been having an illicit affair with (at a time in the South when such affair could easily leave such a boy murdered). Together they face Babe's upcoming trial against her politician husband as their resentments, secrets, and memories slowly make themselves apparent.

Henley has a great knack for finding humor in the darkest of situations, and the cast at SCR did a fantastic job at pulling out even more laughs. The characters were really and truly dysfunctional, their selfish decisions ruining the lives of others or themselves, but, as with more recent family portraits such as August: Osage County, I never felt an uplifting break in the cycle of suicidal despair and mistreatment by men. The message of the play seemed to be that its not up to women to break the cycle (except for Lenny, who finally connects with a man who loves her), but rather to be there to support each other through it.

I certainly left wishing I had a sister, and grateful for the girlfriends in my life that substitute.

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

2010-05-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to see the world premier of Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo at the Kirk Douglas Theatre last year, and I was so excited when the Mark Taper announced that they would be remounting it this season. I mean, when a show contains dialogue like, "I'm sorry I'm bothering you, but you're the only person who can hear me besides the Tiger, and the Tiger just keeps bugging me about epistemology and original sin, which is as annoying as fuck," you know you're intrigued. Did I mention this is a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer?

Directed by Moisés Kaufman (The Laramie Project), this show examines the war in Iraq with razor blade humor and heart-wrenching honesty. Having seen it last year, I had somewhat prepared myself for the blood and loss, but the intimate space of the Taper brings the hopeless feeling of Baghdad right into the pit of your stomach. The acting in this show is absolutely flawless, bringing the story in and out of time and reality, seamlessly traveling from before and during the American occupation. Joseph's triumph in this piece is that he blames no one power for the suffering: The Americans are (literally) chasing after golden toilet seats, and the Hussein family rapes, murders, and tortures their own people. The only downfall in the piece is that it offers no sense of hope, ever. The ghost of the Tiger from the blown-up Baghdad zoo (an atheist in life, apparently) discovers in death that his soul must be lingering on earth because of God, but God never shows himself to reveal why he is prolonging the endless suffering.

This is a beautiful show and I think it will serve history with a vivid image of how this war is being perceived seven years into it: If possible, how do the good people living in a crumbling city stay good? And if neither of the powers that fought over it were looking out for the best interests of those good people, then what now?

The Language Archive

2010-04-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

South Coast Repertory has snagged the world premier of Julia Cho's The Language Archive, and I believe this play is quickly going to be produced everywhere (the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has already slated it in its 2011 season), and rightfully so.

The story follows George (played by Leo Marks), a brilliant linguist who desperately fights against time to archive dying languages, who can speak a multitude of languages but who cannot manage to communicate to his wife, Mary (Betsy Brandt). As much as he loves her, he cannot say what she needs to hear, and her constant weeping and mysterious notes leave him completely bewildered. She announces she is leaving him, and he is devastated. And as much as he did not see it coming, he also didn't see that his quirky assistant Emma (a charming Laura Heisler) has fallen desperately in love with him.

As his personal life unravels, George and Emma are working on recording Alta and Resten, the last two speakers of Ellowan, a vaguely Eastern European-ish sounding language. Unfortunately the elderly couple, played with comic brilliance by Linda Gehringer and Tony Amendola, got in a huge fight on the plane ride over from their village and refuse to speak Ellowan until it is resolved. Apparently, English is a language for fighting because everyone knows you can always take it back if it's said in English, but Ellowan is a language reserved for love. As they fight with each other and counsel George in his obvious heartbreak, they create a touching picture of two people in the most real kind of love: A lifetime of two people who bicker and feud but ultimately want nothing more than to spend their entire lives loving and being loved by that one other person.

Gerhinger and Amendola also play a variety of smaller characters, each contributing a small revelation about relationships and our constant struggle to communicate and be understood by the person we love most. After such a smart first act, the second seemed to have a few too many of the usual convenient plot conventions (letters falling from the sky, encounters on a train, characters giving their own epilogues), but those seemed to stand by the wayside of the larger meaning of the play. Communicating what we want and need from love and from each other is its own language, and no matter how proficient we may be in all other linguistic aspects, without that communication, we never fully understand each other.

A View From The Bridge

2010-03-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

Whenever anyone mentions Liev Schreiber, my absolute favorite story to tell is one of a beloved professor: Apparently, he threw a chair at her head when they were both at the Yale School of Drama (my apologies to those who have had to listen to that story six and seven times). But now, whenever he makes his way into a conversation or film, I will have a new little fact to share: He was absolutely amazing in A View From the Bridge on Broadway in 2010.

Arthur Miller's story of a longshoreman who falls tragically in his own undoing creates the character of Eddie Carbone, a role that Schreiber was born to play. His wife Beatrice, played with a perfect nervousness by Jessica Hecht, is concerned that Eddie may be a little too emotionally involved with her niece Catherine, played by Scarlett Johansson, marking her Broadway debut. Everything is under control until Beatrice's cousins, illegal Italian immigrants, come to stay with them secretly in order to find work and send money back to their starving families in Italy. When Eddie senses that Catherine may be seriously falling in love with one of them, he begins a campaign to smear his reputation, and when that doesn't work, he sets in motion a string of events at first tragic, and ultimately fatal, to himself and the Italian-American community. Schreiber's portrayal of a desperate obsession and individual moments of destructive decision making absolutely break your heart.

Now, in writing this little blog, it occurred to me: How are we, the audience, not bothered or at least a little perplexed by the fact that we root for Catherine and Rodolpho to get married when they are actually cousins? We are repulsed by Eddie's attraction to Catherine because he is her guardian and married to Beatrice, but, technically speaking, his attraction is adulterous but not incestuous as he is only related to Catherine by marriage. Is there some line in the text that implies that "cousin" is really Miller's term for distant, distant relatives? I've seen and discussed this play a few times over the last few years and this quandary has never occurred to me until just now. Miller scholars: Thoughts? Am I missing something? Or is this cousin-marriage just not that big of a deal?

Next to Normal

2010-02-26T14:18:00.000-08:00

Next to Normal is the kind of musical not meant for the faint of heart. The rock musical deals with Diana, wife and mother struggling with depression, schizophrenia, and suicidal tendencies, played by Alice Ripley, who won the Tony Award for best actress for this dark role. Her husband, played touchingly by J. Robert Spencer, is doing his best to keep her safe and happy while juggling with his work and duties as father of the house. Their sixteen-year-old daughter, played by Jennifer Damiano, is a cynical stress case attempting to earn the attention of her mother, whose sole focus is on her older brother, played by Kyle Dean Massey.

Except that the older brother died as a baby, and the figure we see on stage is entirely in Diana's imagination, leaving her completely unable to move past her loss. What ensues is a great debate about the uses of anti-depressants, shock therapy, marriage, parenthood, and the general field of psychology. The play raises troubling questions without really answering them, and although it does end with a sense of hope, the heartache still remains.

The voices in this six-person show are, without a doubt and without exception, some of the best that I have ever heard. On the night that I saw this show in the Booth Theatre, Alice Ripley was clearly sick and having a difficult time achieving her normal sound, but the desperate hoarseness of her voice worked for the character. The set was harsh and beautiful, also consistent with the themes of the play. If you have strong feelings about medication, one way or the other, this show may bring up some volatile feelings, but I would still recommend it for the amazing voices to anyone in New York.

As You Like It

2010-02-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

When I saw a poster on the New York subway for The Bridge Project, I was filled with memories of London and my two favorite productions of the summer: The Bridge Project's The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale and wished I had the disposable income to fly back and see the second season. When I looked closer and realized that they were still in New York, I was ecstatic.

So off on a train to Brooklyn we went, to the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre, a beautifully dilapidated theatre built in 1914 that was renovated in the seventies only enough to become a functioning theatre once more, but still clearly a haunting shadow of its former heyday. The second season, consisting off As You Like It and The Tempest (the latter not opening until March), did not have the headlining names of the first season (Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Hall) but was still a beautiful ensemble with great performances.

Once again Sam Mendes has created a beautiful world with music and light. One of Shakespeare's fluffier comedies, As You Like It lacks the tragic punches of last year's plays, but Mendes chose to balance the fun and joy with darker moments, including a waterboarding interrogation scene. But where joy is concerned, the play beautifully presents love and relationship and happiness in a world that seems to glow from the inside out. Said glow radiates out of heroine Rosalind, played by the effervescent Juliet Rylance, with an ease and wit that makes her instantly lovable.

The triple wedding scene at the end can quickly become cliche, but in this production, it felt more like a very pleasant dream. I would have loved to see what parallels Mendes will draw between this and The Tempest, and would highly recommend anyone on the East Coast or with plans to be in London this summer to see them together.

Whisper House

2010-01-25T22:50:00.000-08:00

In all fairness, it must be said that I came into this show unable to stop myself from comparing it to Duncan Sheik's Tony Award-winning smash, Spring Awakening. The die-hard fans of that show may be up in arms against me, but I think that the Old Globe's premier of Sheik's Whisper House was a remarkably better play.

Granted, the two could not be more different (although apparently microphones are a requirement). Spring Awakening was astounding for its power ensemble vocals and visuals. Whisper House is not a musical in that sense; it is more of a play that is interrupted and narrated by two singing ghosts (the only two characters that sing through the entire show) that are haunting a young boy forced to live with his spinster Aunt Lilly in the family lighthouse after his father is killed in World War II.

My biggest disappointment in Spring Awakening was that the beautiful music had no story to accomplish or was lyrically completely irrelevant to the plot. Whisper House has a very tangible story as Aunt Lilly, played brilliantly by Mare Winningham (who was also wonderful in the La Jolla Playhouse's Bonnie and Clyde earlier this year- my apologies for missing the post) must deal with a bratty young nephew as well as the racial tension of WWII against her Japanese worker and love interest.

The ghosts, played by David Poe and Holly Brook, carried off Duncan's pop style flawlessly while clearly enjoying their fiendish antics on stage wandering through the play's action. Their chemistry and harmonies reminded me of the Irish duo The Swell Season. The costumes and set added wonderfully to the eeriness of the piece, although the projections seemed, at times, a bit unnecessary. Visually and vocally, this show is easily the best thing I have seen at the Globe. And you know how I feel about The Grinch...

Dr. Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

2009-12-07T12:34:00.001-08:00

Clearly I have a weakness for excellent musicals geared toward children, and combine that with Dr. Suess? and CHRISTMAS? Safe to say I bought my ticket in advance.

This production of Dr. Suess' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! has been running at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre for twelve successive years, and apparently despite the recession it is continuing as their biggest sell of the year. Balboa Park is gorgeously decorated for Christmas and the newly renovated Plaza in front of The Globe is complete with a Suess- inspired Christmas tree. The stage is set with pieces that look like the iconic drawings just suddenly popped into 3-D.

By far my favorite part of this Christmas tradition (confession: this is the second time I've seen it) is watching the audience full of young families decked out in their holiday finest (bows, poofy dresses, and mini suits) watch the Grinch and the Whos as the story unfolds. They have no reservations about answering the little Whos on stage or shrieking in fear at the terrifying Grinch (played this year by Jeffrey Skowron). My favorite moment happened at the end, after the snow fell out over the audience, when the Whos (and newly Christmas-converted nice guy Grinch) sing their chorus of "Who likes Christmas?" and the little boy in front of me raised his hand as high as he possibly could whispering, "Me! Me!"

Me too, kid. Me too.

Songs For A New World

2009-11-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

It's just been a Jason Robert Brown kind of fall for me. His first musical, Songs For A New World, produced by the International City Theatre in Long Beach, was the second I've seen in the last few months, and while it's a completely different animal from Parade, I still left humming.

The stage was mostly bare except for some scaffolding off to one side and a large metal half cross with some cloth draped over the side- I think it was unintentionally channeling an Easter Sunday altar. Pictures of random sights and events hung upstage near a screen that quasi-covered the band. This play has no story and is more of a string of songs that are unrelated dramatically but have a strange musical coherence. The four actors, two men and two women, without exception, had incredible voices and the acting ability to carry an audience for two hours without an overarching story. The shift in characters from song to song was impressive, but not as wonderful as the four part harmonies and chords that they belted out. Each actor had standout moments individually, but my favorite thing about this music are those harmonies and gorgeous group dynamics.

Eclipsed

2009-10-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

The West-Coast premier of Eclipsed, Danai Gurira's new play at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, is a gripping and graphic story about five women caught in Liberia's bloody civil war in 2003.

Three women are the "wives" of a rebel commanding officer in a military camp; one of them is a young girl. They are occasionally summoned off-stage to fulfill their sexual obligations to him in return for the safety of the camp and the agreement that the other soldiers will not forcefully take their turns with them. There are no men on stage in this play, it is the story of the women that are forced to survive in a violent war, their lives dictated by the murders and rape of the offstage men. They are given food, clothes, and trinkets from the conquered villages from the general. They receive a book and the girl, the only one among them that can read, regales them with the tale of American "big man" Bill Clinton. Their understandings of what the Bill-Hillary-Monica situation must have meant through the lens of their own "marital" situation is a great moment.

Even with moments of humor, the play is gut-wrenchingly tragic. A former wife-turned soldier convinces the girl that she can control her own fate with a gun and never let a man rape her again. Attracted by the idea of such freedom, the girl joins the army only to find herself holding other young girls at gun-point so that other soldiers can rape them instead. The question of "it's them or me" takes on gruesome, horrific weight. Meanwhile, a woman peacemaker has entered the wives' camp and is using her education and loss of her own daughter to rebel soldiers to try to inspire the wives to leave camp, as the war will soon be over.

With no education or skill set, the women are unsure of what to do: All they know is a life of violence and survival. The haunting question of how to move forward leaves the women, and the audience, at a loss. Not exactly the feel-good hit of the season, Eclipsed is a beautiful, challenging play about the resilience of women and the frailty of hope in war-torn countries.

Parade

2009-10-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting for this production of Parade to come to the Mark Taper Forum for over a year, and so with my expectation set so high I was a little concerned I might come away disappointed. I shouldn't have worried.

Set in 1913 Atlanta, Georgia, a young girl is tragically murdered during the Confederate Memorial Day parade in the pencil factory in which she works, and her Jewish, Yankee boss is accused and convicted without much of a trial. The town is in a frenzy reminiscent of The Crucible and wild anti-Semitic tales come out of unreliable sources, creating a tension and distortion of the truth that brings about more heartbreak and destruction.

T.R. Knight, of Grey's Anatomy fame, plays Leo Frank, the man accused of murder, with perfect meticulous, controlling tics required for the often-cold, displaced Brooklyn Jew. His wonderful speech patterns conveyed his change from a distant, difficult husband to a loving and appreciative one. His wife Lucille, played by original London Donmar cast member Lara Pulver, has an effortless, beautiful voice that also shapes her journey from a meek and lonely housewife to a powerful woman determined to seek justice for her husband at all costs. The entire ensemble was great at playing multiple characters, but one standout actor was David St. Louis, whose physical and vocal power on stage left the audience in awe.

Tony-award winning composer Jason Robert Brown was in the audience the night that I saw the show, and it was so fun to watch him watch his own work. He was mouthing the words and conducting from his own score from his seat, and absolutely beamed whenever the audience laughed at his words. The visual appeal of this show was outstanding: There was a tattered old gray painting of a Confederate scene hanging over the factory, which at times was lit to restore its full color, or even evoke other images altogether.

If you can get to downtown Los Angeles before November 15th, go see this beautiful show. The Mark Taper Forum is a part of Center Theatre Group and so has the Hot Tix program, where every performance has tickets available for $20. Definitely worth it for this story.

August: Osage County

2009-09-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

With more incest, deception, abuse, and dysfunction than a Greek tragedy, August: Osage County is not your typical family drama. Tracy Letts' Pulitzer-winning, three-hour-plus saga is intricately written, exhaustingly well-acted, and stomach-wrenching to watch.

At 82, Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons blew all pastoral images of a Great Plains family matriarch out the window with her abrasive, pill-addicted character. Her poet husband has just walked out the door and into the lake, causing her three daughters and other assorted family members to come home for his funeral in a cloud of old hurts and confusion. A family this dysfunctional trapped in one house is a ticking time bomb, and with each lie that unravels, no one escapes unscathed: adultery, child abuse, addiction, incest, and general cruelty.

The howlings and shrieks of a family in pain, with the ramblings of the oft-high mother, made the show a bit hard to hear and understand at times, but it did add a distinct sense of mass confusion. Shannon Cochran, as eldest daughter Barbara, matched Parsons in sheer power on stage, as she slowly grew into a slightly younger but equally cruel version of her mother. The feeling of entrapment in their Great Plains home is palpable, and the play ends with no more hope than when it began. Unlike the Greek tragedies where someone usually repents after the bloodshed, the family of August: Osage County is left with nothing but their own wreckage with which to try to salvage any kind of life.

DISCOVER LOVE

2009-09-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Belarus Free Theatre is an underground theatre in Minsk. Because they are not approved by the Belarusian Committee of Culture, their performances are illegal and must be performed in secret locations that their audience members discover when they call a special phone number hours before to prevent being caught by the police. Even with such precautions, the actors and company have been arrested and have been black-listed from state-approved jobs.

Their performance of DISCOVER LOVE at the University of San Diego's Institute for Peace and Justice was a part of their international tour to promote awareness of their little-discussed home country, which they say is the last dictatorship in Europe. Three actors and an almost bare stage tell the true story of Irina and her husband Anatoli in Russian with English supertitles on a screen, which sometimes featured video projections. Anna Solomianskaya plays Irina from childhood into a young woman who meets, falls passionately in love with, and marries a dynamic and uniquely intelligent man. The portrait of their marriage as they struggle to make ends meet in poverty-stricken Minsk while caring for their two young daughters is searingly truthful and beautiful. After years of exhausting work, the two somehow manage to become successful enough to live comfortably. Anatoli is passionate about helping others achieve similar success, and just as the pair begins to discover their love all over again, one night Anatoli does not come home.

Irina frantically searches for her husband, praying that there was some sort of accident that prevented him from calling home. The police raid their home before she even has a chance to report him missing, saying she might be the culprit. Soon they find pieces of his car and the true story unravels: Anatoli and his friend were attacked in his car, dragged into the forrest, beaten, and shot in the back of the head by government forces as a result of their public support for a democratic Belarus. Irina is reeling with heartache and despair as she realizes that he was a victim of a "forced disappearance," a common fate for anyone who opposes the Belarusian government: Men simply don't come home. Sometimes their bodies are found, like Anatoli's, and sometimes they are not.

But as tragic as the story is, it is not about Belarusian politics. It is completely and absolutely about the incredible love between two people and its power. Anatoli allowed Irina to discover love. After the performance, co-writer and director Nikolai Khalezin said that people who see the show as a political play have missed the point: "It is not a political play. It is a love story that is interrupted by politics." Someone in the audience asked Solomianskaya, who played, Irina, how she conjured such an emotional and powerful performance from someone else's story every night. She recounted watching the real Irina watch DISCOVER LOVE from the audience, and replied, "There is no story that doesn't belong to you. If you can imagine even for a moment that that could happen to you... how can someone have such strength?"

The Belarus Free Theatre has no home, no money, and no support in Minsk. Yet DISCOVER LOVE is one of the most beautiful love stories and powerful artistic performances I have ever seen. The passion, wit, and intelligence of this group, coupled with incredible talent and bravery is one of the most inspiring examples of theatre as a vehicle for the human experience.

Equivocation

2009-08-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

The other day I tried to explain to someone how much I loved this show and realized that I was totally ill-equipped to do so. Author Bill Cain has woven so much history, Shakespeare, and edge-of-your seat tension into Equivocation that words completely failed me in any attempt to do it justice.

Director Bill Rauch's world premier of this text could not have been more impeccably cast. The story takes place in London, 1605, and Prime Minister Robert Cecil is commissioning William Shagspeare (Cain's preferred spelling of "Shakespeare") to write a history play out of a current event: The Powder Plot, in which Catholic rebels supposedly tug a tunnel under the Parliament building in an attempt to blow up the King and his family for outlawing their religion. Shag and his men must decide how to discover and tell the truth of the story without being hanged by the powerfully evil and manipulative Cecil. In a world where the torture taking place in the Tower of London is a very real threat, the fear and tension is thick.

A cast of five men (and one woman, playing Shag's intriguing surviving twin daughter) play countless roles, spinning between members of the acting company, then the actors playing other characters, and the historical figures themselves. Anthony Heald plays a passionate Shag, and Richard Elmore plays the father figure of the acting troupe as well as the Catholic priest on trial for the Powder Plot. John Tufts plays the hotheaded young actor in the Globe and Scottish King James seemingly without taking a breath in between.

The title of the play comes from Father Henry Garnet (Elmore) and his need to equivocate: To tell one truth in order to reveal another. Shag and his men must write Cecil's play or die a torturous death for it, but also cannot lie to their audiences and to history. Their challenge is, as in all theater, to tell one story to reveal a greater truth.

Having just come from London and my history-nerd-near-heart-attack from being in the Tower of London and the Globe itself, and being somewhat well-versed in Shakespeare, I felt like I surely got most of the references and details. But the more I think back on this amazing text and performance, I am quite sure that my understanding of Bill Cain's incredible words and research only scratched the surface.

(P.S. The Geffen in Los Angeles is going to be doing this text this season... Look out for it!)

Paradise Lost

2009-08-23T15:29:00.001-07:00

Clifford Odets, commonly thought of as the American Chekhov, wrote Paradise Lost in 1935, and it was first produced by the Group Theatre in New York City later that year. Odets transformed the tumultuous economic upheaval of the Great Depression into a story of a family coping with the loss of dreams and of their familiar way of life in the face of a harsher reality. With so many jobs being lost today, the story could not be more timely.

The production in the Angus Bowmer Theatre directed by Libby Appel reflected the ensemble-focused traditions of the Group Theatre: No star-stolen moments, but a solid unit of a Jewish family, the Gordons, and their world with the characters that inhabit it. Despite great talent and promise, the adult children are unable to find work, and the parents have mortgaged the family home in order to keep the handbag business that stands between them and poverty. The wife, Clara, wonderfully played by Linda Alper, is trying to forestall the imminent ruin of her family, constantly attempting to ease their concerns with offers of fruit. The husband Leo is sure that despite the hard times, they will succeed by doing the right thing: When he learns from the labor union the condition in which his employees toil, he wants to help them. When a stranger offers to burn down the handbag factory to receive the insurance money, Leo throws him out of his house.

But the attempts to do right are not met with reward. Their oldest son is killed by police fire in a botched job attempt for a mobster friend. The daughter, although a talented pianist, cannot find employment and since her fiance cannot either, he leaves town, leaving her behind to grieve. The youngest son is dying from a long, drawn-out disease. Eventually, they lose the house.

And here's the kicker: This is a play of hope. The characters may be ultimately unsuccessful in their endeavors, but their lives hold significance. Their piece of the American Dream has been utterly destroyed by the Great Depression and yet they still strive to do right and they never, ever give up hope in the future. Odets' words are incredibly reassuring in our own financial and political climate, when, tragically, bad things happen to good people every day. And yet, like the Gordon family, when bad things happen, we still must cling to hope.

Spamalot

2009-07-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a man who was known to love himself above all other men with aplomb throughout the land, and that man was known as John O’Hurley.

That’s right: J Peterman on Seinfeld, the silver-haired champion of Dancing With The Stars, and general celebrity for all your Family Feud hosting needs, is starring in Los Angeles’ Ahmanson theater as Kind Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot.

Firstly, I am so happy to be home in Los Angeles. Secondly, I love Monty Python films.

Now. I saw Spamalot in New York two years ago, so this was my second attempt at loving it. But- hear me out devoted fans of this show across the nation- I just don’t think it’s as funny as it should be. And devoted fans there are aplenty: the Ahmanson was filled with people wearing pins and shirts from the show, laughing hysterically for two hours and cheering throughout.

I certainly did giggle at certain moments and each actor on stage was not without singing and dancing chops. In fact I thought the principals were all quite good; the overall production (including the text itself) just doesn’t measure up to the hype in my opinion.

War Horse

2009-07-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Two sad things about this show:

1. It was my last in London.

2. I found myself way too emotionally involved with puppets.

But perhaps the fact that I was completely emotionally involved was not so much a sign of sadness, but of a job well done by the creative people at the National Theatre. War Horse is the story of a young farm boy whose father sells his beloved horse, Joey, to the British Army to fight in the front lines of World War I. A live stage story that revolves around a horse presents a particular kind of problem for a design team, but the puppetry that takes place in this production is at once artistic (clearly, the horse is made of bamboo and there are men inside controlling it), and also ridiculously realistic (the movements are exactly that of a live horse, and the dimensions are big enough that it allows the horse to be actually ridden many times in the show).

Taken from a children's novel, this story (as many children's stories do) takes unspeakable acts of human cruelty, war, and death, and makes them palpable for young people to experience these things cathartically through a beloved animal. The relationship between the young boy and Joey the horse has the potential to be as heart-breaking and tear-rendering as classics like Old Yeller and every Disney movie that ever made you cry, but tragically the young man playing the boy made a very unfortunate choice vocally: his attempt at a Devonshire accent left me with the impression that somewhere along the story line we would be informed of some sort of impediment, but I was told at the interval that this was not the way the original actor had played the part and was in no way informed by the script. I'm not sure how the director let this go unchecked, but it is certainly the production's loss.

Aside from the amazing puppets, other aspects in this show were more subtly but no less impressively creative. Designer Rae Smith's sketches projected on a panel above the stage allowed for beautiful, simplistic artwork that also informed the audience and made it possible to jump from location to location, from farm to battlefront. Also, the original music by Adrian Sutton and John Tams was haunting and beautiful, and the production sometimes seemed to slip into a musical, but the solo or group singing blended nicely into the narrative and added layers of the feeling of the period.

If the part of the boy was to be recast, I would recommend this show instantly to anyone in London. The music, art, and puppetry are so far and above the expectation for children's theater that even non-theater goers could appreciate enjoy it.

The Winter's Tale

2009-07-13T14:54:00.000-07:00

Once again, Sam Mendes has created a world in which I so very badly want to live. The other half of the Bridge Project in repertory at the Old Vic (the first being The Cherry Orchard), Mendes brings Shakespeare's story of lusty jealousy to life with the British cast members forming Sicilia, and Bohemia consisting of the Americans.

Like The Cherry Orchard, this production used breath-taking live music and candles to create a sense of time and place that invited the audience to enter the world of the story through laughter and tears. Once again Rebecca Hall was incredible, from her anguish as her husband accuses her of infidelity and takes away her children to her amazing beauty in the transfigured statue, where she absolutely glowed in a white dress, forgiving Leontes (Simon Russell Beale, also with yet another amazing performance).

In the second act, in Bohemia, the bawdy and freely happy Americans also inhabit a world filled with music, but of a more lively variety and, instead of somber candlelight, red, white and blue balloons fill the stage. Ethan Hawke, as the troubadour Autolycus, was a hilarious Jack Sparrow-esque conman, singing his lines in a flamboyant yet slightly bored with his situation tone. The cast partakes in one of the most ridiculous dances I have ever seen on stage during their country party: The women wear giant round balloons over their chests, and the men strap phallic balloons over their pants, and what follows is absolute comic absurdity.

I was incredibly fortunate to be able to participate in a talk with Tony Award winning cast member Richard Easton (Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, 2001), who played Firs in The Cherry Orchard and the Old Shepherd in The Winter's Tale. It was wonderful to be able to listen to an older, very accomplished but humble actor reflect on his philosophies about acting over the span of his transatlantic career. Throughout the conversation he was insistent that the actor is not the focus of a play but merely a vessel for the text: "The artist is the playwright. The medium is the actor."

It was clear he had no patience for young, self-absorbed actors, who, he felt, misunderstood what acting is about, and if they wanted to be self-serving egomaniacs they should stick to film directing and leave acting well enough alone. When I asked how he and his fellow cast mates are able to keep the story and characters so fresh and alive after performing them often twice a day, around the globe, for nearly a year, he almost chided me for thinking that they could do anything but. He again insisted that you just have to do the text, and that each time you start with the first line, you are starting the story for the first time. He also admitted a love for seeing young people in the cheap, student-priced seats in the balcony at the Old Vic peering over the railing to look down for a better view of the stage: "The young faces..." he said almost wistfully but still with a straightforward edge, "It enables you to believe you are doing magic."

Mincemeat

2009-07-13T12:42:00.001-07:00

Mincemeat is exactly what experimental, political theaters everywhere are trying to accomplish. And the company producing it, Cardboard Citizens, accomplishes it in no small manner.

Cardboard Citizens is a theater company that promotes awareness for homelessness in their work and in practice, choosing texts that illuminate the complications of homelessness and choosing actors that have a personal connection to homelessness, all while providing people who are currently homeless opportunities and workshops to learn about theater.

Mincemeat did not take place in a theater, but in a massive, multiple-story abandoned warehouse. The audience was nervously milling around the bottom floor when suddenly one of the garage doors was pulled opened and in screeched a van, spilling out a group of masked vigilantes, with an elderly man as their hostage. The audience was pinned against a wall, not sure what to do or where to go amidst all the screaming and shouting. A few minutes of trying to decipher what the hell was going on later, the actors paused, informed us that this was not in fact "one of those" stories, and to please join them in the next room for a restart of the show.

And so it went. Each scene took place in a different room or floor of the massive warehouse, and we were shuffled from place to place not unlike cattle. But, as the actual narrative began, my annoyance with the herding of the audience was replaced with awe for the writing of this story and the actors carrying it, which were both incredibly far and above anything one would expect in a warehouse.

The story is based on a true event from WWII: The British military planted false papers on a dead man's body and left it to be conveniently found off of the Spanish coast, giving the fascists misinformation about where their next military attack would be, giving the British a huge victory one week later. The play's story began with this man in a kind of purgatory, charged with finding his true identity before he can enter heaven. He has no idea who he is, and so sets about looking for clues, but as the story weaves on we become aware that he is not a top military agent with secret information and a loving family back home as his dress and the content of his pockets would imply, but through a trip to the morgue and through bombed-out London and to an underground shelter, we discover along with the hero that he was no such honorable person, but an alcoholic, mentally unstable vagrant that the military had picked for the mission because no one would miss him or his body.

The acting and physical experience of this show as an audience member, in addition to a script so full with historical and ethical questions, made this play a visceral theatrical event. The physical discomfort that the audience endures as they try to breathe through the smoke and haze of a blitzed London shelter, the heat and stuffiness of the morgue, all make the story incredibly real. At the end of the show, just as suddenly as it began, the main character pulls open a huge garage door, walking out into the streets of London 2009, complete with some very confused looking pedestrians peering into the warehouse trying to figure out where this costumed figure came from and why in the world a hundred people are sitting inside between bunk beds and clothing lines.

Peter Pan

2009-07-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

Peter Pan was, by far, the most fun that I have had at a theater event on this trip. Set up in a white, circus-like tent in Kensington Gardens, a beautiful London park, the theater-in-the-round boasts an Imax kind of experience in that the setting (London rooftops, Neverland, the Pirates' ship) was projected onto the ceiling of the tent above the seats and the simple stage.

Before even entering the tent itself, we were able to eat dinner outside in a little cabana in the gorgeous park (tragically, they had missed their shipment of paninis that morning and we were forced to eat cake for our meal) and watched as the families piled into the theater. Once inside, we were treated to one of the most imaginative and creative uses of space and objects that I have seen in a long time. The use of puppetry for Nana and a Neverland bird, a sort of bicycle contraption for the crocodile, and a bathtub on wheels for the pirates' rowboat were so inventive and clever. The stage floor itself had sections that would rotate, revealing beds, tree trunks, or undersea rocks for hiding mermaids.

The best part about Peter Pan was watching the little British kids react to the action, sometimes yelling out in concern for the Lost Boys or to warn them about pirates. The five-year-old little blond boy next to me was eagerly kneeling up in his chair by the end of the show so that he could see better. After the show and on the way out of the park, some boys had taken off their socks to use them as hand puppets, pretending to be the Neverland bird.

Hamlet

2009-07-01T15:48:00.000-07:00

For all the talk about film celebrities in theater this summer, Jude Law (pleasantly and surprisingly) rose to the occasion in Hamlet. Roles like this almost require a certain amount of arrogance to say yes, why of course I should play one of the biggest parts in the cannon of this language's theater, and, unlike Helen Mirren in the French equivalent of Phedre, Law had the presence to pull it off.

This production was very dark in costumes and in lighting, with eerie fog and snow constantly surrounding the characters in shadow. A very solid ensemble may have done themselves a disservice in the running time of the show- almost four hours is a long time to sit through anything, even if the acting and staging are great. Ophelia was strong and charismatic, and Polonius was conniving and still humorous. Hamlet was played (thankfully) not as meek and indecisive, but as a quick-witted individual determined and torn with a sense of intense urgency. His mocking of the other characters created several moments that were quite funny, sometimes because of the text and sometimes with what Law did with it physically.

This is the first really unpleasant experience I have had with a celebrity being in a show. Even though I thought he was great, there was a crowd of obnoxious people (and when I say people I mean young girls) there to see him that I am quite sure would never had attended (and therefore never decided it would be a good time to go to the bathroom during the To Be Or Not To Be speech, unwrap candy throughout the show, or shriek during the bows) to see an unknown talent in the role.

Minor annoyances aside, I will say this production also featured my two favorite aspects of theater in London:

1. Fabulous student discounts on great seats.

2. The theaters all sell ice cream at the intermission. It's like I've died and gone to heaven.

Billy Elliot

2009-06-30T16:40:00.001-07:00

The talent in this show is amazing. Especially so when you realize that half the cast hasn't even hit puberty.

There is a lot of advertising and buzz going around London for this show right now, and I am so glad that I was able to work it into my schedule to see it here. Obviously, this is a musical about dancing, and even for people who are not fans of ballet, this show has incredible varieties of dance that are all so emotionally charged that some of the most intense moments were without dialog or singing all together. The little boy who plays Billy takes on not only feats of tap, ballet, and acrobatics, but a very tragic story of a family that lost its mother and is currently losing its means of living. I have never before heard an audience of that size (or any size, really) sniffle and cry after a scene of ballet dancing.

Undoubtedly my American friends and I missed some of the humor and political points about Margaret Thatcher and the coal miner strikes, but that was really a secondary story line to the boy and his talent and the boy and his family, and how the two worlds clash and support while one begins to flourish and one begins to falter. The music, by Sir Elton John, was fantastic. The ensemble of little ballerinas in tutus contrasted with strikers and police were incredible in sound and choreography.

I would recommend this show to anyone in London or New York. Billy Elliot is visually stunning and the pricey ticket is worth it if only to see the amazing choreography.

As You Like It

2009-06-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the South Bank in London is a complete recreation of how the Globe would have been in Shakespeare's time, all the way down to the use of wooden pegs instead of nails. The costumes are sewn in authentic Elizabethan style, and the stage is bare save for the decorative paintings that cover the entire inner building.

For five pounds, one can watch the show as the "groundlings" did: standing on the floor in the center of the circular theater, with no seats but standing and leaning on the stage. The authenticity of the experience sounds pretty exciting.

Sounds. Now, it was really hot in London today. Really hot. And I happen to be standing at the two o'clock matinee surrounded by Europeans who did not believe in deodorant. Authentic, no?So my experience with As You Like It, which was in fact a very fun, romantic show, was more concerned with my claustrophobia and horrified sense of smell (I actually had to step out the last few minutes of the first act to prevent myself from being sick).

But the performance itself was a fun and clever presentation of the romantic comedy, and despite my discomfort I found myself laughing constantly. At the end of the show, once everyone was happily married off, the cast danced jubilantly in lieu of bows (which, in London, are apparently typically ten minute affairs with multiple encores), clearly just having a great time on stage and with each other.

I would easily return to the Globe, even as a groundling, at an evening performance or at a midnight matinee (apparently they occasionally have shows for the matinee price that start at midnight and end with breakfast, since the sun rises so early here). But on a hot day at two, people pressing in on each other to try to stand under very limited shade felt more like an unpleasant ride on the Tube than a Shakespearean theater experience.

Sister Act

2009-06-29T16:08:00.001-07:00

Singing nuns are just funny. There is no way around it. Throw in some dance moves, a saucy old lady, a love story, and a mob chase, and you've got yourself a musical- complete with many, many sequins.

This show is exactly what spectacle musicals are all about: comedy, extravagant scenery, shiny costumes, and some feel-good songs. I will say this: I never thought I would see hundreds of middle-aged Britons clapping and dancing on their feet at the end of a play. And dance they did.

For the first half hour or so of this show, I was a bit disappointed in the songs, which at that point were mainly solo ballads that I found a bit unnecessary. I couldn't help mentally drawing comparisons to another Whoopi Goldberg movie-turned musical, The Color Purple, which had a score that left me breathless within the first five minutes. But as the comedy began to set in, I realized that this was nothing like The Color Purple, but in the best way possible. The voices were incredible, and the songs were so funny on so many levels: So many Catholic jokes, so little time. Anyone who can turn Transubstantiation into a punch line is a champion in my book of one-liners.

There was no shortage of glitter and jazz hands on stage at all times, and the amounts of pizazz were matched by the amount of witticisms and smart moves on behalf of the writers and actors. If you want a feel-good musical, Sister Act is the show for you.

Adventures in Food: Prague Edition

2009-06-28T16:26:00.001-07:00

Prague is a beautiful city, with guidebooks and tours galore to explain the incredible amounts of history and culture on every corner. I was very fortunate to have my cousin Adam, who spent some time living in Prague, to give me some extra tips about where to eat. Because, as common knowledge will testify, I love to eat. These spots were some of the highlights of my short trip, and I am recording some of them here for anyone who happens to be studying abroad in the fall and finds themselves in Prague, or, in all honesty, for myself to remember in case I ever find myself in Eastern Europe with a sweet tooth again.

Firstly, the Kavarna Slavia, across the street from the National Theater. When he first gave me those directions, I was a little bit afraid that I wouldn't be able to find it, but as soon as I realized that the unmistakable giant gold-roofed building on the river was in fact the Theater, lo and behold, there was the Kavarna Slavia. After a long flight and a day of general harassment in the city from some unsavory male characters, the Kavarna Slavia was a heavenly, air-conditioned retreat complete with friendly old man playing the piano in a lovely, 1920's Paris art deco environment. If you are lucky enough to grab a table by the window, you are rewarded with a stunning view of the river and the castle on the other side.

The next day, as our touring took us up to the castle itself, we continued up the hill on a recommendation to see the Strahov Monastery. After a hot trek up the hill we were able to eat our lunch looking over the city of Prague from above, peering down and trying to name as many monuments as we could distinguish. Above the summer crowds, this spot near the greenery of the hills was incredibly relaxing.

Unknowingly, we saved the best for last in the recommendation of Cafe Louvre (picture above by Kelly Robyn Mann). This pretty pink restaurant was built in 1902 and was apparently favored by Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein. One sip of the hot chocolate and I could see why. Our breakfast was delicious. If I was going to stay in Prague for any amount of time I am quite sure I would eat there every day.

As an unrelated bonus, there is an excellent antique/odds and ends old things store off of Old Town Square called Bric-A-Brac where I found some very cool items completely and refreshingly unrelated to "Praha Drinking Team!" shot glasses.

The Cherry Orchard

2009-06-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

I loved this show.

A new translation by Tom Stoppard and a part of the Bridge Project, a repertory mix of American and English actors rotating between the Old Vic theater in London and New York, The Cherry Orchard boasts a flawless ensemble and beautiful direction by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road, Road to Perdition, Away We Go). Kevin Spacey is the artistic director for the Old Vic.

Before seeing the show, I wondered if the mix of British and American accents would bother me, but each character was so perfectly cast that their speech patterns could not have been any more appropriate. Sinead Cusack was wonderful in the lead role of a suddenly broke woman from old money and Simon Russell Beale was magnetic and hilarious as a peasant turned businessman. Ethan Hawke was perfect as a tutor turned revolutionary. But my favorite performance of the night was Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Prestige). Much like her character in Vicky Christina Barcelona she was incredibly and often humorously tightly wound until the end of the play. When her home and her last shred of hope for love was gone, Hall utterly broke down into sobs that wrenched the heart of the audience.

The settings and costumes were breathtaking. I got chills when, at the beginning of second act, while the family throws a party they cannot afford, the stage lit by a chandelier and a multitude of candles,the cast, dressed in masquerade attire, began to ritually dance in a circle, slowly and rigidly in a stylized version of traditional Russian dance.

Funny and moving (what Chekhov should be and rarely is), this cast completely won me over. I cannot wait to see what they do with The Winter's Tale.

Phedre

2009-06-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

The National Theatre is another example of a government subsidized theater creating an atmosphere where everyone just wants to be. I am happy to say I will be returning a few times to this theater during my stay here, and when I do I will be sure to take some photos of the giant (and I do mean giant) grass-covered lawn furniture out front where people happily sip drinks and wait for their show to begin.

Phedre. I had really high expectations of this show. Academy Award-winning Helen Mirren in the title role. A new adaptation -from the 1677 French play (of course taken from the Greek myth) by Racine- by Ted Hughes (husband of Sylvia Plath). As the safety curtain rose, a gorgeous set appeared in shades of beige against a bright blue wall.

I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I just don't like Greek tragedies. Maybe I missed the more flowery words of the older translation compared to the sparse (although still beautiful) translation by Hughes. Maybe I just wanted Helen Mirren to be a little less reserved and a little more like the crazed, sexually depraved and eventually mad woman I imagined reading the text. Each actor had moments of brilliance, and my attention certainly never wavered, but it somehow did not match up with my hopes that I had had for this show.

My mediocre review aside, if you would like to see the show wherever you are, it is being broadcast tomorrow around the world on the BBC and in movie theaters as a special event (apparently the National Theatre is taking a page out of the Metropolitan Opera's book).

UNRELATED SIDE NOTE: The other day I wrote about Aunt Dan and Lemon. The author's name, Wallace Shawn, was unfamiliar to me. It was just today when I saw his picture that I realized that I am quite familiar with this author as an actor: aside from his obscure role in Melinda and Melinda (one of my favorite movies) he is Vizzini The Princess Bride. Inconceivable!

Waiting For Godot

2009-06-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

A word on my mindset heading into this gorgeous theater: For the first time in London, I had gotten lost. After a lovely lunch by the river, I got off at the right tube stop, but it all went down hill from there. I was literally sprinting across Trafalgar Square, white skirt blowing in the wind behind me.

But thank goodness I made it. This production of Waiting for Godot was beautiful on every level. The Theatre Royal Haymarket's red and golden interior is exactly what fills the imagination when thinking of upper-class Britons going to the theatre in tuxedos and gowns. No gowns tonight, but a stunning interior nonetheless.

The scenery, appropriately barren save for a lone tree, was austerely gorgeous. Shades of gray created a feeling of age and decay, complemented by lighting that seemed to be a character in itself, changing from beautiful patterns on the floor to delicate and deliberate streams of light coming from some heaven above the scene.

The acting in this show was superb across the board, but tonight Sir Ian McKellen created one of my favorite performances that I have ever seen on stage. Every twitch and sound was smart and, for almost any given moment, hilarious. His appearance and voice were that of an elderly homeless man, but his choices were that of a large four year old child. It would be difficult not to love him. It would be even more difficult not to love the relationship between him and Patrick Stewart, who was also hilarious in his reactions to McKellen. Their friendship was tangible and touching.

Waiting for Godot is a tribute to relationships, and these two men were perfect as old friends: dancing, talking, fighting, sharing meals, and passing the time simply being together.

Aunt Dan And Lemon

2009-06-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

My first show in London! I was a little misinformed the other night: Aunt Dan and Lemon was actually not in the West End, but at the Royal Court Theater near Kensington. The Royal Court is a national theater, meaning they are greatly subsidized by the government.

Firstly, I must talk about this theater venue. A rounded three-tiered house with leather seats seems to hover over the stage creating a polished, intimate environment. But most fascinating to me was the bar downstairs. This is exactly what the Geffen and Kirk Douglas in Los Angeles are trying to accomplish right now: a great pub-like environment where all types of people come to drink and eat and just hang out (all talking about theater) before and after the show, making theater more of an expected social activity here than going to dinner and a movie in California. (The photo above is from the downstairs bar.)

The play itself was incredibly interesting. Normally if I were to call something "interesting" it would be for lack of wanting to say something negative, but this show was truly intellectually intriguing. A sickly little woman who never leaves her house, Lemon, has never had much of a life, but spends her days reading literature about the Nazi extermination camps and recounting the stories that she heard as a girl from old family friend Aunt Dan. Lemon's thoughts and monologues are interspersed with scene's from Aunt Dan's life and the lives of her scandalous friends. Scenes play out about the politics of the Vietnam War, love affairs, and a call girl who is paid to kill a foreign man after sleeping with him.

What makes all of these seemingly unrelated stories so gut-wrenchingly intense is that at the end of the play, after we have witnessed her memory of Aunt Dan's death, Lemon calmly explains that it is ridiculous for people to think that the Nazis did anything out of the ordinary. All people, as she learned from Aunt Dan, are willing to do any manner of damage to other human beings in order to maintain or achieve the life that they want: Henry Kissinger is willing to bomb villages in Asia to protect the lifestyle of American democracy. A young girl is willing to sell her body and kill a stranger to get the money she needs. Society is built on the fact that for some people to be comfortable, many others must suffer.

This daunting thought coming from a tiny sick woman on stage is incredibly disturbing. It is not until you realize that she is completely devoid of any human compassion that you realize that human nature may not be as simple as she has bleakly laid out humanity to be.

Exiting the theater, I heard many discussions of people refusing the idea that humans are nothing but animals meant to kill, defending morality and compassion.

Farragut North

2009-06-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Cheers from London! I am seeing my first West End show tomorrow night, but before that, I wanted to give a recap of the Geffen's latest political drama, Farragut North.

Another example of Hollywood on stage, this production featured Chris Noth (yes, Mr. Big) as a seasoned campaign manager and boss to media whiz kid Chris Pine (calm down, Trekkies). Thrown into the mix is the competition, Isiah Whitlock Jr (from my current HBO DVD obsession, The Wire) and Juno's Olivia Thirlby as a teenaged intern.

To be fair, I saw this show on its preview night. Still, considering the venue and the actors in it, I was not expecting as many missed lines and set difficulties (at one point a hanging piece was broken in transition). Even with his line flubs, Pine was still great, and at the end I truly hated his character. Noth and Thirlby were both solid- in smoothness (both have played these roles before) and believability. The dialog and plot seemed overly simple at first, so the explosive last five minutes of the show seemed a little out of place, but I am sure that after that first night of experiencing the audience's sometimes awkward reactions to certain things, they will be able to achieve a more steady buildup to the ending.

The audience reaction pulled out several interesting themes in the show as often only men or only women would laugh at certain moments, clearly defining some gender issues that I might not have picked up on simply reading the text. The acting in this show was great in character relationships.

On the way out, I thought I was bumping into paparazzi trying to catch shots of the celebrities in the cast leaving the building. On a second glance, I realized they were middle-aged Star Trek fans with memorabilia for Chris Pine.

Cafe Bassam

2009-06-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Bassam's is quite possibly what I miss most about San Diego right now. This is one of my favorite coffee shops for studying, people watching, and sipping espresso that could revive the dead. Newly settled on Fifth Street in Banker's Hill (just across the street and up a block from one of my other all-time favorites, Extraordinary Desserts), Cafe Bassam is part antique shop, part European coffeehouse, and part wine bar.

The atmosphere of far-away places and people (I love listening in on conversations in other languages) is enough to get me in the doors, but the food and drink delivered to your table is what makes me stay for hours. The espresso with steamed milk in a darling little porcelain cup is my standard pick me up from Bassam's, but the chai or hot chocolate are so delicious that many times I have ordered them post-espresso. If you would prefer a glass of wine, the cheese platters with toast are also delicious and could serve as a very filling meal.

Play a game of checkers, write a book, or just watch Mr. Bassam himself mingle the locals from under his fedora and round glasses. I once saw him charm some policemen out of giving him a ticket for parking illegally in front of his shop by inviting them inside for an espresso flush (espresso over ice cream). The man asleep in the photo above? Bassam.

Oleanna

2009-06-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite perks of living in the Los Angeles area is that aside from the occasional celebrity sighting about town (Amy Adams eating barbeque, anyone?), there are always opportunities to see some very fine film actors returning to the stage.

Case in point: Oleanna by David Mamet at the Mark Taper Forum. The beautiful Julia Stiles and the very talented Bill Pullman create a tension filled story of a soon-to-be tenured professor and a frustrated young student. Pullman offers to help Stiles' character to pass the class, and over the course of three acts, she uses his words against him in ways he nor the audience would have ever anticipated.

Audiences at the Mark Taper Forum are typically an older, wealthy crowd that are well-behaved, well-versed theater goers. Never before have I heard this audience audibly respond to what was happening on stage with such gasps and little shrieks or cheers or hisses under the breath as I have in this production. The text and performances are so gut-wrenching and powerful that everyone in the house was either cringing or leaning forward in their seats.

The examinations of power dynamics of gender roles and the institutions of higher education are abrupt and personal. Pullman and Stiles' performances are two of the best that I have seen this year. This show is not for the weak of heart.

Also, remember that anything at the Center Theater Group (Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson, and the Kirk Douglas Theater) offers $20 "Hot Tix" if you buy at the door! Great theater for the price of a movie and popcorn.

The Sunset Limited: A Novel In Dramatic Form

2009-06-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

I consider myself I fairly well-read person, so I am a little bit embarrassed to say that before today's selection, I had never read anything by Cormac McCarthy. I now intend on scouring the library for his many books.

The Sunset Limited is a novel in dramatic form, with only two characters: Black and White. White, a suicidal professor, is in the run-down apartment of Black, a former convict desperately trying to convince White of the presence of God and the value of life. Their discussion of faith, life, and God is written with such concise and beautiful language that I found myself re-reading passages every few pages. The ending left me speechless, so I'll give a few of my favorite lines instead of trying to comment on them:

BLACK: I ain't a doubter. But I am a questioner.

WHITE: What's the difference?

BLACK: Well, I think the questioner wants the truth. The doubter wants to be told there ain't no such thing.

Another passage, just because I couldn't pick just one:

BLACK: If this ain't the life you had in mind, what was?

WHITE: I don't know. Not this. Is your life the one you'd planned?

BLACK: No, it ain't. I got what I needed instead of what I wanted and that's just about the best kind of luck you can have.

The Sunset Limited has found itself amongst my favorite plays on life, death, and God. Personally, I think The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis should be required reading for anyone who has ever questioned life or free will. Also, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (another trial play; I'm obsessed) is a fabulous example of people acting on their convictions.

Enjoy!

The Seafarer

2009-05-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

After seeing the original Broadway cast of this wonderfully sharp play from Irish talent Conor McPherson, I was delighted to hear that it would be coming to one of my favorite Los Angeles venues, The Geffen.

The Geffen is a beautiful stone building that looks like it might just be the summer home of the theater gods, complete with a courtyard filled with gnarled old trees adorned with colorful hanging lanterns, a particular weakness of mine. Inside, the main stage comfortable seats 525 patrons while still retaining an intimate feel.

Considering my fondness for the original Irish cast, this group of actors quickly charmed their way into my good graces. The story revolves around a Christmas poker game, where the stakes are a man's everlasting soul. Sound like a bit much? Not when you factor in the great comedic timing of the group at large, especially Mr. John Mahoney of "Frasier" fame, whose blind and drunken antics kept me in perpetual giggles, or the sticky suave demeanor of the Lord of Darkness himself, played with a dark charm by Tom Irwin. The overall fraternity among the cast adds a level of endearment to some rather deep questions of life, loneliness, and the everlasting unknown.

If you get a chance to head out to LA in the next few weeks, see this play. And, just for me, walk down the block to get an ice cream sandwich from Diddy Riese. A buck and a half for the world's best cookie/ice cream combo. If you only knew how many times I've driven for hours just to get my hands on one of those little gems....

Another Day, Another Way

2009-05-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

A new way to share new discoveries about Southern California finds in theater, food, and all things wonderful.

Cheers.