ZdG Busking Workshop Day One: Welcome to Higher Education, B%$@#es!

We have begun.

It's been about a year-and-a-half since

Zuppa del Giorno

's last official show, in which time we have been quite busy as a company, with two trips to Italy, numerous workshops taught in improvisation and acrobalance, and even the odd public event or publicity stunt here and there. Still, nothing quite compares to doing what the company started out to do: Create original comedies from scratch using commedia dell'arte as a living tradition. I missed it last spring (suspended for a season in order to effectuate more work in Italy) and now we are back with a very ambitious bang. Not only are we doing another wholly original production, but we are:

  • Hiring three new actors on board for it.
  • Collaborating with Marywood University's theatre production department.
  •  
  • Casting students from Marywood University's theatre department.
  • Performing the eventual product in two venues: Marywood and The Northeast Theatre.
  • Beginning by teaching a week-long workshop in improvisation, character development and busking to the theatre students, culminating in their performing in La Feste Italiana in downtown Scranton on Labor Day weekend.

It is this last that we began last night in the Mellow Wellness Center (read: gym) on Marywood's campus. For all the teaching and workshops I've done in various areas of theatre in the past five years, this is the first time I've taught one with an emphasis on busking, or public performance. And by "we," I'm actually referring to a very new group of collaborative teachers. There are three of us here, teaching approximately twenty-five students. Myself, Dave Berent (Gochfeld), who appeared in the last Zuppa show,

Operation Opera

, and Geoff Gould, with whom I haven't worked on stage since my first show at TNT,

The Glass Menagerie

. To summarize the significance of all this--Last night, after the first day of school, we spent three-plus hours teaching a workshop that was new to us, and that we are planning and modifying as we continue along.

It went quite well, all things considered. We were all rather nervous about what kind of reception to expect from students who are essentially required to attend this workshop (that's for a few days--thereafter we get to say, "Okay, if you want to continue and perform, stick around. The rest: ciao!"), but we just a few exceptions everyone seemed very eager to risk and learn. And we didn't necessarily make it easy on them. Our concession to their first day back and the mandatory nature of this event was to focus on game-playing, team-building and staying away from lessons or lectures. There were, however, punishments handed out (when games were misplayed, they were made to apologize to the class until it was accepted) and their own feedback--occasionally critical of one another--was encouraged. In addition, Dave did the whole class in character.

Dave has a clown called "The Maestro" who performs around New York with some frequency. Last night he rather merged The Maestro with one of his former teachers of clown,

Gaulier

, complete with costume, mustache and French dialect. The result was a very energetic, high-status, enigmatic man who occasionally took over teaching and kept the students on their toes. I was impressed by how easy this was to accept, for both them and me. Dave and I had discussed putting our own work out for critique during this workshop, but I hadn't imagined a character living an entire class out, and wasn't certain about what was to be gained. It turns out the answer is 'quite a lot,' as the students come to see the differences between us and our characters, and just how livable and continuous that characterization can be, even without lines or blocking.

In terms of our lesson plans, we're incorporating a lot of skills, but trying to base things in improvisation (and some clown) concepts. That is, building habits of listening, responding on impulse, accepting and building on others' ideas, making the other looks good, making physical choices, etc. Yesterday we played several games to build awareness and group mentality, touched on the concept of an "active neutral" state (devoid of character [even your own] but aligned and ready to make choices in an instant) and building a physical character, and we even began with some improvisation exercises. We were impressed with how much we managed to get through, which hopefully bodes well for the rest of the week. The emphasis will gradually shift from core skills to more specific ones having to do with public, improvised performance, such as using one's environment, prop acting and audience involvement.

Each day we will plan anew, based on the previous evening's progress. It's exciting to go back to school in this way, and truly, as a teacher I feel I'm learning as much as--if not more than--our students.

SO . . . MUCH . . .. BRAIN . . . 'ASPLODING . . .!

Hi. Hi. Hi.

That's kind of the rhythm of my life this week.

Hi. Hi. Hi. Very precise, slightly manic in pace. It would be mostly the good kind of stress (what "good" kind, you ask -- the kind that comes of having too much to do

as a result of

lots of stuff one loves

...an important caveat) except that nobody's personal life takes a holiday without extreme measures, and I've had several reminders over the past ten days or so from said personal life as to how trivial some of my stress is. Which compounds it with a sense of guilt. Which is about par for the course for yours truly.

There was this week, back in

college

, when I essentially disappeared for several weekdays in a row. I think it was during my Junior year, and it was highly uncharacteristic of me, at least in one sense. That sense being about how I was Super Student in college. I dove into my work with untempered zeal, and didn't really start to surface until some time mid-Senior-year. In another sense, it was utterly characteristic of me, because what prompted my dive into working solitude (relative solitude) was a certain powerful emotional response to events in my personal life. So Junior year, having no increased work to dive into, I took a time out. It was quite unintentional, and I look back and marvel at how easily I did it . . . and how, even once I recognized I was doing it, the recognition didn't prompt concern for my own well-being. I finally came out of my room, and just went about my business as I always had before.

That's the kind of "extreme measure" I refer to, and it is not an adult option. Sure, everyone needs some time off once in a while, from work, from friends, etc., but short of entering an institution for the treatment of nervous breakdown there is no healthy way to rest from who one is, or one's current responsibilities. And really, I don't want to. I want to achieve, and change, and all that good stuff. Good stuff, nonetheless, can at times be overwhelming.

Another thing I did in college, a healthier and more repeated thing, was to make a B.F.L. in times of many goals, such as when finals rolled around. "B.F.L." is a reference to the PC game

DOOM

, which I'm not proud of, but thought I ought to own up to. It stands for "Big F'n List," and was essentially just that, comprised of everything I had to get done before a given period of time was out.

Now, for certain pragmatic reasons, I can't list all the to-dos here so, in the spirit of

As Far As We Know

's launching notice, I present the short list:

  • Work enough hours at day job to cover lack of pay at upcoming gig
  • Do laundry
  • Clean apartment
  • Pack for two months away
  • Forward mail to working address
  • Interview folks
  • Brush-up rehearsals for As Far As We Know
  • Two performances to "close" As Far As We Know
  • Write "closing-night" cards for As Far As We Know
  • Arrange dates to breach upcoming contract in order to perform in potential re-up of As Far As We Know
  • Figure out and arrange transportation for Pennsylvania-New York commute for re-ups
  • Plan curriculum for workshops launching Prohibitive Standards rehearsal period
  • Continue research for Prohibitive Standards
  • Contribute to Prohibitive Standards collaboration forum
  • Maintain exercise regimen, sleep schedule and sanity

I'm not trying to impress you. Okay, well, yes: I crave sympathy. But I have friends with a lot more on their plates--in school, for (a big) one--and I'm aware that all this comes from good tidings, not to mention said reminders of late about how trivial such concerns are in the face of issues such as life, death and family. So, more to the point, I list my pre-Sunday to-dos in order to set them down, make them seem more manageable and share a slice of my life when it's in this mode.

The keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed that I rather slipped in there the possibility of a re-up of As Far As We Know. (It being a mere possibility at this stage is yet another in a long line of inadvertent puns on our title.) I don't want to jinx anything, but the sentiment from our side of things is that when a show gets such press as ours has, it's a good idea to use that momentum whilst it is most momentous. This has long been the goal of our esteemed production team (read: Laurie and Kelly): to get the show supported or otherwise picked-up by a more major theatre. There's a very interesting double-motivation here--one for success in our creation, and one for success in spreading the story and awareness of the Maupin's struggle. That, I suppose, is the balance to all the hassles of creating one's own work: that you will really, personally care about getting it out there.

Which leads us to my present conflict--eager for resolution, but utterly lacking in information to resolve. Both shows are very personally important to me, and both rather rely on my presence. The Zuppa del Giorno shows have been my greatest priority, and my most evolved work, for close to five years. I love them: They are me as an actor, in so many ways. This project is far and away our most ambitious and exciting to date, with a cast of five plus student actors, and performing in two venues. As Far As We Know has been in collaboration for over two years, I've been with it since nearly the beginning, and it's also a creator/actor piece. Now it has the hope of reaching a larger audience than any of my work has to date, and I'm loathe to let go of it, even for a few performances. The two don't absolutely conflict, but decisions are on the horizon. Here's hoping the fates are pleased.

Why, you may ask, in the midst of this would he take time from his day to write here? It would actually be worse if I didn't. Somehow staying connected on the Aviary helps to keep me connected to myself, if just a bit more. Doing less has never given me more sense of peace. Doing more of what I love inevitably does.

So there's much to do before I leave. I appreciate my friends' understanding of that. Hopefully I can make it up to them before "Hi. Hi. Hi." becomes "Bye. Bye. Bye."

And not in that nice *NSYNC way, either.

Oh, get over yourself. You were right there with me.

Crisis of Faith

In college, I read Stanislavski. For those of us who slept through (or never even considered taking) Theatre History 101,

Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski

was an actor, director and teacher in 19th century Russia who made a big impact on the acting world by recording his process and "method" in a series of books, amongst various other associations and theatrical victories. To put the tale overly simply, he grew up in an aesthetic that instructed acting by way of imitation, but he came to value an approach of creating a character "from the inside out," meaning to find an association or familiarity with a character within one's own emotional landscape before mucking about with the specifics of gesture and voice. This was revolutionary, and we've been rather obsessed with it ever since (even though Stan went on to study truth through physical gesture as well). I laughed out loud (and I'm still trying to figure out if that was the desired effect) at one point in his book

An Actor Prepares

. He's telling the story of trying to get a handle on playing Othello, when he sees a chocolate cake on a table. He impulsively plunges his face into the frosting, and returns to his mirror to continue working on whatever monologue had his attention at that time. When I was 19 or so, I thought this was the most ridiculous thing I had ever read about acting.

This morning, while waiting to cross a street, I noticed a puddle full of oil, or gasoline, and barely thinking about it stepped

into

the puddle to stand and wait for the light to change. You see, for the past few days I have been wearing the sneakers my character wears in the show. They're white, and need to look like they're well used in fields and garages, my character being a soldier and a mechanic. So, for the past few days, I have been reprogramming my instinct (hopefully only temporarily) to step IN every nasty spot in the park and city that I can find. Waiting to cross the street I spotted the rainbow sworls below and thought (Tin-Man like) as I stepped, "Oil!" It's rather ridiculous what a sense of victory I experienced from this.

Yesterday one of the actors in

As Far As We Know

quit. Actually, that's only true insofar as I've heard it. I was not there (it happened in a morning phone call between the actor and the director) and have only heard the details third-hand, so to the actor it may have seemed more like a firing, or at least an inevitability. We open tomorrow.

This generally doesn't happen. The night before it happened, as a way of pardoning all the up-to-the-curtain changes a group-developed work may involve, Laurie told a story of making

I Am My Own Wife

, in which the playwright came into the last rehearsal and told the only actor in the show, in sum of substance: "I have good news and bad. The good is I've solved the ending. The bad is that it means you have to come up with 13 new, distinctively different characterizations." And when I developed the first show of

Zuppa del Giorno

,

Noble Aspirations

, we spent nine months building a story, and ended up scrapping it entirely and starting fresh during tech week. So I am accustomed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune where the theatre is concerned.

This particular plot twist, however, is surprising in a number of ways. First and foremost, actors don't quit a show two days before it opens. They occasionally get fired in such a time, but they don't quit. I've been trying to imagine circumstances under which I would do such a thing, and there are a few, none of which could apply here. So it is flummoxing. Secondly, and most baffling, most of us have been working on this show--off and on--for over two years. This is what's kept me in the game during those times when I began to question my own resolve to see it through. How could I leave off before we saw some kind of semi-glossed presentation? I don't think any one of us can claim

not

to have been profoundly affected by this work at some point. And maybe that's it. Maybe the actor just couldn't agree with the show we ended up making, or something. It's pointless for me to speculate in this.

You know that inevitable scene in the Rocky movies in which the match is not going well, and the chips are down, and Rocky's looking like he's going to vomit and fall in it any moment now, and we're all just waiting for him to rear up and triumph against all odds? Pepper that feeling with--to borrow a term--a little shock and awe, and you'll have the mood of rehearsal last night. We already had a new actor in, and they were doing their very best to catch up. The adrenaline of it all helped to wash away some of the sense of loss and incompleteness, but every so often you'd catch a fellow actor's eye and see it all in there. In the final stages of creating a play about a family's inexplicable loss of one of its own, we lost, rather inexplicably (to the cast, anyway), a member of our family. I really, really miss this actor. It sucks.

But...Rocky's going to get up off the floor. We will take arms against a sea of troubles. The show will go on. That's what we do. It may not be perfect, it may not even be pretty, but it will be, and we will have made it. Come to think of it, many people have contributed to what we've made who are not here now. From actors to writers to actual participants in the events that are the source of our inspiration, there are all kinds of missing people, and part of what we're learning through this is how we live through that. One thing I've learned is to find small joys during it all, to be sure not to miss them when they cross your path. That, and a little faith doesn't hurt, either.

This Way to Tech Day

Or perhaps I should say: This way to tech in two hours. To be fair (fairness above all),

As Far As We Know

had much more time than we perhaps otherwise might’ve. We were the first to start what was sure to be a much longer day for the space itself, so the theatre wasn’t already clogged with props and costumes from other shows, and we even got in rather earlier than our stated time slot. It was just enough to get by, though.

The Fringe

(or perhaps it’s the space we’re in) requires part of one’s tech to be a timed run of the show. For us, that means two hours to figure out a very tech-heavy show, and two to run it. And that’s it. So we got everything rigged to run, and Jen Schreiver and Joe Varca got a start on the light, sound and video set-up and cues.

And then we ran.

All things considered, it went well. We got through the whole thing, anyway, and it clocked in within the required time limit. There’s plenty still to be worked out in every category, hat-to-tails, but we saw the bear dance, and it didn’t run wild and devour any of our volunteer tech staff. (That’s a metaphor, in which “the bear” represents “our production”…just for those of you who know nothing about the show. It contains, sadly, no dancing bears.) Mind you, I’m still terrified. We never again set foot back in the theatre space prior to opening; at least not until 15 minutes before our debut.

What jacks up everybody, methinks, beyond the already anxious position of finally showing all our cards on this former work-in-progress, is the exciting good news of last night. New York Magazine (my favorite for crosswords [Maura Jacobson, you rule!]) has us at the top of the

short list

of not-to-miss NYC Fringe shows. So, you know. Wow.

Apart from all the technical aspects as-yet unknown, there’s a lot of my personal process that I have yet to nail. In the space of three scenes—all of them either memory, dream or hallucination—I need to create a whole, individualized human being. In the midst of doing this, I have these funky-ass movement things to do. Abstractions: ones that will work, if only I can do them with the same intention that I might a “normal” scene with utter verisimilitude. Most of them involve walking slowly backwards. One involves walking backwards completely blind, my entire head covered by cloth. This was, of course, my invention.

And the stage and our entrances are bizarre, on the whole. The stage is a long, narrow thrust extending from thirty feet away into the midst of three seating sections. We have essentially four entrances: two from either downstage corner (from which there is only audience to hide behind) and two from either upstage side. These upstage entrances are set wide apart, owing to a backdrop that is about as wide as the stage floor is deep. In other words, for both of my backward marches I have to navigate no fewer then four right-angle turns without being able to target exactly where they need to happen.

As is my wont, I find a very apt metaphor in this (one excluding dancing bears, much to my chagrin). The show is marching blind into the fold, and the only way to make it work is to be as vigilant as possible, and as prepared as possible to make good out of the accidental. We know the stakes, and can only imagine the potential results. It is ultimately out of our hands—there are just too many factors at play. Until we get there, we just have to believe as much as possible…and work our asses off making sure that belief is grounded in enough action to match our faith.

So you better believe the next three-days-and-change will find me doing a lot of backward walking and line exploration. Abraham Lincoln spoke a great quote (one which I’ve tattooed in Sharpie on my stilt legs): “I may be a slow walker, but I never walk back.” I have to hope Abe would appreciate my position and afford me a little excuse to moonwalk my way on and off stage. I hope he would appreciate our little show, too. I think we’ve struck a nice balance concerning the issues of war and politics, even if it does present the American military as being a bit more flawed than I perceive it to function (a necessary adjustment for dramatic purposes). One who may be more politically liberal may actually feel upset with the protest letters our fictional family receives in the midst of their struggle. Then again, I have virtually no independent perspective left. I’m too close. I’m all over the place.

And I mean it literally. We had, of course, discussed this at great length, but it wasn’t until I saw our technical rehearsal today that I realized just how pervasive my face would be in the production. Those of you who know me may have some difficulty with this, especially given how few scenes I have to establish myself as a character. In the second act, images of my face literally border the entire stage, and Faith Catlin and Alex Cherington—as Jake’s parents—wear t-shirts with my face peering out from them. It unnerves me in rehearsal. It will most likely destroy the tissue of the play’s reality for them what know my actual person. Sorry gang. On the plus side, it must be great exposure for my career.

Assuming the show turns out well, that is.