"That won't even get me two pickets to Tittsburgh!"

I may have seemed the ultimate absentee parent last week, my little ones, and for that I do apologize. I did it. I plopped you all down in front of my uploaded videos, cigarette dangling from my lips, then strutted my way off in my short-cut pea coat to downtown Pittsburgh to "find you a new mommy, or two." For days you've wondered: Where's my daddy? Well, daddy's back, my darlings. He'll never, ever leave you like that again.

At least not until next year's KC/ACTF conference.

You may recall (or you may not; see if I care) that about a year ago (see 1/17/07) I enlisted Friend Patrick to help me teach a workshop at ACTF to help promote Zuppa del Giorno's international training program, In Bocca al Lupo. It was that time of year again, but this time at Carnegie Mellon and with fellow Zuppiana, Heather Stuart. So last Thursday I caught a three-hour bus to Scranton, grabbed some brochures, jumped in Heather's clown car and began the five-hour drive to Steelertown. Come to think on it, it really was a bit like a clown roadshow, that whole trip. On the way we practiced our Italian to "Hide This Italian CD," a supposedly raunchy take on learning Italian, the most risky endeavor of which seemed to be asking where the gay bar is. Incidentally, it seems that in speaking Italian any subject can be designated as gay so long as the sentence ends on the word "GA-YE." I am certain that, at least in this, the language CD is not leading me astray...

The workshop went splendidly. We had a day to orient ourselves before the afternoon our workshop was scheduled for. We tried to do some other things whilst there; you know, be productive, pretend we were on a normal sort of business trip, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of experience with that approach, and so much of that time was spent floundering in our own ignorance. "How come this Wi-Fi isn't working?" "Where do we get copies made around here (bear in mind, we're on a college campus) ?" "How do you convert an AVI file into iMovie?" "What do they mean, we can't just park here for free?" Fortunately, we quickly (read: "after five hours") perceived that such was not our forte, and reverted to our usual time-wasting and exuberant enthusiasm for the unplanned life.

Which works surprisingly well for us. We get more done that way. I swear it's true. Sometimes it seems as though God has fated we Zuppiani for quasi-chaotic lives, and that he will smite us with beurocracy and stupid circumstance when we dare to defy that lot. (This is bearing in mind that I do not believe in fate.) Heather, David and I, in particular, seem to do best when we're happy-go-lucky idiots. (Friend Todd: And I mean this with tremendous love: You're in a category all your own.) It's a phenomenon beyond denial. So Heather and I stopped trying to make a demo DVD and started behaving like clowns, sometimes quite literally. We even spent some time filming brief clown bits around campus. It was a good reminder as to the spirit of what we be teaching the next day.

And the next day we slept in and then geared up for warping--er, I mean, molding the young minds of today's north-eastern American collegiate actors. It's always hard for me to concentrate much on anything else when I know I have a class to teach soon. It's a little like coming up to an audition for a part I really want. The night before the class, there were the usual festivities to attend to. We had a very entertaining dinner with Debra Otte--a long-time friend of Heather's and David's--and her friend Ingrid, then watched the "Fringe Competition," wherein students enroll the day of, receive given circumstances to incorporate and a theme and create a short entertainment for that night. Thereafter, it was free booze in the "faculty lounge." "Free" being a relative term, of course, because there's usually the trade-off of some very awkward, though generally well-intentioned, conversations to be had. And all through these myriad events, my mind wanders . . . will any of Deb's students take our workshop ? . . . is this "Fringe" work indicative of the general interests of the students ? . . . does the fun of our workshops really qualify us as "faculty" to be partaking of faculty fringe benefits, and if not, do I at this moment care an iota . . . ?

Finally the day came, and we turned no one away (in spite of the class being limited to 26 and having far more than that sign and show up) and we had a ball. Unique to this workshop was our attempt to squeeze in a little bit of everything from what we teach in Italy into the two hours allotted (we asked for four, over two days). Everyone took to it very well--including us, I believe--and after two hours of partner-stretching and balance, improvisation, physical communication and character exploration, we wearily took to the road and drove all the way back to Scranton in time to meet with David about plans for the future. Hauling my butt into bed that night was an effort, but falling asleep wasn't. I had visions of clown awkwardly dancing me to sleep . . .

Feel the Burn

Work is bad for you. It's science.

I'm on a rather eccentric work schedule these days, as far as

my day job

goes. It has to do with splitting the job with another capable worker who was training for the position in the hopes that I would suddenly become rich and famous and not need a day job (which by the way, for those of you keeping score at home, hasn't happened yet). This arrangement means I work an average of 20 hours a week, or two-and-a-half days. So I work the first part, she the second, or vice versa. It's been strange. Good, because it's the holidays, and I have a lot to occupy me in my off hours. Bad, because I'm making about half as much money as I'm accustomed to when I'm city-side . . . and I wasn't exactly living large prior to these circumstances.

But here's another good thing: I can make more time for exercise.

And here's another bad thing: When I can't make time--i.e., work days--I am acutely aware of it.

Ooo, but do I know it. When I first started working here the job was much, much easier. I knew less about the work, had less responsibility and my boss was quite frankly coasting a bit on good fortune. Plus,

Friend Melissa

referred me to the job in the first place, and was around to cavort with. We never did anything unconditionally crazy, but she worked in a tiny office and I in a cubicle, which presented us with marvelous staging opportunities for what

Friend Heather

refers to as "archway humor."

"Archway humor" is that which is generated by the story one doesn't see. Rather, one sees the effects of incidences that occur "offstage." Your imagination makes up the rest. Melissa and I being both of the circus persuasion (particularly at that time, when we were both rehearsing with

Kirkos

or

Cirque Boom

), our archway humor consisted mainly of highly physical choices that exploited her doorway and my puppet-stage-like, low cubicle wall. I'm afraid Melissa engaged me much more than I her; I was still fresh to my job, you see. Every so often, for no particular reason, Mel would walk up to my cube, look me in the eye, and wordlessly execute a cartwheel. The effect was something like, "Hi Melissa. What do you want? Oo, nice sneakers!" When her head resurfaced, she invariably gave me a look that seemed to say, "What on earth just happened to me?" The effect on my mood was stunning.

Melissa don't work here no more, having moved on to greener pastures in The Garden State. It's difficult to say whether it is her leaving, getting ever-so-older (oh, the lessons we learn about the difference between "discomfort" and "pain") or the building stress of my work, but whatever the cause I find myself frequently passing the whole day without considering crouching in my chair, cartwheeling in the hall or doing push-ups against the copier machine. And I used to make a point of that. In a day in which I'm working at the office and going to rehearsal at night, I just fail to squeeze in a good work-out at home. Sometimes I fantasize about working as, of all things, a bike messenger, just to feel a pleasant ache of hard-won work at the end of the day. If it weren't already such a perilous job, just ask some people who know me well what a bad idea this would be. Plus, I'd probably be so ineffective. I would obey traffic laws, use hand signals and spend too much time poking around the offices I delivered to.

So here I am, venting my aerobic angst on the 'blog instead. The irony is, when I'm not working, I worry about how much money I'll make that week. Henceforth, these days shall be known as my "burn days." Feeling the burn of that last set of push-ups, feeling the burn of having to save up for coffee cash. The burn days are good motivation for getting something new doin' with my theatre career. That's the only place I've ever been paid for handstands.

Officially, at any rate.

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.

Self-Inflicted

I have, at present, one of those marks on my body that begs to be explained as a violent wound. There is a large purple welt on the inside of my left bicep, and it could easily be believed to be the result of one or more of the following:

• This guy grabbed me with his right hand so hard, I had to punch him in the nose to get him to let go.

• I'm studying Filipino stick fighting.

• Paintball, dude. Paintball.

Sadly, none are the case. No, my manly disfigurement arose from carrying an air conditioner home from the store. In other words, from my obstinacy. I could have taken a cab and been home in a jiffy, bruiseless, but I hate cabs and had assured myself that the air conditioner, to quote my own thoughts, "isn't that heavy and hey--useful plastic straps on the outside. I'll be fine." Of course, what probably exacerbated the hematoma (SOMEbody's suffering from SAT score envy) was the prompt application of push-ups after the air conditioner was actually installed.

I'm not trying to seem like a tough guy here. Wait. Well, actually, that's entirely the point. I am trying to seem like a tough guy. In August, unCommon Cause will at long last mount a finalized (somewhat) production of As Far As We Know as a part of the NYC Fringe Festival, and in said production I will be playing a captured soldier. The gentleman my role is based off of is a large, fit guy, and though I'm making no claims to be imitating him, one could definitely get a better impression of me as a soldier if I actually had pectoral muscles. So over the next few weeks I will be eating big breakfasts and making my arms very, very sore.

An actor's relationship to his or her body is an interesting one. We're probably second to models in our interest in keeping our physique attractive (with possibly a greater emphasis on functionality--definitely, when it comes to our voices) and are eligible for all the same benefits and foibles of behavior that can arise from that interest. There are some things that just can't be helped (apart from significant surgery), such as height, body type and facial features. The better among us learn to use such features to their advantages. Most dedicated actors, however, also feel a certain sense of responsibility (or just plain ol' fun) in modifying their appearance in ways appropriate to a given role. There are some very extreme examples of this from film (such as Christian Bale betwixtThe Machinist and Batman Begins), but it applies to the stage as well. The difference is that the stage at once hides more details (such as wrinkles) and demands more drastic effects to succeed in modifying appearance (such as Antony Sher's ordeals in transforming himself into Richard III).

(A) An (hopefully) interesting observation:

Not much has changed over the years (and years [and years]) of theatre history. Actors with a reputation for altering their appearances for roles are commonly known as "character actors," unless they've achieved celebrity status, in which case they're often known as "bold," or "crazy." (

Gary Oldman

is a fascinating hybrid in that he's internationally known, and rarely looks at all the same between roles.) Lead actors, particularly in film, actually have a vested interest in maintaining similar looks between movies. It makes them more recognizable and type-able, and very often is rooted in their best, or most attractive, look. Apart from the tastes of the general public (or rather, because of those tastes), this consideration arises out of lead roles almost invariably being involved in some romantic plot or other. Take this back to the commedia dell'arte tradition, and one finds it awfully familiar. In classic commedia dell'arte, the

innamorati

, or lovers, never wore

masks

, whereas almost all of the other characters did. The exceptions to this rule were some of the female "servant" characters, presumably because they were meant to also be seen as attractive, though perhaps in a less romantic sense.

Anyway, I'm not in terrible shape. My doctor (when I actually have the insurance to be able to afford her) tells me that I'm keeping myself in good exercise, at least internally speaking, and simply as a matter of course I tend to get in a little stretching and exercise every day. That habit suffered the most it has in years over this last winter-into-spring, what with my injury and the uncertainty surrounding it, but I now feel well-returned to the habit of regular exercise. (Of particular help in this was teaching "physical acting" to high schoolers last week.) Of course, I would be in better shape if I still had my weekly Kirkos session to look forward to, but in many ways the circus skills I've been learning the past few years are what got me in good shape to begin with, and I return to them on my own. It's just easier to push oneself when one isn't . . . er . . . just one. So: I'm a reasonably healthy thirty-year-old man with several extracurricular skills to apply to the pursuit of the desired effect.

That effect being

HUGENESS

.

It ain't gonna happen. At least not in time for this incarnation of

As Far As We Know

. It's just too basic a change to affect in such a short time and, unless the show goes far, it's not a body state I'm enthusiastic to be in. When I was a kid, I would have eaten it up. My body ideals were formed by superheroes, and in large part that means no chest can be too huge, no abdomen too rippled. Now, however, having worked on circus skills and developed a better-informed interest in things like martial arts and

le parkour

, dexterity and speed are more important to me. Perhaps, too, age is a factor. The past year has taught me a lot about what it means to age in the physical sense, and as I grow older, I want to be more agile, not necessarily stronger. Nevertheless, I'm curious to see how effectively I can emulate an all-American soldier in just a month.

I had to come to a certain peace about my body image a while ago. As a kid, I was overweight until I was about 16, whereupon I grew no taller, but over a period of about two-to-three months I lost 40 pounds. No lie. I went from weighing 160 pounds (at 5'8'', very little of it muscle) to 120 (still rather lacking in muscle), which also directly led to my getting some for the very first time ever. And by "some," I of course mean "anything, at all." That detail may seem tangential, but I'll come back to it. I never really understood why the change happened then, or so suddenly. Looking back, it's easy to file it under teenage hormones. It was hard to say at the time, though, because I had wished for it for so long, silently, and it happened so suddenly I wasn't even aware of it until people started commenting on it. Still, I hesitated to do anything with my transformation, not really getting around to it until college, when I was quite unexpectedly cast as d'Artagnon in

my school

's production of

The Three Musketeers

. I had never known what it was like to really work on something so intensely physical until I had to train for the fencing in that show, and I ended up

loving

it. I love having to sweat for my craft.

Some few years ago, I had a little sit-down with myself. "Self," said I, "Let's me and I get together on this body-image thing." It was prompted by an observation from a friend, who wondered aloud if what drove me to be so disciplined about pushing myself in exercise (said friend caught me on a good stretch) was the subconscious worry that someday I would mysteriously revert and regain that extra 40 pounds of baggage. Fear is a powerful motivator in drama, but I try to avoid it in the rest of my life . . . whenever possible. I realized that I was associating being loved, even being worthy of love, with something impermanent and mysterious to me. So I made an agreement with myself that I would try to judge my body more by what it could do than what it looked like. Friend Kate and others were pivotal in helping me come to this conclusion by introducing me to circus--something concrete I enjoyed and could aim for--and since then I have made every go of it.

Of course, one can't always avoid an exterior analysis, particularly in a profession as image-conscious as my own. The important thing for me is to keep that interior (though now, shared with all seven of my 'blog subscribers) priority, even in the face of others' stunning physiques, or casting directors who look at me like I'm a Hot Pocket that didn't get enough time in the microwave. In those instances--as when I'm working to create HUGE pectoral protrusions--I just keep thinking, "I can hold a handstand 0.7 seconds longer than I could last year, and climb things like a spider-monkey." This makes my willingness to literally cause myself pain, inside and out, in order to create some unkown version of myself a bit weaker. But it also makes my journey to whatever I'll achieve far more rewarding, and spontaneous.

Now I have to go do some push-ups. And post an ad on Craigslist to pimp myself out as an air conditioner mover.

ITALIA: June 23, 2007

As our Italy trip begins to wind down here, we refocus on planning for next year. This morning, between breakfast and lunch, we met for two hours to discuss tomorrow’s meeting(s) of the minds. We’re scheduled to meet with Piero at 3:00 to further discuss his proposal for next year’s course structure (a plan which, though the three actors were enthusiastic about at the time, has since come to seem limiting in some ways), then at 4:00 to get Sebastiano together with Andrea at Andrea and Natsuko’s place for a couple of hours to meet and discuss potential creative collaboration. Finally, much later that night, we get to see Lucianna again as she returns from visiting Giorgio, to discuss with her what aspects of next year’s logistics she’s interested in being involved with.

So today we began the discussion from my desire to achieve a better understanding of what we were coming to the table with on all these meetings. The good prospects of our collaboration with Andrea—and through him hopefully Angelo, the talented commedia actor we’ve seen on video—and Sebastiano have shifted our focus from the entire trip being about training American and other students, to spending half of it seeing what we can create (hopefully the beginnings of a show) with Italian artists.

The proposal as it stands now—our proposal to ourselves—is to arrive at the start of June and spend three weeks in rehearsal and meetings with whatever Italian actors we can, with the aim of training and creating a show together. During this time we Americani would also be teaching classes in theatre et al to the interested students at LinguaSi, as a way of incorporating the school more and potentially making more money while we’re here. The fourth week is when the American students would arrive for a week of intensive Italian classes through LinguaSi, during which time we would have our last week of rehearsal with the Italiani, hopefully to present some kind of show to those students at the end of the week (“This is what you’ll be doing by the end of your time here.”) Thereafter we would enter the last two weeks, in which time our training of the students in theatre and commedia dell’arte would commence, enhanced by association with genuine Italian commediani and culminating in a performance in Italian at the end of that period. It occurs to me now that we could also, in that time, research possibilities for taking our professional Italian/American show to the next phase and new venues.

It’s an exciting proposal, and after our meeting I feel more confident about everybody getting something of what they want out of it. It includes the prospect of bringing Andrea over to America to perform at The Northeast Theatre, and of taking Silent Lives, eventually, to Italy. I still have some concerns, but they’re of a scope impossible to deal with at this stage. This plan relies on grant funding for the first half of the trip, something we have historically had no luck with as regards getting to Italy. Hopefully our new collaborations will change our luck with that. It’s also a great deal of time to be out of the country. This is tempered by the fact that we’d be working on our own theatre at this time and the long-term pay-off of that, but it’s likely it will make it close to impossible for Todd and his rapidly burgeoning New York career, and we’ll have to be sure of a certain degree of income for ourselves to even allow the possibility. None of these concerns, however, tamp my enthusiasm for the scope and aspect of this proposal. It seems possible. It seems exciting and necessary, and where the program needs to head.

Our meeting evolved in to a discussion of the differences between Italian and American mentalities, the purpose of our show here and discussions of the profound effects this place has had on us so far. It was a lovely talk that extended past lunch, and gave me the idea to do a ‘blog entry upon my return on The Complete Idiot’s Guide to What Not to do When Visiting Italy. I’m certainly qualified to write such a guide.

I spent the siesta happily exercising (my pelvic floor dysfunction has become mercifully manageable through stretching and, probably, wine with every meal) and bounding about the yard working on my handstand and toward an aerial (just one, God, that’s all I ask [and a non-broken neck in the process]) before we loped up to Orvieto. And finally, finally, I posted to the Aviary. I mean: DAMN. It seemed as though it just wasn’t meant to be until we were about to leave. I swung by StatCounter to see how my absence had affected readership, to discover it had dwindled to about four hits per day, except ever-fruitful Wednesday, which kept some buoyancy around twenty hits. What is it about hump day that makes everyone read ‘blogs? Is it the height of working-day boredom, perhaps?

After Orvieto we sped off to Sant Angelo to see if either David’s friend Mauro or a feste (the event, not the Shakespearean character) were about. Neither were, so we continued on to Bolsena to have dinner on the lake and walk the site of last year’s busking victory. As we strolled up to the fountain where we had performed the Valentino excerpt last year (through a bustling gardening market with live blues music [Todd, you would have had to guest perform.]) we found it looked as though it had been brushed up a bit, possibly painted and repaired. People strolled about admiring orchids and petunias, but I stood imagining dancing with Italian children to Todd’s incomparable rendition of “At Last.”