https://www.towerstreetinsurance.com/blog/pf9tsuvtz I want to continue the topic I started yesterday.

https://hoodcountytoday.com/7raj4vmu6 Acting is clearly an art.  The actor creates a performance for their character, just as a painter creates a work of art in their painting.  But:  In both cases, there is a craft to the art.  The painter needs to understand the differences in different media, the actor need to understand the craft of acting.  That is where many aspiring actors fall short.  Yes, you can learn to act by getting on stage and learning on the job.  A painter can also learn about media and styles and brushes by trial and error.

enter site As the director of a play, I spend a good amount of time teaching the newer actors the basics of theater.  Time I really don’t have.  Today we are going to talk about actors who have talent and have taken significant amounts of training.  Some of the actors I work with majored or minored in theater in college.  A great start.   Others, who may have found acting later in life, are able to take ongoing acting classes.  Also a great way to learn the craft.

https://www.sugardoodle.net/pi9noik4 Several years ago, I was holding auditions for a play.  One by one the actors came on stage to read from the script.  One actor, was rolling around on the stage floor as he read his lines.  I cast him and later asked him what he was doing during the audition.  He said that in college there were so many people auditioning for each role, you had to do something to catch the directors eye.  I told him that he caught my eye but I cast him anyway.

source The naturals may be good but it is the hard working actors that form the spine that makes a play work.  Rereading what I wrote yesterday, I made it sound like the Director did all the work.  Not so.  The director is the guide but it is the actor who finally develops the character.  Early on in rehearsals,the director understands the character better than the actor.  There comes a point in the rehearsal process where the actor understands the character they have built better than I do, and I yield to what they think (usually).

go to link Hard working actors take risks.  It’s scary to be on stage, particularly when the scene calls for crying, kissing, sexually suggestive scenes or partial nudity.  Some actors skate around the edges, hoping that the Director will forget about it.  Others just jump in.

https://richmonddoha.com/ng4cp7m4 A few years ago, I directed a play that required an actress to strip to her bra and panties and climb into bed with her scene partner.  These were not granny panties but something a young woman would actually wear (she used her own clothes).  I was nervous about it and was holding back.  One night a good friend (and great actress) came to the rehearsal and said we needed to get it on, we needed to get past the giggle stage.  She was right and we did it.  By the time the show opened, the actor was so comfortable in her bra and panties she never even thought about it.  That is brave.

https://underbellyofsunshine.com/?p=7rerf6mmm Several years ago, we presented “Wait Until Dark”, a play based on the movie with Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin about a blind woman who is terrorized by criminals looking for drugs.  The woman who played Suzy, the blind woman, actually taught herself to not see.  She was able to ignore the visual signals from her eye the the point that, a couple of years after the show had closed, she was in a Costco about 40 miles away and a man came up to her and said “You can see.”  She had no idea what he was talking about.  He explained that he had been on Orcas and had come to the production and thought it was wonderful that we had cast a blind person in that role.  That is a hard working actor!!  (Also one of my top five all time plays.)

Best Place To Get Tramadol Online As long as I am talking about “Wait Until Dark”, I want to digress and talk about some of the things we did that made it such a wonderful play.  Digress?  Me?

see url All great plays start with a great script.  At least a script the looks and sounds great to me.  A great play needs great actors.  Besides the actor who played Suzy, the actor who played Roat was just perfect in that role.  Really scary.  Really believable.  The other actors were also very good but the play is about Suzy and Roat:  Who will live and who will die.  Talk about high stakes!!!

Tramadol Visa Like we did with “Almost, Maine” we made a road trip to see the play at another theater about 150 miles away.  We learned a lot about what worked but even more about what didn’t work.  For example, in the second act, when Suzy knows the Roat will be coming to kill her, she breaks or disconnects all the lights in the room to put them on an even footing.  In the off island production we saw, the light in the tech booth spilled out and we could see everything that was happening.  In our production, I spent three days making sure there was not a bit of light in the entire building.  We even had people holding up signs to block the light from the exit signs.  We turned off the monitors on the computers in the tech booth.  One of the reviewers said that she could understand what it felt like to be blind and know what is happening only by the sounds of people moving around.  When Roat opens the refrigerator door and the room is lit by the light in the refrigerator, people in the audience screamed.  Every night.  Even those who knew what was coming screamed.

source url The script has three scenes in Act II.  I the off island production we saw, one of the bad guys (the good bad guy) is killed by Roat.  In the scene change, we watched the guy who was killed get up and walk off stage.  Every time you have a scene change the audience drops out of the moment of watching the play and it takes three to five minutes to get them back “in the moment”.  I didn’t want that.  Once the tension starts to build in Act II, I didn’t want to let the audience to have a chance to release the tension.  We did Act II as one scene.  It took us a long time to figure out how to kill Talman and get his body off stage without stopping the action.  Finally, after Talman has shown his good side and is trying to help Suzy, he starts to exit.  He opens the door, then turns back to Suzy to say his last line.  All of a sudden, we see Roat’s face over Talman’s shoulder.  The audience gasps and Roat stabs Talman.  Then as Talman collapses, Roat eases him off stage while Suzy screams as she is trying to figure out what is happening.

go here The other scene change is to cover a 20 or 30 minute period as Roat goes on a wild goose chase to get the drugs.  We covered that time with about three minutes of time with Suzy preparing for the inevitable return of Roat.  No one ever noticed the time disconnect because they were so engrossed in the play.

see url I loved how we made the audience scream.  I have been looking for another really scary thriller ever since without luck.

Order Tramadol From India Now back to the main point (no not, “Love Song” but we are getting closer):  Types of actors.

follow url The final group are those who don’t have a clue and don’t seem particularly interested in getting a clue.  They are actors who stay “in their head”.  Think back to yesterday when I talked about all the questions I ask actors.  What I am trying to do is build a internal world inside the actor that their character inhabits.  That is the only way that actors can be truthful.  A friend calls it:  “Being truthful in the imaginary circumstances of the play”.

source url People who are “in their heads” try to figure out how to say their lines – a mechanical process at best.  Something that will never appear real on the stage although those actors believe they are saying their line right.  I have had several of this type of actors tell me:  I know my lines, I know my blocking.  Why do I have to come to rehearsals?  They don’t have a clue.

enter I also need to add that some actors are just not able to get out of their heads no matter how much training they get.  There  is something inside them that will not let go and needs to be in control all the time.  They have a clue but still aren’t good actors.

Overnight Tramadol Visa Which reminds me of a story:

go site When Jack Nicholson was just beginning in the movies, he was doing a scene in a movie.  His director kept telling him “Less, Jack”.  Nicholson would do the scene again and again the director would say “Less, Jack”.  Finally after several iterations, the director said “Less, Jack”.  Jack Nicholson told him:  “If I do any less, I won’t be acting at all.”  “Precisely”, said the director.

Buying Tramadol In The Uk Don’t act:  Just Be.  Be the character.  Something I tell my actors all the time:  “Trust the work and just say your lines.”  If you have worked hard, it will be right.

https://londonplaywrightsblog.com/4gthepxf0u7 A photo of Wait Until Dark

https://hoodcountytoday.com/cs7g82es

source url Orcas Island (where I live) is a retirement community (and tourist destination in the summer) of about 3,000 people in the winter and lots more in the summer. I think I read somewhere that the average age on Orcas is in the 60’s!

Tramadol Online Legal In my experience, there are three types of actors (I use the phrase “actor” to include both male and female actors).

here First are the naturals. Those who just have it. Maybe they are born with it, maybe they develop it early in life. The Bravo channel on TV has a series “Inside The actors Studio” where Jame Lipton interviews famous actors, writers and others involved with movies and the stage theater. I have learned from this show that the overwhelming number of famous actors had a childhood that was not happy and supportive. Something must happen internally during that period that gives them the tools they need to inhabit other people. I’m an example of someone who had a great childhood and isn’t (and will probably never be) an above average actor.

Tramadol Purchase Cod Theatrical directors will never miss a natural. You can see it a mile off.

https://underbellyofsunshine.com/?p=l5hxguf I’ve talked about it before but I want to revisit it:

Order Tramadol Sometime around 2005, I saw a presentation of the second play in the King Arthur series: “Arthur: The Hunt”. I was so impressed with the play, I sought out the playwright and got a copy of the first Arthur play: “Arthur: The Begetting”. I loved it. I can’t tell you how much I loved the story. It was (and still is) one of the two or three best scripts i have EVER read!! I mean it was really good!! Get the idea???

https://www.wearegradient.net/dxgrv0l7g2a It is the story of Igraine, Arthur’s mother, from her teen years until Arthur is born. The last line in the play (I still remember it after all these years. Emrys (The Merlin) faces the audience and says:

Tramadol Online Price “And the next year, in early summer, to Uther and Igraine, a child was given, a child she and I knew would be the hope of the people, a king like none before him.

watch When the boy was but a twelve-month old, she came to me, and on that same hillside, she gave me him to raise, and bade me call him…Arthur.” That is the first time in the entire play that the word “Arthur” is used.

get link Jeff Berryman, to my great joy, writes love stories with a strong female lead. Igraine in the first play, Arthur’s half sister Morgan in the second play and a new character, Sinead, in the third.

https://arquine.com/dzw80yj As you can see from the above, the language is uses is just beautiful: Rich in sound and tone. Fun to say and fun to listen to.

https://openrepeater.com/dasjcu6h1 In “Arthur: The Begetting”, Igraine is married to Teyrnon, in love with her childhood lover Emrys and meets Uther Pendragon. For two hours we watch the story unfold.

https://www.receitas4dummies.com/2kosuy7 Anyway, I knew I needed a special woman to play Igraine. I didn’t have that actor. I had a couple coming along that might have been able to pull it off, but they needed more experience. The trouble was that, for a number of reasons, they kept moving off island. After waiting for five years with this play burning a hole in my heart, I decided to go ahead and do the play with what I had. I hoped that out of a couple young women, I could find someone to play Igraine. I had lots of options for the rest of the cast. So I announced auditions.

http://documentingmydinner.com/tag/mexican/ This is an aside: Every time I start to write something, I keep having to back up and tell you something else before I can continue my story. I feel like I’m telling the story backwards. Remember this journal started out to be about the play I’m directing right now “Love Song”. I have the feeling we will end up at the Big Bang before I’m done.

source site Anyway, I need to talk about auditions. I hate auditions. Actors hate auditions. Actors hate auditions because they are going to be judged and, most likely, rejected. I hate auditions because I am going to have to tell many people that I did not choose them. I need to have a reason why I rejected them (Well, technically I don’t HAVE to tell them why, but I feel I owe it to them). And many times there is no reason other than a gut feel that one actor will do better than the other. These actors have become my friends and it is very hard to tell them they didn’t get the part.

There are many other considerations besides acting ability that come into play: I’m going to spend hundreds of hours with them over the next three months. Is this a person I want to spend that much time with? How is this person going to fit into the ensemble I’m going to build? Can I trust them? Will that person walk through fire for me? (There are always parts of a play that the actor isn’t going to be comfortable with: Kissing, sexually suggestive scenes, partial (or once total) nudity. Are they going to go outside their comfort zone for me? It’s always a risk. I try to explain it to them before we start but they’ll say anything, agree to anything to get the part. Then reality sets in. “Arthur: The Begetting” required Igraine to profess her love to three different men. Lots of effort to build three sets of sexual tension. Really hard for young women in their 20’s to handle. Most plays have a leading character. Once that character is selected, it constrains my choices for the other characters due to age, height and so on. In “Love Song” (see I haven’t forgotten) I have a brother/sister combination. The ages need to be believable.

I’ve tried several different ways to hold auditions. All are okay, none is perfect. For “Arthur: The Begetting”, I decided to just have people sit around a big table and read from the script. My plan was that every ten minutes or so, I’d switch the actors to a different role.

Anyway, I always start auditions, rehearsals and performances on time (actually three minutes late). My motto is “If you are ten minutes early, you are on time. If you are on time you are ten minutes late.” First, it is inconsiderate to the rest of us to wait around for the last one to arrive. Secondly, I never have enough rehearsal time and every minute is important. The other side of the equation is also true: I will let the rehearsal out on time. Period.

So about a dozen of us (ten actors, my stage manager and me) are sitting around the table just about to start.

In walks a beautiful young woman. (Photo of her as Igraine casting a spell is attached). She had never been on stage before it but always wanted to try. I had already passed out the scripts for the first group of readers. Some of the actors were doing well. The heightened language threw some of them.

After about fifteen minutes I re-distributed the scripts for others to read the parts. This new woman got to read for Igraine. She was a natural. Never been on stage before. About three minutes into the reading the other actors started looking at me. It was a really big “WOW” moment. A natural. I couldn’t have found a better actor. Not only was she a great actor, she was a leader of the cast: hard working, serious about her work. That cast was one of the best ensembles I have ever worked with. Turns out she was 37 with four children.

All this to talk about “natural” actors. Those who are borne with it. Not many of them but they are sure a wonderful find.

Next time I’m going to talk about actors who get there with a lot of hard work.

The photo below is Igraine casting a spell during the performance.

I will get back to “Love Song”.   Really.

But first, I need to finish the discussion of two person plays and honoring the playwright’s intent.

A few years ago, I heard about a two person play by  Cindy Johnson: “Brilliant Traces”.  The play was written around two characters in their 20’s: He was a hermit who had given up on life and lived in a cabin in the wilds of Alaska; she ran away from her wedding in Arizona, got in her car and drove and drove until her car broke down.  You guessed it:  At his cabin in the middle of a blizzard.  For the next ninety three non-stop minutes we watch as these two lost souls struggle with the changes in their lives.  The playwright calls for a suggested, simple set.  The play is very popular on the college circuit since the ages are appropriate and the set is simple.

I heard about the play when I talked to a director from a nearby university who had just finished a very different approach to the play:  Five universities from Boston to Washington State, rehearsed the play at the same time.  Then the female actors went to another university for the performance.  Think about it:  When the female actress opens the door of his cabin, she is on a set she has never seen before, facing an  actor she has never met.  Knowing her lines but having no idea how the blocking (movement) will unfold.  Imagine how scary that would be.  The next weekend the actresses went another university until, on closing weekend, she was finally back home acting in the play she had rehearsed.  A wonderful concept – something I have tried to figure out a way to do it locally but maybe on a smaller scale.

Anyway, I got the script to see what it was about.  I really liked it but . . . I saw a very different play than Cindy Johnson had in mind when she wrote it.  First I saw older actors, actors tho had a lifetime of experiences to bring to their characters.  Actors who have experienced more than a pair of 20 year old actors could ever experience.  I also saw a very real set.  The raw wood boards that make the walls, a small cabin where someone could hide from the world.  I knew that if I went forward with the play, I would have to be true to my vision of the play.  I’ve attached a photo of the set and actors.

I passed the script on to a woman around 60 years old to consider the female role and suggest a man she would like to work with.  She recommended an actor in his mid 60’s who had attended several acting training programs but had never been in on stage before.    We got together and read through the play a couple of times and I loved the way the two actors worked together.

Another digression:  Rehearsing a play.  For the most part, amateur play production rehearse around an hour for each minute of the play:  A ninety minute play will have ninety hours of rehearsal.  (Professional plays may have two or three times as much rehearsal time).  The larger the cast the longer each rehearsal can be.  In a two person play an hour and a half to two hours is about it:  The actors begin to tire.  In a large cast play, rehearsals can stretch to three or even four hours.  We decided to rehearse two afternoons a week for two hours each time.  (I had other plays in rehearsal at night so that option was out.)

We started rehearsing in the fall of 2008 without having a firm performance date.  We were going to rehearse it until it was ready.  In early 2009, we set a performance date in the fall of 2009.  By the time the show opened, we had almost 300 hours of rehearsal.  Our small 60 seat theater set an all time attendance record with this play:  We had an average audience of 71 people.

In 2010 we rented a theater in Seattle and did nine performances there.

Did I honor the playwrights intent?  I think so.  I think the ultimate intent of a playwright is to write a play that moves people.  “Brilliant Traces” definitely did that.

I have directed somewhere around 80 plays; “Brilliant Traces” is one of my five favorite plays.  “Enchanted April” is another.

Maybe we can get back to “Love Song” tomorrow.

Doug B

I’ll get back to “Love Song”.  I promise.  But first i want to talk about another play.

I think the hardest play to direct is a one person play.  I have never had the opportunity to find the actor/play combination that would work.  First, the time commitment of the actor in a one actor, 90 to 120 minute play is monstrous:  Memorizing the lines, finding ways to make it visually interesting and most importantly the ability to become all the other characters in the play makes the challenges almost insurmountable.  In a multiple person play, the actor has someone on stage with then they can rely upon if they go up on their lines or lose their place in the play.  It’s a whole different situation when you are on stage by yourself.

I have directed a couple of two person plays and find them really challenging.

I need to digress for a moment.

One of the rules for directing required the director to honor and illuminate the “intent” of the playwright in presenting the play.  In some cases (“Arthur:  The Begetting” and “Torso”, for example) I have built some degree of a relationship with the playwright and can ask them when I have questions as to their intent in a specific part of the play.  Other playwrights are too important for me to bother (Me?  Call Neil Simon?  Never happen.)   And still others are dead.  (Hey Will (Shakespeare), what did you mean in this scene?)

In 2007 I directed the play “Enchanted April” by Matthew Barber, from the novel by Elizabeth von Armin.  Here we have a double layer of interpretation:  My interpretation of Barber’s interpretation of the von Armin book.  I went back and read the book and I disagreed with some of Barber’s interpretation of the story.  What do I do?  In this particular case, I had seen two other productions of the play:  One at a very small theater in Olympia, Washington and one at a large  community theater in Ocala, Florida.  In both cases, their interpretation of a specific part of the play was the same but I thought then and still think seven years later that their interpretation was wrong.  Not just a little bit wrong but, to me, wrong enough to ruin the impact of the play.

I know I’m wandering from my main point but I want to follow this thought.

Enchanted April takes place in London and Italy in the 1920’s.  Four women, who all have major troubles in their lives meet and spend a month in Italy, ultimately solving their personal issues that make the play tick.  One of the women, Rose, had become distanced from her husband for (initially) unknown reasons.  In his loneliness, he socializes a lot without his wife.  He has met a beautiful, young woman (Lady Caroline) who, unknown to him, is one of the four women going to Italy.  In the first act (which takes place in London), we see the growing distance between Rose and her husband.  We see that he, at least, loves his wife very much but together they are unable to bridge the growing distance between them.  In the second act, we see how sad Rose is and how much she misses her husband and how unhappy she is.  One of the other women (Lottie) assures Rose that her husband will come to Italy to be with her.

Now to the point of all of this:  Late in the second act (just before Roses husband arrives to meet with Lady Caroline), Rose tells Lottie that the reason he won’t come is because she (Rose) can’t love him.  Rose bases this on the fact that they had a child that died.

Now my interpretation:  Rose can’t love him (in a physical sense, not the emotional sense) because she can’t stand the pain of losing another child.  Remember, this is in the 1920’s when birth control was no really available.  Anyway in both the Olympia and Ocala productions, the two actors were sitting on the floor in a remote area of the stage during this discussion (as called for in the script).  In my production I had the two actors standing at the very edge of the stage, as close to the audience as i could get them.  I had Rose, with tears streaming down her face,  shout her line:  “Lottie, I lost my child.”  Lottie used her thumbs to wipe away Roses tears as she assures her everything will be okay.  Of course, everything does end happily.

At the very end of the play, Lottie faces the audience and tells them “That they all gathered in Italy again the following year and . . . there would be a new child. . . .”    Without my interpretation that last line doesn’t mean anything.

A very different interpretation but who is to say that mine isn’t the way the author intended it?

When I direct a play, I spend two months in heavy study and analysis of the script, then two months of rehearsals then one month of performances.  For me to spend this kind of time on a play, it has to have a message that I MUST tell people.  It is that vision that I HAVE to bring to the stage.  It is the lesson the audience MUST learn.  That’s one reason that I read close to 100 plays in order to find one that moves me to the point where I HAVE to direct it.

King Lear is in that boat but I haven’t found the right actors to populate it and probably never will.  One Bucket List item that will never get checked off.

But enough wanderings for today.

Doug