As Far As I Go

It seemed so simple: Rent a car, in order to commute between

Prohibitive Standards

rehearsals in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the extended performances of

As Far As We Know

at 45 Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York. Maybe you'll feel a little strung out, but you won't miss much back in Scranton, and hey, you'll achieve in a very strong manner that continued connection to your theatrical home you always struggle to maintain when you're doing the regional theatre. It's a win-win.

Wrong wrong!

There's a line in Kevin Smith's

Dogma

that springs to mind here. "Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulfur is like an endurance trial. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in . . . next to soccer." To that short list, I would choose to add working on two different shows in two different states (and by states, I mean every possible definition of the word). I was warned of this by a thesis defense I witnessed in college. A brilliant actor (who immediately ceased to act once he achieved his Master's, as I understand it), Greg Guy DeLeonardis, mentioned in his thesis defense that he would never again rehearse two shows at once. Both shows suffered, yet neither quite as much as he.

Now, for myself, I can't say that I suffered any great defeat or anything of the sort. It was simply exhausting to vacillate between the different mind states required by each show, much less adding a vacillation betwixt Pennsylvania and New York. In retrospect, too, it may be that any suffering the shows experienced was owing more to other circumstances than my own strung-out demeanor. But more on that later. Simply going between broad, physical comedy and quasi-Epic theatre with a dash of naturalism was a difficult transition. I have difficulty with such a stylistic shift even with months between productions. It seems no matter what I do to prepare for that kind of transition, some remnant of the last style I worked in remains hopping about in my brain. I suppose I had thought that my character in

As Far As We Know

was developed enough that I could slip back into him like he were my favorite pair of jeans; still, on the opening of the re-up, I found myself more a thinking actor than a feeling one.

As I say, there were other factors involved in this. There could hardly have been more, in fact. In addition to Laurie making some important changes to the play itself between The Fringe and the re-up, the space was vastly different from that we had become so accustomed to playing in. Essentially, take the Flamboyan space in

CSV

and turn it sideways with the addition of some more-awkwardly-placed poles and curtain slits for entrances, and you'll have some idea what we were confronted with at

45 Bleecker Street

. The tech, which I was excused from owing to my commute, was apparently disastrous. Laurie was out of town working on a new job, and she tore back into town on a $500 flight after hearing how our opening night went.

The most interesting snafu that night--for me, that is--was the failure of the video to play. It seems the video projector will go into rest mode, or some such thing, if not set properly. This it did, and so the first video cue failed to play. It's not a particularly necessary cue. That is, not particularly necessary to the action on stage, but it is, however, necessary to cue Lea McKenna-Garcia to begin her drill sergeant rant about the war. The end of which is my cue to stop furiously doing push-ups. (You may be able to see where this is heading.) Fortunately, as I began to approach push-up 40 or so (Yay, personal best for single set!) and my back started to twitch involuntarily (Boo, muscle spasms!) Lea summed up the predicament and I was saved a trip to the ER.

There were plenty of other interesting diversions from the play as it is written that night, lending the whole thing a bit of the quality of a Zuppa del Giorno production. Suffice it to say, it was a godsend that Laurie could return to set things right. The successive performances just got better and better, and I think we may have even got the thing 'round to its lovable old self by closing night. In the meantime, I continued to spirit back and forth through New Jersey in my Enterprise rental car, chanting to myself, "It's all a tax write-off, it's all a tax write-off . . .." The truth is, it was a grand time. Once some of the fires got put out, and I resolved my feelings over missing a good chunk of the work on

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, I relaxed and enjoyed being so thoroughly employed in the theatre. Last week, when we were learning some fight choreography for the show, Geoff Gould turned to me and said, "We're getting paid for this." It's funny after ten years how joyful that simple thing can feel.

The big question, of course, is if

As Far As We Know

will have any life after this experience. That was the point of all this effort, and no startling news has yet to filter my way, no offers of space or interest or passionate replies of sponsorship. In my typical actor sensibility, I take this to be a sign of moving on. Actors get used to this attitude--somewhat, at least--through continual auditioning. "Well, that's done. Mustn't dwell on whether I'll get the call." Fortunately, I have something altogether preoccupying (read: freaking difficult) to work on for the next month or so. Perhaps

AFAWK

will ripple out to greater effect; perhaps not. How I feel now, if this is the end, is that we created work that was good, and that mattered. That's the kind of work that you really learn from. That's the kind of work that sticks with you through the years and, hopefully, with others as well. I feel proud of that.

ZdG Busking Workshop Days Six & Seven: Busking Heaven

It's remarkable how things come together for a show. One of the more brilliant moments of the film "Shakespeare in Love" is a line bestowed upon Geoffrey Rush's character of Philip Henslowe, as an explanation for the bizarre and spontaneous nature of the way in which shows seem to pull themselves together: "I don't know. It's a mystery."

I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that the classes leading up to our debut at La Festa Italiana were increasingly tense. The students, for the most part, really didn't know what they were going to do with themselves for three hours of improvised performance. Some were thrilled and eager; most seemed suspended, waiting for some kind of intervention from above. At the same time, we as teachers (and, more relevantly at this time, collaborators) allowed our workshop sessions to become rather less structured. We had to, which I found very interesting. It was time to let the students take more direct charge, to communicate with them on a level of equals. Even as we prepared them in the last hour before entering the liveliest stage of all, it was more a projection of authority and leadership than the actual stuff. It was their show. We were now just players in it.

One of the last "taught" segments of the workshop was demonstrating aspects of solo performance and bit development. I performed my clown for them (not to great effect--I was feeling very drained) and a greenshow bit from way back during my days at Porthouse Theatre. Then Dave and I encouraged them to perform special skills one at a time. It was a very good transition into their situation of the next day, choosing people one at a time to hold their own on stage, and helping them see what material they had to use in creating something diverting. Some used skills they had already learned, most resorted to creating scenes out of their developing relationships with one another as characters. It was good, and a good way to end the workshop of the night before we convened at TNT to brush up and perform. Both terrifying and uplifting.

The next day so much happened that it's hard to relate. We warmed them up with improvisations out and in character, and David Zarko came in to give notes on each character (most of his notes consisted of encouraging everyone to broaden their characterizations physically). At the same time, Heather and Sam arrived to observe our foray into performance. Erin would arrive during the festival, nearly completing our cast for

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. From the rest of the day, and our experiences of the entire week, we would that night choose four students to join our cast. For the time, however, as Dave and I suited up and joined a family (he a Verdeloni, I a Rossolini), there was only the huge endeavor before us. We would walk down a street in character, into a teeming crowd of unsuspecting Italian enthusiasts, and start a fight.

Start a fight we did. As we entered the town square, already attracting attention with our bizarre costumes and shapes, the families formed two groups and we began the argument: OUR restaurant is better; YOU stole everything good you know from US. It had been agreed that we would stick to larger groups until everyone had gotten more comfortable with the walkabout, but it seemed to me that, as they dispersed to dispense red and green ribbons amongst the crowd (we SO didn't make enough of those), everyone took to wings. I didn't see a fellow performer for nearly a half an hour, and I worried they were huddled somewhere, avoiding the show. I couldn't have been more wrong. Every single performer took to the show like they had been born in character. It was beautiful. I only wish I had been able to observe more--being in character myself ("Uncle Bruno"), I couldn't rest for more than seconds at a time. In fact, after two hours Heather approached to gauge my feelings about wrapping it up an hour early, feeling we had more than accomplished our task and that energy was waning. I couldn't have agreed more eagerly. Busking, truly, is a sport for the young.

We concluded in a spirit of relief and excitement. It seemed everyone had a remarkable time, and I made sure we gathered in the cabaret room at the theatre for stretching and debriefing. It was marvelous to hear everyone's stories from the day, good and bad, because everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and have learned something genuinely new from the experience (I being no exception to this). Finally, we had to say goodbye, and it was mostly sweet, since everyone felt accomplished and most were off to other Labor Day festivities. The bitter came when I had to acknowledge that only a few of our groups of eleven would be continuing on to do the show. It was necessary, to nod to the transition as we entered into it, and I hope everyone perceived how grateful I felt to all of them for their work and daring. I'm honored to have had the experience of each of them in my life.

That night we selected our four, and now we have the full cast. The week of training in the inimitable Zuppa del Giorno style begins next, and our college students are not the only ones to receive the benefit of it. Three professional actors in the this project have no idea what to expect either. And, frankly, it's been a year and a half since Heather and I have put up a full Zuppa production, and some three since we've done so with David Zarko.

So there's a lot to (re)learn.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Five: Nature Abhors a Doormat

Okay. I'm reading my own title, and I'm struck by how insane this idea was. Let's get a group of mixed-experience, barely formed personalities together and take just six short days to equip them with the skills necessary to perform improvised scenarios at a public event. Then let's just plunge them into said event, a trial by fire, if you will. Six days should be a enough, right? To train them from the ground up, have them create wholly original characters and develop them all into a scenario, right? Oh, and hey, since that's so simple, LET'S DO IT IN THE FIRST WEEK OF THEIR RETURN TO/ENTRANCE INTO UNIVERSITY.

I may have reached my own panic stage of this process. Hence the somewhat difficult title of this post, and my own use of logic in analyzing the details of this workshop. Silly Jeff: Logic has no place in the theatre.

You're probably thinking of "doormat" in terms of the standard allegory or personification--a person who allows themselves to be walked all over. Indeed, nature probably does abhor such people. (Can't be sure [Nature and I haven't been on speaking terms ever since she made me 5' 8 3/4"], but I'm pretty sure Darwin will back me up on this [Darwin! Represent! What what!].) However, I actually mean it in the sense of a metaphor taught to me early in my own college experience. I believe it was my freshman-year acting teacher, Mr. Hopper . . . though as someone awfully prone to axioms he gets most simple lessons ascribed to him . . . who advised us, "When you come to rehearsal, wipe your feet at the door." He wasn't simply advising fastidious tidiness, but a different respect of the space. You're there to work, and whatever emotional turmoil your day may have consisted of, it shouldn't interfere.

However. That's a lesson in professionalism, and theatre has the interesting distinction of basing its business upon rather un-"business-like" behavior. Theatre is a study of nature, specifically human nature. I don't believe a true distinction can be drawn between how we feel in our lives and how we feel in our work. We can compartmentalize all we like--we can be

damn good

at it--but the truth of the matter is that we are who we are, as ever-changing and inconvenient as that may be. An artist learns to use it, to appreciate it for what it is, and maybe even engage it rather than try to shut it away.

Last night one of our actors surprised us. We were walking about the room in our burgeoning characters for La Festa Italiana, in a sort of guided exercise in which Dave talks the actors through exploring specific physical and emotional qualities in their characters. It came to a stage in which the characters were to begin interacting with one another, and we tried to emphasize the need for an intention, a want that can only be fulfilled by other people (this is key to successful walk-about characters in a busking performance). One actor was adamant about refusing contact--it had clearly become their intention to avoid. In the discussion afterward we spent some time discussing helpful and difficult aspects of character, and in so doing we came to the isolated actor. I was about to explain how it is less helpful to make a character who has no reason to be out in public for this venue, when they explained that a relative had just been diagnosed with cancer and painfully disintegrated into weeping.

Whoops.

So there we are, standing in a circle, as this poor student weeps. The actors on either side reach around them for the supportive, non-suffocating hug, and I sort of lose my sense of reality for a moment. I've had students lose control in class before, but never one so mature and with such a personal reason. At some point, seemingly hours later, I approach the actor and get eye contact to say that if they want to step out for a minute that's okay. They do, and we say a few words to wrap up that phase of the session before giving everyone a break. As is to be expected, several people are affected--and some very deeply--by the emotion, and it takes us a while to get back to the workshop. But we do. And we get back on the plan, after a quick, spontaneous game of

catch to lead back in. The upset actor even eventually rejoins to observe and re-involves themselves at the end.

We have a day off now, during which time we've given them plenty to think about. At the end of class we divided them into their respective families, and asked them to come back on Sunday with a costume, a prop and a piece of music that expressed their characters. Our workshop Sunday will be the day before the performance, and we'll have five hours with them all to get them ready. We have a lot to get done yet. But they'll come with everything they have, and that will get us through.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Four: Character Hunting

The only complaint I have about last night's workshop was that we were relegated to the old gymnasium, owing to some dance team or other vying for our space. The old gymnasium (for those of you planning a trip out to olde Marywood U. in the near future) is a place most resolutely to be avoided. In the spirit of old gyms everywhere, it is hot, stuffy, and cavernous. The floor feels like hardwood laid on concrete, and no amount of fans or open doors solves a damn thing. We had to be sure to offer plenty of breaks for water and rest to our dozen students last night.

That's right: a dozen. We have our players for La Festa Italiana, and I am very happy both with the numbers and the spirit in the rehearsal room. The players are eager, and receptive, and last night we started them on building their characters. In spite of the heat--and perhaps, in some ways, because of that shared adversity--we really came together in the fashion of a familiar ensemble and began to work in earnest. After getting them started on building characters through all three walk-about exercises (leading centers, animals and appetites), we briefly outlined our vision of their scenario as we discussed it that morning. That is, a pair of feuding families--the Rossalinis and the Verdelonis--who own restaurants in town and are vying for the support of the public.

It's an exciting phase. They are well on their way to creating something detailed, tangible and fun that will stay with them well beyond the use in La Festa, and possibly

Prohibitive Standards

. There were a few surprises last night. I had forgotten just how emotionally available I had been at their ages, and some of the players took the character building to a very dark place and serious emotions. I was concerned for a time that we may have led one or two down a primrose path to self-doubt and difficult pain. We discussed it extensively, however, and found that those who went to dark places were better equipped to accept that as part of the work and move on. I tried to emphasize that all their discoveries, even those that feel like no fun, are valid in contributing to the creation of a character. I also made sure they knew, however, that they must love their character, no matter how flawed he or she may be, in order to play it for some time.

Tonight we get down to some real nitty-gritty stuff, developing specific relationships and encouraging the students to discover solo performances they can use in a public context. It's so exciting. It's so rewarding to see the tools I've been using for years--not really from any one place or specific training, but from experience and improvisation--working for other people. Not to mention learning all-new approaches from Geoff and Dave. It's great work, and I'm grateful to have it.

ZdG Busking Workshop Day Three: Sifting for Wisdom

I've written in the past a little bit about the value of making mistakes. It's one of those lessons that I just keep having to learn over and over again, more recently in the form of trying to learn Italian. Last night was yet another lesson for our workshop at Marywood University, and a lesson to all of us, I think, in a willingness to make mistakes. The fact is, we learn faster with the more mistakes we make. The obstacle is, we all seem to want to "be good," to impress our peers and maintain a high status by way of proving something. Some of us (Me) have more difficulty confronting this obstacle than others of us (Friend Todd). It takes a very real courage to leap in and start trying, blind. Ironically for me, this is one of the things we are trying to teach to the students at Marywood.

Just maybe, however, it's getting to be easier for me.

Last night was not an enthusiastic success as far as my comrades were concerned, yet I found it to be very gratifying. Several of our exercises with them went a bit too long, or didn't grab their imaginations. Of course, it was a much more exercise-intensive workshop, as opposed to the game-intensive ones prior to now. This was part of our effort to emphasize a shift to skill-building for the festival performance this Monday, but also to demonstrate to the students what that work would really entail before they had to make their decisions regarding whether or not they would continue in our course. So after a few quick, energetic games to get spirit up, we delved back into exploring animal physicality, this time with an animal of their own choosing, which we segued into the improvisational game "Party Quirks," only with animals instead of psychoses or professions or some such. It was very interesting to watch them integrate (and fail to integrate) the lessons of listening and specificity from the day prior. It was also curious to see them tend to push their animal characters into an intellectual, or "clever," place instead of using simple physicality and appetites. Getting them out of their heads is proving an interesting challenge; small surprise there, what with the rest of their days probably being devoted to typical classroom education.

After the break, Paulette Merchel introduced the second half by explaining to them their upcoming choice in some detail: the time commitment, the nature of the work, etc. According to our plan, I undercut her somewhat dire announcement by entering midway in the character of Dewey Cheatem, a very broadly characterized horny old man character (imagine the personality of Pantalone with the physicality of Dottore) from our show

Legal Snarls

. The students were somewhat shocked by his ribaldry, but it also broke the tension, especially when he hit on Dr. Merchel. It was nice to play him again. It's a character that really knows where to go, and what he wants, so is also hopefully a good demonstration of the kind of character that makes public performance somewhat easier.

In the second half we worked with them on character impersonation, utilizing one another and their homework to observe a stranger and emulate his or her physicality. Unfortunately, many of them either misunderstood or didn't prepare the assignment, and ended up bringing in a person they already knew, which taints the observation with prejudice, making it more of a caricature than an exploration. Still, there was value in their demonstrations of these people en masse, as we stepped back and watched them work. Afterward we discussed, and tried to suggest to them a need for impartial observation and discovery.

The last thing we did was to simply sit down with them and discuss the details of what they could expect from both La Festa Italiana and

Prohibitive Standards

, should they be cast in the latter. This was most helpful, and gratifying, as it was clear to me that we had gained their trust and that they were interested in at least the show, even if they were cautious. I do worry that they are

not

too interested in La Festa (there were rather fewer questions about that, which I would expect there to be more worry over if they were planning on being a part of it), and so we've discussed--in light of that and various scheduling conflicts students have with it and

Pro Stand

--allowing anyone who wants to attend the workshops to continue, and just be clear about whether or not they're a part of La Festa.

Today will be very interesting. We may fall on our faces, as only a few (or perhaps none) choose to be involved with the next step. At least it's good to consider that such a mistake may lead us to making an even better choice.