Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: theatre

Doppelgangers

Friday, December 11, 2009

Tonight we saw Elise’s brother depict Orsino in his high school’s performance of Twelfth Night.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to recap high school theatre at length for you. At least, not just yet. First, I have to tell you about my doppelganger.

Basically, there is a kid that is friends with E’s brother, and he looks and talks and moves just like me. He’s even inappropriately loud at all the wrong moments, just like I was (but am not as much anymore).

Every possible person has commented about it. E’s mom thinks we look alike. Someone else in the show saw me in the audience and thought he/I had snuck out from backstage.

It’s uncanny. I didn’t have the curly hair back then, he has a better nose, and I don’t think he is under the impression that he is David Bowie, but otherwise he is a relative spitting image of me.

It’s a little unsettling, if only because E’s brother reminds me of me enough to begin with (mostly intellectually, and in wishful thinking, because I wished I was him when I was in high school), but then to have another person remind me of me, and to have the two of them be buds and gallivanting around on-stage, is kind of mind-collapsing.

Also, Twelfth Night itself is a play of doppelgangers and doubles. It’s possibly my favorite Shakespeare comedy because it moves briskly and doesn’t require much suspension of belief. The troupe did it in the style of commedia dell’arte, which meant they all played as archetypal models, and nearly all wore elaborate masks. They also played a collection of found and real instruments, and did some offstage singing to score the scenes.

We did a commedia-style show my freshman year – the brilliant A Company of Wayward Saints – and it was also great. There’s something about the reductiveness of the archetypes that makes it easy to bring amazing scenes to life – like it’s easier to just sink into the character without thinking too much about it.

We also did the found-music thing in Bretch’s Good Woman of Setzuan, a process well-documented in the annals of the blog.

Basically, bro just did my two most technically challenging collegiate shows wrapped up along with Shakespeare AS A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT, and knocked it out of the park. As did my doppelganger, and all of their castmates.

They’re pretty cool.

Also filed in elise, high school, stories | | Comments (0)

Daily Demo: Crashing

Monday, November 2, 2009

Song #77: Crashing (live demo) ["Save As" to download from that link]
Last recorded for Blogathon 2002.

10 years ago this weekend I went to my first college party, still very much a purposefully-naive, dewy-eyed teen.

I came home having had my first vodka cranberry and my first inklings of adult romance, drifting to sleep wrapped in the blissful denouement of each.

The following Monday morning was a decidedly dreary day, and I found myself locked out my dorm room in my pajamas. Instead of heading to French 103 I sat down in our common room – five stories from the ground with a two-story windowed wall staring out into Center City Philadelphia.

I pulled out a pad and wrote “Crashing.”

Later that day, having been let back into my room, I recorded its first rough demo and transferred the lyrics to the first page of the crisp new book I bought for my collegiate songs. Up until then I wasn’t sure how I would know it was time to start using it, but I suddenly did.

“Crashing” made frequent appearances at parties and late night hangouts throughout my Freshmen year, resulting in the first complements on my voice I had ever heard. They came as a great shock to me, as they still do. Later that autumn I recorded it for my first full length demo, Other Plans – shakily, in the middle of the night, trying not to wake up my mother in the process.

As a dreary fall turned to winter I moved on to add other songs to my slim gray book – many of which I still play to this day. Yet, it was “Crashing” I would play between classes as I sat at the dinged, old upright piano in the theatre green room. I would hypnotize myself with the rolling two chord verse, learning how to play piano in increments (and maybe a little bit about what the song really meant, as well).

It took the entire intervening decade to learn how to play piano well enough to demo it that way, and it seems apropos that it wound up recorded just as shakily and late as its original demos were, respectively.

Crashing (live demo): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also filed in Year 10, college, demos, identity, memories, rain, self-critique, stories | | Comments (2)

Good blogs and the opinions I spouted at them.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

This post could easily be about how I spent the last two weekends sweating my physical and intellectual butt off to completely reorganize my home office and upgrade CK to WordPress 2.8, but you would be like, “Whatever, it looks the same to me,” or “Um, I’m reading you on my RSS feed, so I don’t really care,” or possibly, “Dude, I haven’t read blogs for two years. Send me a tweet about it.”

Which is fine. I mean, should I also tell you about how I swept the floor? Backstage is backstage for a reason. Props people work hard to keep actors focused on their performance, not for the applause.

(Plus, at CK I’m the prop person and the actor. And the box office manager, the technical director, and the old lady ushering you to your seat. You get the idea. Excelsior…)

In my increasingly uncluttered life I’ve been trying to make some more time not only to read other blogs I admire, but to interact with them. That means reading carefully and responding, which sometimes yields thoughtful comments.

I’m sometimes hesitant to leave my thoughts lying around in other people’s homes when they could possibly lead to interesting content back here at my own homestead, but I’ve arrived at a happy medium – I’ll link to all of said intriguing posts as well as giving you a snippet of my reasoned replies.

Here’s a glimpse at some of the discussions I’ve weighed in on in this past week.

(If you find yourself wanting to do the same, try subscribing to Backtype, a simple monitoring service which will doing all of the the keeping-track for you.) Continue reading ›

Also filed in WordPress, admissions, betterment, bloggish, corporate, linkylove | | Comments (2)

A Year In The Life

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Elise and I spent today in New Jersey for the same weekend and reason that caused me to quit NaBloPoMo last year – my brother-to-be’s fall play.

He’s come a long way in a year. Last year was his first time acting on stage; this year he had the final bow in a challenging, thought-provoking play, The Rimers of Eldritch.

Out in the audience Elise and had come a long way too. Last year when we were here it was most people’s first time seeing her engagement ring, and they were bristling with wedding questions that we hardly had answers to, let alone opinions. Today, our planning nearing completion, we traveled to New Hope to continue shopping for my wedding band.

I’m nervous about the band. I haven’t worn jewelry for a long time, not since I was younger when I bore a perfunctory cross from my grandparents. One day it fell off somewhere between home and school, never to be seen again. My mother bought me another for graduation, and I recoiled from the box. I didn’t want another cross; I had never worn it as a cross. I wore it as my grandparents.

Since then I haven’t worn anything.

I’m nervous about the band, and excited too, because I’ll be wearing Elise. We didn’t settle on a final ring today (in fact, I backslid on my prior decision), but while we were shopping I prevailed upon Elise to buy me a plain practice ring – just a small, comfortable, stainless steel band. I’ve had it on since one, on the ring finger on my right since Elise insisted I couldn’t wear my practice band on my actual finger.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m typically very conscious of my hands, of what I’m doing with them and if they are safe. Already I’m constantly fiddling – turning it, changing it from one finger to another, sliding it back and forth across my knuckle. My fingers don’t close the same way, and I rest my adjacent knuckles against it when I hold my guitar pick (it actually improves my form).

Two months from Monday I’ll put on the real thing.

Also filed in Engagement, day in the life, family, memories | | Comments (1)

The Burn Ward Theater Company puts on its Mittens

Monday, September 8, 2008

Saturday night brought me to the upstairs at Plays and Players Theatre on Delancey Street to see the inaugural Fringe Festival effort from The Burn Ward Theater Company.

Burn Ward presented three one acts – two brief scenes, and one more substantial play. The scenes were well-acted distractions, and the play – Mittens Descending – was an utterly hilarious farce. I wish I could go back and see it again.

Mittens is named for an anthropomorphized, caustic, middle-aged, gin-swilling cat with an eye for mischief and an encyclopedic appreciation of classical music. He’s the debatably imaginary best friend of Lenny, who we first meet as a Batman-loving seven-year-old frustrated by the Barbies and make-believe of his little-girl neighbor, Rebecca.

Lenny and Mittens are an inseparable team when on adventures battling pirates and nightmare kings, but in the real world Mittens is more high maintenance than any friend or pet should be. He demands constant attention and obedience from his young charge, but in exchange offers only capricious, catty companionship. When the two have a brief falling out over Lenny’s weak streak for anarchy Mittens leaves in a huff, en route to other unspecified mischief.

We are then reintroduced to Lenny, now an angsty teen who hasn’t heard from Mittens in years. A breakup with his now-girlfriend Rebecca leaves Lenny’s life spinning out of control, which is compounded by the misguided efforts of his laughably inept therapist. After a disappointing visit to Dr. Goldstein’s office Lenny has hit rock bottom, and it’s at this moment that Mittens makes an ignoble return to wreak havoc on Lenny’s life.

From there the play escalates to a life-and-death struggle between Lenny’s actual responsibilities and the fey, narcissistic logic of Mittens, now on his eighth life and looking to relive past glories.

As a character Mittens reminded me perversely of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – a whimsical-yet-toxic antagonist so well-played that you hope he will show up in every scene. Rachel Gluck crosses gender (and species) to inject understated panache and a throaty purr into a role she originated at Drexel University. Bedecked in elaborate face paint, a shabby jacket, and tufted ears poking through her hat, she’s as much the charming Harvey as the chilling Frank of Donnie Darko.

Though the plot’s trajectory grows increasingly dire the script is full of humor, and not just from Mittens. Lenny is an amusingly thorough failure at everything from convincing his girlfriend why she shouldn’t leave him to writing songs for his ridiculous vampire rock band. And, while Lenny’s life is a black comedy, his visits to Dr. Goldstein are wry verging on slapstick. The doctor is a misplaced beach bum who will do anything to get his patients to leave him alone, offering kumbayas along with fistfuls of Wellbutrin.

Despite being a group of recent college grads who still throw keggers as fundraisers, Burn Ward’s presentation was all-pro. Fringe too often acts as an excuse for aimless efforts by groups that are more interested in making a statement (or a complete absence of one) than entertaining an audience. Mittens was the opposite – no ulterior motives, just entertainment in the form of a snappy piece of pop-culture still pervasively weird enough to be at home at the Fringe Festival.

While I expected better than amateur from a group of theatre junkies, I was honestly floored by the quality of the production. The acting was universally strong and clearly well-directed, even in the brief scenes that preceding Mittens. The entire ensemble was adept and entertaining, especially Mark Maher as Lenny.

Mr. Maher was so in-the-moment as a rambunctious kid and an over-medicated teenager that our fourth wall into his world was completely transparent. His major failings and minor successes were all-the-more resonant for watching someone actually be an angsty teen instead of just miming along to the archetype of one. His grounded performance made Mittens seem all the more real.

The upstairs at Plays and Players isn’t the kindest or roomiest space – more like a stuffy attic than a theatre. Burn Ward technical director Brian Browne made the best of it with a revolving stage that allowed Lenny to climb out of his window directly into his Rebecca’s room in real time, once even continuing conversation from one scene to the next.

The Burn Ward Theater Company is barely a year old but they have already figured out the formula for a successful show. Their biggest misstep was in choosing a venue with too-few seats; each of four Mittens performances was a sellout!

While other Fringe companies pack their bags and hibernate until next September, Burn Ward will continue to fundraise and perform throughout the year. Keep an eye on the company’s website or their FaceBook page for info on upcoming shows.

Disclosure: Burn Ward was founded by Drexel grads, but I was never in a school production with any of them (though I later starred in show with Mr. Browne). However, I am good friends with one of the founders; she did not act in or direct this show.

I don’t think our relationship influenced my opinion, as I honestly had no idea of what to expect, and harbored a fear that it would be either painfully dreadful or dreadfully painful. Similarly, she seemed to be terrified that I would hate the show.

Happily, neither outcome proved true.

Also filed in Philly, reviews | | Comments (0)

Alla This

Saturday, July 26, 2008

On Thursday morning I was very much in my head while sitting on the trolley, listening to Ani DiFranco’s madly terrific new song “Alla This.” The song is partially about the intersection of the personal and the political, with Ani at one point delivering the following:

i won’t rent you my time
i won’t sell you my brain
i won’t pray to a male god
cuz that would be insane
and i can’t support the troops,
cuz every last one of them’s being duped,
and i will not rest a wink
until the women have regrouped

I already love the song as much as anything she’s done this decade, but at her concert earlier this month that verse sent a thrill through my body – in eight lines it succinctly hits commercialism, religion, war, and feminism. Amazing.

The verse ended as I stepped off the trolley, and my mind began to wander. I thought about Ani’s constant challenging of the patriarchal status quo, and how any form of discrimination ultimately connects back to that hegemony.

In the distance between the trolley doors and the stairs to sunlight somehow that rolled into my wondering about the Iraqi citizens, and if life has actually improved for those that exist outside of the patriarchy both of that nation and of the force the world is imposing on it.

I wondered, what about the gays and lesbians in Iraq? I knew nothing about this group, though I was sure they existed. What was their life like before the invasion, and what was it like now? While I am advocating for the rights of my lesbian friends to marry are their Iraqi counterparts struggling for the simplest of rights – for the ability to exist as themselves without fear?

Sometimes my brain and the internet do a peculiar zeitgeist tango, where the same day I wonder about a topic it shows up in my daily reading, and sure enough when I got to my desk CNN was running a story entitled “Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder.”

As it turns out, as the Iraqi government came unmoored the situation of their GBLT citizens deteriorated. Any hint of their sexuality risks not only their own lives, but the lives of their entire families.

What a terrifying closet to be trapped within.

Just a day later I was at the Philadelphia Theatre Company to see Elise’s brother in his weekly theatre lab.

One of his classmates – barely a teenager – wrote a brilliant play about how bullying can go too far, as the actions of a few are enabled by the inaction of their peers at large. Here the result was the death of a young girl at the hands of her tormentors – their faces unimportant, as all of her classmates were complicit in her fate.

In the play’s last scene Elise’s brother acted as a federal agent, gingerly interrogating one of the girl’s classmates, getting nowhere. Finally, grimly, he asks her:

“Is it true that the girl who was murdered had a crush on you?”

And then, brilliantly, sparking immediate tears in my eyes as much for his delivery as for the line itself:

“Have you ever heard of a boy named Matthew Shepard?”

So powerful, and from the pen of a girl half of my age. Vital proof that we still have some terrifying closets of our own, whether their doors are open or closed.

As the lights came up, Ani’s voice rung out again in my mind as the voice of murdered girl, of those Iraqi men, of Matthew, and of Larry.

i will not stand immersed,
in this ultra violent curse
i won’t let you make a tool of me
i will keep my mind and body free
bye bye minutiae
of the day to day drama,
i’m expanding exponentially,
i am consciousness without identity

Also filed in Year 08, ani difranco, essays, family, feminism, gblt, journalism, politics | | Comments (2)

all the world’s a stage

Friday, November 16, 2007

Tonight we took in a bit of high school theatre, watching Elise’s (and, hey, soon my!) younger brother in his first ever play.

I’m self-aware enough of a blogger not to regale you with a blow by blow of his performance, but it did recall a certain memory of the last time I witnessed any pre-collegiate theatre.

It was in the same auditorium, seen with the same company, possible seated in the same row as tonight, again watching another of my soon-to-be-siblings on stage – this time Elise’s sister.

The main difference was that we were on the other end of our relationship; we had been dating three weeks at the time, and the show was a prelude to my first time meeting Elise’s family.

After the show I milled to and fro, self-conscious and worried about first impressions, while Elise ducked backstage to say hello to former costars. She was still connected to her school – certainly more than she was connected to me.

Tonight she picked those old cast members’ younger sibling out of the playbill, more mine than anyone else’s.

I like this life.

(Also, let it be said that Elise’s brother rocks incredibly; he’s like a better, more talented version of teenaged me. He’s made me – who from an early age had vowed to strangle any potential siblings in the cradle – really re-think my position this whole only-child thing.)

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, day in the life, elise, family, only childness, stories | | Comments (6)

…in bed

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Several years ago i acted in a show about morals (in both senses of the word), and at the end we handed out fortune cookies to audience members as they filed their way out of the theatre.

It was a lightly attended show, and we wound up with a huge box of uneaten cookies. The cast and crew took it upon themselves to dispose of said box at the cast party, resulting in each of us eating several dozen fortune cookies.

Of course, the most exciting part of eating fortune cookies is the fortune, which is why we were so disappointed to realize that our box of cookies had a finite amount – maybe ten or fifteen – of fortunes. Perhaps I had seen a duplicate fortune once or twice before in my life, but learning just how slim the fortune options were in a given crate of cookies was depressing.

Ever since then i have hated eating fortune cookies, but i have persevered in my hunt for unique and original fortunes. Or, at least ones that aren’t so general as to apply to anyone.

Idleness is the holiday of fools.

For a few years now that has been my favorite fortune. I got it one day when i was out to lunch with my old boss. We both appreciated it equally, so i brought it back with me to pin up at my desk.

Even after three subsequent desk (and boss) moves the fortune still sits pinned directly above my phone, where it frowns down upon me if am ever tempted to twiddle thumbs or sharpen pencils in order to put-off or altogether-avoid something i ought to be doing.

It is highly effective. I would say that approximately 30% of my productivity is the result of that tiny strip of paper. If i ever lost it I would print a new one.

The only downside of “Idleness is the holiday of fools,” is that it isn’t much of a fortune (unless, of course, it was assuming i am an idle fool). It’s really more of a proclamation.

However, last week out to lunch with co-worker Elib i received my new favorite fortune, because this one enforced something i often doubt. It read:

You will always get what you want through your charm and personality.

At first this might seem a little at odds with “Idleness” – it seems to be indicating i can be as idle as i want, so long as idle with charm.

I choose to see it more as a reminder that an absence of idleness alone does not equal success. To find true success i need to be engaged and happy, and that happiness needs to be an almost tangible force to each person i encounter.

As for “in bed,” i remain in favor of the first.

What’s the best fortune you ever received (in bed)?

Also filed in Year 07, betterment, corporate, memories, thoughts | | Comments (5)

Success to the Successful Thistle Sifter!

Monday, November 13, 2006

In the theatre program at Drexel we had one particularly favorite vocal warmup, which we did before every show i ever acted or teched. It went like this:

Theophilus thistle, the successful thistle sifter,
While sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles,
Thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.

Now, if Theophilus thistle, the successful thistle sifter,
While sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles,
Thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb,
See that thou, while sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles
Thrust not three thousand thistles through the thick of thy thumb.

Success to the successful thistle sifter!

Much like Homer Simpson’s classic “I am so smart! S-M-R-T” (which i hear least once a week in my corporate office), the Theophilus jingle has stuck with many of us theatre kids, none more so than Elise and i. Whenever we overcome a major household obstacle we are known to proclaim loudly, “SUCCESS! To the successful thistle sifter.”

The charm of the phrase comes, i think, from the fact that sifting thistles by hand is a sortof thankless excercise to take joy in.

Well, as of this post WordPress is (somewhat) unbugged and live on ck.com. And that was not a thankless endeavor. I’m going to write a whole Blogger-to-WordPress walkthrough soon (yeah, and that Bonarroo walkthrough, too), but the thing that really sticks out is that there was an actual, tangible, workable answer to every single question i had through the installation process – right down to the last issue that was keeping me from going live. Most of those answers came directly from the WordPress Support wiki.

Thank you for your patience with me as I spent a few days to complete the changeover. I’m like a kid-on-Christmas with all of these new features to play with – especially categories. Please continue to comment whenever you find something broken, especially if it’s broken in a well-rendered browser like Firefox.

Also filed in NaBloPoMo, WordPress, elise | | Comments (1)

I Don’t Know What I Hope

Monday, August 22, 2005

We’ve experienced a bout of radio-silence here in July because I was preparing for a role in what turned out to be a sold out production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Happy Birthday, Wanda June. It amazed me on many levels. As it turns out, I still can act, and not so terribly, either. Also, who would have thought that the girl I threw peanuts at in the lunchroom nearly a dozen years ago would be producing and directing me in a play where she stars as my mother. Certainly not i. In a cool turn of events, we got advance coverage in City Paper without a sneak preview, even if they plagiarized some web sites for the blurb.

Work continues to be work. I moved to a new position as of today. Work was the same (work), only verifying what I had already guessed: life is not your title, it’s what you make of it.

I have come back around to Gawker, the snide NY Scene slash celeb gossip internet rag. I don’t know why I have come back around to it. I do know why i have come back around to it – they were covered in RS, which I fetishize, and their EIC Jessica Coen is sorta hot (not pictured in the web article) (wow, lends a lot of credibility to my opinion as a Journalism major, eh). Yes, this means I’m only about a year-and-a-half behind the prominent web-trends. I really need to work some good individual weblogs back into that. Time to hook up Thunderbird’s RSS feeds.

Not sure what else to say, really. I have now been doing this for 1822 days, which means in about half a year I’ll have been doing it for 2000. That’s a lot of days to do something. More on that later this week.

Also filed in gina, weblinks | | Comments (0)

Anyanka

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

One day i will be able to watch the finale of Buffy and not cry every time Anya is on screen.

If only we could get a little teevee running the finale at the side of the stage, i could cry in the play.

Also filed in teevee, thoughts | | Comments (0)

There Once Was A Boy Named Pierre

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Last night I had a read through for a play where I am 12 years old (and Gina’s son. Ha!). All weekend I thought about what it would be like to be twelve again, but with all the hindsight I have now because that is what I’ll have to be on stage.

It’s hard. I can’t remember that pre-adolescent moving without self-consciousness, and saying what came to mind with no thoughts as to what people would think, and being convinced that everything was logical and true and black and white.

In the thinking about that I’ve been thinking a lot about who I was at twelve, and leading up to twelve, and how I was both very like and completely unlike my character, Paul.

As such, the next few posts will be peppered with a sort of autobiographical reflection that I’m not really known for on here. Please just bare with me, and try to imagine me but more rational and tinier (but with just as big of a head).

I suspect I’ll do a fare share of creative re-imagining of my past not as deceit but just because this stuff has been bouncing around in my head for so many years that I only know how to tell it this way, which is maybe not quite the way it originally happened.

Also filed in gina, memories | | Comments (0)

A Picture Share!

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Rent
Intermission @ Rent

Also filed in elise, phonecam | | Comments (0)

Monday, May 17, 2004

Also filed in acappella, audiopost, college, gina | | Comments (0)

Monday, December 1, 2003

Good lord, if i had to write seventy five hundred highly critical, super observant words about theatre every term i think i’d grow to loathe it altogether. I mean, for heaven’s sake, they’re made up people! And, i have to have them act the whole damn thing out in my head, since i only directed one scene from the damned play.

Anyhow, three days spent largely locked in the house with Erika, and 17 of 30 total pages due-by-Friday complete in my campaign to get Winter vacation started sooner than later.

Speaking of whom, we decided a few things while we were in the mall for five hours on Black Friday. Namely: The 80′s are not coming back, no way, no how, we deny that anyone even contemplated it. The color palette was too all-over-the place, the fashions were altogether unflattering, and the music was drenched in too much reverb. We realize that we’re on a two-decade spin cycle, and that the 90′s just rehashed the 70′s, but we don’t care.

Furthermore, women’s clothing with a single initial letter monogrammed over the breast is fucking dumb. I repeat: fucking dumb. We reserve the right to mock any such walking fashion faux-pas until she bursts into mascara-trailing tears. However, please note that giant letters worn across the whole of your chest are highly acceptable, as long as they are at least two thirds as wide as they are tall.

And, for the record, eight straight hours of dissecting a single nineteen page play is not good for one’s overall sanity. Or eyesight. It is good for one’s desire not to write the other thirteen pages starting on Thursday after Friends, though.

Also filed in college, erika, fashion, shopping | | Comments (2)

Thursday, November 13, 2003

I am not a terrific actor. I have zeal, and am unafraid, but i always balk at surrendering myself entirely to a persona that is not wholly my own. Acting, for me, is a series of motions, and when i am acting i string them together as fluidly as possible. Sometimes, though, i know the movements and the words so cold that i stop speaking and let the character speak through me. Those are the moments when i am truely an actor.

Despite not thoroughly mastering the art of acting, i am slowly becoming more aware of the acting of others. I can see, now, the vast difference between motions being gone through and characters. This sight has turned live theatre into something much nearer to a sporting event for me, but what it has truly revolutionized is the screen. No longer can i appreciate overwrought dramas or lightweight sitcoms, where the actors are just punching the lines in all the right places; acting is not pummeling. No longer can i endure even the most viscerally executed CG action sequences; not if i have to suspend my disbelief in the characters doing the fighting.

It might sound like a revolution of criticism, but that’s only because the standards for what we call “actors” have sunk so low. Suddenly i get the point of the Academy Awards — they are not to award the most favorite actors for the most fun roles. No. They are for the actors who chose not to appear in their movies, instead letting their characters speak for themselves.

I wish i could do it, but for the time being i am content to appreciate it. I am more than content to drink up masters like Ian McKellen, who skips from playing fairytale heros and villians to portraying the imperfections of real life without skipping a beat. I love ensembles, like the one on West Wing, who are so in on the show that i have trouble watching them on talk shows and award ceremonies when they are just being themselves.

I like that I can see this all now, a layer beyond the story and the movement and the words. Yay for college education.

Also filed in college, flicks, self-critique, teevee | | Comments (0)

Thursday, January 23, 2003

Watch as six pounds of Roma Plastilina clay (hopefully) becomes a 1/2″ scale set for Prometheus Bound, neatly bound up in the form of an irregular polyhedron.

before
during

after

Either that, or i’ll wind up doing a Gumby and Pokey skit in Production class tomorrow…

Also filed in 44th St, college | | Comments (0)

Monday, January 20, 2003

Clay under my fingernails now, even after a thorough hand washing. Serves me right for taking a class that involves visual art.

Bill couched it carefully to me… Production Design… it would help my emerging directorial conception. Very useful for identifying and bringing forward the thematic elements of a play. Close textual analysis of a Greek tragedy of my choosing, as well as The Tempest. Assurances that my less-than-meager skills as an artist would not limit my academic success (and threaten my near 3.7 GPA).

All of the couching in the world, though, could not have stemmed my alarm at spending forty whole dollars in an art supply store this morning. As for the clay, well… i do have that GPA to protect.

The first project sounded fairly simple. Pick a geometric solid and create it in any medium of your choosing. Pick a play. Create all of your set-pieces out of that geometric solid so that they can be puzzled back together into it. Simple enough; i bought bricks of super-light clay. It still makes sense… it will never solidify, so i can tweak it up until the last minute, and it will be easy to squish back together if i make too awful of a shape. I choose an irregular polyhedron that resembled two pyramids crashing into each other — figuring that something essentially square would be much easier to deal with than something that resembled a multi-sided die.

There i was, thirty minutes ago, in my sculpting glory: making a sturdy rectangle of clay, marking off the lines i need to cut, slowly peeling away the outer layers until i was almost there — one more slanted side to uncover with a quick slip of my newly purchased modeling knife. And, slip it did, directly across the knuckle of my left thumb, leveling off the entire side of it.

To my credit, i did not panic, even when the innocuous-looking flattened side of my knuckle turned quickly into seeping red. I calmly held my hand away from the clay and finished the cut to complete my polyhedron, and then walked to the bathroom and scrubbed the clay off of my hands. I intermittently passed my thumb under the water, transfixed by the way the steady running stream carried away the blood, leaving my thumb looking perfectly fine except for a vague squareness.

Satisfied that i would not lose my appendage to some strange clay-based infection, i left the bathroom only to be faced by my unsteady geometric solid, all-but tottering in place amidst a pile of scraps. I could see my mistakes immediately… too rash in tracing the sides, my crashed pyramids looked more like rectangles caught in the act. So, before heading off in search of a bandage, i decided to piece my clay back together into a rectangle so that it would be ready for another try sometime tomorrow. There i sat, bleeding thumb held back away from my hand in an attempt to forget that it was conveniently opposable, pressing together the clay i had just so painstakingly cut apart.

And this is only 5% of my grade…

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Saturday, February 23, 2002

There is acting, and then there is playing a role. Acting is straightforward … based on material given to you ahead of time, and meant to be consistent and the same every time. Role playing is something entirely different … slipping into the mind of the character you portray to make decisions and reach conclusions for them. It’s the difference between a movie-star shooting a single film and a soap opera star who has played the same character for decades; with the latter, we expect them to occasionally stray from their normal portrayals, if only because we’ve had a chance to ascertain what normal really constitutes. One is not harder than the other. In fact, to consistently act and to act consistently are two different concepts entirely.

Okay, so, what i’m trying to say is that i didn’t get cast in Fiddler, but in my ever-loving geekdom i started a role-playing campaign of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tonight with other assorted Drexel Players. We sat around in an attic bedroom for more than three hours, talking to each other as who we were portraying rather than as ourselves imitating a character. Eyes were shifty, and stories were inconsistent. We began to establish the baseline of how we would act from there on out. Stories were told around campfires, relative lack of wisdom was played with Keanu-like naivete, and secrets were kept.

We’re going to meet again next Thursday. Most of the other people have rehearsal most of the nights between now and then, but i don’t. And, really, it’s not a problem.

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Thursday, February 21, 2002

Gee, let me just concentrate on Journalism class when i know the cast list goes up in an hour and a half. Totally doable. Working on it right now.

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Thursday, February 21, 2002

Some Things (or: Change Happens).

I have never ever ripped the knee of a pair of pants before last night, when during one of the kneel-skid-kneel routines in my dance audition i caught the worn khaki fabric of my pants on a seam of the stage. I didn’t notice until we got home and i went to poke at the huge purplish bruise on my knee only to find my finger poking clear through the leg of my pants.

Callbacks, for all you who so kindly inquired, went decently. I was convinced that we’d have to sing a bit more tonight, so i don’t think i had any dairy all day and am now making up for it with the most massive bowl of ice cream i’ve ever had. It’s obvious that i don’t have the voice or presence to play any of the cast roles, so i was basically just being used as filler in the scenes we read. Which, honestly, i don’t mind. I just want to sing. The Cast List will be up tomorrow at 1pm.

Lindsay says she can hear everything that goes on in my room, and i suppose she must be able to; i can hear everything that’s said in hers and, though i can’t usually hear her move, my floor is her ceiling. So, i’ve been trying to be very still, and not as stompy when i wake up in the morning.

I had breakfast again today. Somehow, my days have been better every time i’ve had breakfast in the last week, but if i were to be scientific about i think i’d find that the relationship between the two isn’t causal in nature. I really don’t try to dissect better, or happy, or any other good thing too much — lest it disintegrate and flow from my hands like grains of sand. It’s irony, really: you want to have something to hold on to, but have to keep your hands off. Proverbially, that is. Or not. Blah, time for bed.

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Thursday, February 21, 2002

Oh, gee, now i remember why i don’t like theatre.

It’s a shame this thought always strikes me after i audition.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2002

Art and beauty are so subjective that i’m sometimes frightened by them. A song that almost wound up going unplayed has become everyone’s new favourite. Last night someone told me they thought i was sexy. Some people read my page, and some don’t.

My audition was terrible… i couldn’t understand where the piano-arrangement fit in with my vocal notes, and i just kept shooting the pianist a befuddled look while my voice teacher sat in the back row and scribbled furiously on her legal pad. Corrections, for our next lesson. Rounder ‘O’ vowels, “remember” should be “ri-mem-bur,” breath before the phrases, don’t move my arms around so much. I don’t remember singing it at all, but i know what i did wrong. In fact, i thought that my audition was pretty terrible — panicked glances to the accompanist are rarely the mark of a chorus-member in the making.

At the end the voice inside my head said “Fuck it, Peter. Show them you can sing.” I shut my ears tight against the pianist and looked straight ahead. “Can lead to joy. And hope. And love… yes. Love.” C, D, Eb, E. Flawless. I just grinned as the piano roll to the end of the song began. The cheering was wonderful; i walked off as calmly as i could and proceeded to totally collapse in my chair hugging Elise and whispering “i did it, i hit it, i did it.”

No one mentioned my high notes, but everyone claims my song was wonderful. I didn’t think so, and i keep saying “But, what about the end?”

Tonight i’ll be at callbacks. Someone thought it was okay.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Every day is a day that your whole life has been leading towards; each step is the step that all of your life has been preparing you to take. Until the next one.

Two years ago i auditioned for Hair. I had so far only had a bit part in a main stage show, and i had never sang on stage before. But, i had the most hair of any of the boys who were auditioning. This, i was sure, was my shoe-in.

Our director asked who would sing first, and a hush fell over the room packed with aspiring tribe-members — no one wanted to set the bar. So, i did… with assurances that i could get up and try it again later. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life: my arms went numb, i forget my lyrics, and i couldn’t understand the piano arrangement. I barely remember the act of singing so much as i remember the lights blinding me as i wandered off the side of the stage, knowing that my second try would not make much of a difference.

When i didn’t get a callback, i was not entirely surprised.

Everything between then and now has been my stumbling rehearsal for tonight’s audition for Fiddler on the Roof. Every failed audition, and every successful one. Every note i’ve hit and every note i’ve missed. Every smile, every tear, everything. Yes, it’s about whether or not i can hit my E, as i am acutely aware. But, it’s also about who i was when i took the stage 730-odd days ago and who i can be tonight.

It’s not about hitting your stride in the moment, every moment, living for each. It is about sustaining through them all, stringing them together like a legato string of pearls.

Not coincidentally, that’s what my voice teacher keeps telling my about hitting the high notes in my audition piece. Maybe after i get it right in my singing i can manage to apply it to life.

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Monday, February 11, 2002

And the play is over.

Striking the set of a play is always a strangely emotional exercise — like tearing down the house you grew up in. Though a set is really just an artifice built to house the illusion of theatre, it’s also the place where you became a part of the company of actors and crew that you’ve spent the last weeks or months with. These people are your adopted family for that time… you work beside them, go out together after rehearsals, confide in them… and then you come together with power drills and crowbars and crescent wrenches to tear it all apart. And, though you always hope that you’ll see everyone again, it never works out that way. There are people you might never see again, people that might never get into another play. On the other hand, there are people you’re destined to live, work, and play with — though you hardly suspect it at the time.

The first time i struck a set at Drexel it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I didn’t know what it really meant; it was just artifice, just an illusion. Months later i helped strike Hair… tearing up the floor panels and repainting walls. It was then that it hit me — that we were really destroying our home as a family, and it would never physically exist again. Seeing the stage bare black tonight i just wanted to go back to the bare kitchen and parlor we had been living in and around all week. Back to the magic that came with it. But, before that feeling could even crystallize we were all downstairs, merrily chowing away on our deli spread, laughing about the mistakes we had made and whispering about the auditions that await us in nine short days.

Even if all nine of our cast, all four of our running crew, and all six of our booth crew wound up involved in the next production, it couldn’t be the same. The energy we had as a family was dissipated as we rollered flat black over the vibrant colors we had painted onto the floor barely a week before. Hugs goodbye were long and meaningful, even though some of us see each other in class every day; it wasn’t really a goodbye to each other, but a goodbye to the place where we had become as one.

Nine days until i stand alone on that same flat black stage and open my mouth wide enough for all to hear. Nine more days until our next surrogate clan begins to form.

I’m not sure if i just want to sit here and rest, or not set foot back in my room until then.

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