Point & Counterpoint

Yesterday I worked at el day jobo, taught the second half of

my workshop at CCNY

, attended an acupuncture appointment, made leftovers into dinner when I got home and watched the movie

Bolt

before climbing into bed. The only part of that which was unplanned was the movie, but we'd gotten it through Netflix some time ago and some priorities get shuffled aside when one wants new things through one's Netflix queue. By that time, at any rate, I rather felt that I had earned 90 minutes of recreation. Paid for it on the tail end, of course (or would that be the head end?) when I snoozed through my overly optimistic 6:00 AM workout alarm this morn'.

I've written about how busy I've been lately, so yesterday didn't particularly stick out for me until I considered it today. At the day job, my energy is very focused on getting things done and put away, streamlining and being efficient. The class I taught was fairly chaotic; there was a lot to cover, and it was mostly about cultivating an energy of play and exploration as we raced along. Then, at acupuncture, I continued my work on letting go.

LET GO ALREADY.

It's funny to think of it that way, but somewhere between my tendency to be utterly tense and power through challenges and my inclination to completely veg out in front of the tube a la bewbs is an alert relaxation that I'm trying to cultivate for acupuncture.

Every time I try to teach building a physical character to actors, I include a little gem from my first acting teacher in college, Gary Hopper. It's called "active neutral," and it serves as a kind of clean slate from which to kick into a character. The idea is that simply moving from your daily self directly into a character might permit personal idiosyncrasies to carry over, especially when you're in the delicate process of beginning to develop said character. In addition, when playing many characters,

active neutral

helps keep the choices distinct backstage (assuming you have time enough between changes to enact it for a moment). An

active neutral

state is one in which the body is set to basic, balanced and erect, face blank, but the readiness to perform, to act, is cultivated and kept at the ready inside. I can be a bit of a phallus (What? It's Latin!) when it comes to enforcing this state in class -- if I see students picking at their clothes, or zoning slightly, I'll test them all and make sure they're snapping to it. Clap! Active neutral! Clap! Relax. Clap! Active neutral!

Today it occurs to me that I'm trying to make them switch roles as quickly and completely as I often have to in my daily life. Projecting? Perhaps. But I also consider it good training for future professional actors.

Move Me

So begins that much-esteemed classic of hip-hop, the Beastie Boys' "Flute Loop," off of, of course, their momentous album

Ill Communication

. It's permanently lodged in my memory, as are many other things that happened to me between high school and college, simply by merit of having been introduced to me at such a sponge-like moment of my life. There's another spoken bit off that album that has rent control in my brain, which begins "...if I'd known it was going to be this kind of party...", but that one doesn't segue nicely into what I'm writing about today. (Lucky you.)

I have

a few workshops

coming up teaching commedia dell'arte to movement students. Not dancers (thank goodness) but actors and other generally untrained movers. It's an interesting opportunity, both for the ways in which I'll need to adapt curriculum to suit it, and in the ways that the dynamic will be different when I'm teaching solo. I haven't done this in awhile. My usual teaching partner, Friend Heather, is tied up in performing

Brilliant Traces

in Scranton, and frankly I didn't feel a need to call on anyone else to fill the gap, like Friends

Patrick

or

Todd

. I'm excited for the opportunity to teach by myself, and by what I'll learn from it. Fortunately for me, I'll be teaching college-level students, so they should be relatively attentive. More energy will go into the teaching than the wrangling.

I really resented my movement classes in college. They were mandatory and, in spite of my agreement with the idea that actors need formal movement training, I mentally fought this (I was way too obedient then to actually do anything about it). Part of what made them so infuriating was that they were taught solely by dance instructors. I would take advantage of that now, but at the time it seemed negligent of the skills we truly needed. Out of about four, I only remember one teacher who seemed to actually understand what might be useful to the young actor. When I occasionally reunite with my fellow performance majors, we still make inside jokes about carving our way through an enormous, imaginary watermelon. Watch out for the seeds!

What's suddenly quite strange for me to consider is just how pivotal (har har) movement became in my work, and how significant a factor it is in my work history. I mean, highly physical theatre is what I do. It's like my calling card. Strange then that I began with such a resistance to the work. Perhaps it was the teachers, or just my obstinate teenage mentality, but it all started to turn for me toward the end of my sophomore year at

VCU

. That was when I was reaching the end of my mandatory movement classes, my emotions reminiscent then of reaching the end of mandatory Phys. Ed. in high school. It was also when I was trying to figure out just why theatre was important to me, and when I auditioned for my school's production of

The Three Musketeers

. In that audition they tested our ability to learn fencing and used various scenes from the play to evaluate players for the callbacks. In one such scene, I played d'Artagnon stepping up to his first challenge of a duel by immediately tripping and pratfalling directly onto his face. It was a move I wouldn't even contemplate now, but old hat at the time, hearkening back to my elementary-school antics, and I'm fairly sure it's what got me the part.

Three Musketeers

had a lot of influence over my self-perception in that it got me a lot more comfortable with the idea of myself as a mover, and since then, well -- it's all been downhill pratfalls. I made broad physical characteristics for differentiating a couple of summerstock characters, latched onto the Suzuki training at my next summer gig, got involved with the circus crowd in New York and finally became a founding member of a contemporary commedia dell'arte troupe. Now there's no question in my mind either about my ability to use physical choices to fill out a character, nor about the importance of that work to theatre. Theatre is the only place where an actor has that much influence and exposure to use his or her entire person to tell a story. It's exciting, really. Movement is ever-changing ideas made concrete, tangible and visceral. What's not to love?

Now that I'm the one teaching various ways of using one's body to perform, I just hope to bring that sense of permission and ability to any student with whom I cross paths. For years and years in my youth I loved slapstick and admired action movies, but assumed that because I wasn't good in P.E. that such enthusiasms were at best fantasy, at worst envy. Now I know that everyone has a physical performer in them. It's as natural as being alive, and as emotionally affecting as any word or song. Move me!

Act, then Write. Or, the Reverse.

I'm attending another open call today, this one for

The Folger

. If I and my esteemed readers have learned anything about auditioning this month past, it is that it doesn't really matter in a direct sense. Certainly, people have joined casts by finding their way through the open-call process, but it's such an unpredictable blend of circumstances that it would make a statistician wince. No, the way to get work is to know, and thereby work with, lotsa folks. Open calls are a part of that, of being seen and staying on the ol' radar, but not direct lines to the President, as it were. Still and all, every so often one comes up that provokes some dreaming. And, as I've also iterated numerously at the Aviary, dreaming's an important part of the process.

The Folger is one of those D.C. theatres that I grew up visiting. Between that,

Arena Stage

and

The Little Theatre of Alexandria

is the space in which I was formed into a young acting enthusiast. I've actually performed there before. They hold an annual festival of short, high school Shakespeare productions, and I was a part of one

Winter's Tale

that graced their Elizabethan stage. As I'm sure you can imagine, at age fifteen it was quite a thrill. And, lest you be duped by my omissions: It would be quite a thrill today, tomorrow, and when I'm eighty, too. As something of a topper, they're doing two favorites next season --

Much Ado About Nothing

and

Hamlet

. My favorite comedy, and my favorite tragedy (though in recent years,

King Lear

has been giving the Dane a run for his money in the racetrack of my preference). So, I dream. I'll pop in midday and lay out my Romeo for them-what-make-the-tough-choices, and I'll do my best to enjoy the rush.

In the meantime, I'm plenty busy.

T.S. Eliot wrote

that April is the cruelest month, and I've often wondered how much his opinion had to do with taxes. In addition, work gallops apace, unrelenting in its demands on me as the new office-manager/HR-coordinator/assistant. Finally, I'm traveling for the next two weekends, to such far-off and fanciful locales as Pennsylvania and Virginia. Yet, yesterday, as I was writing Friends Mark and

Davey

to break the bad news of feeling unable to contribute much to a new writing project . . . I got an idea, and wrote a story for it. Because, dang it, nothing is more motivating than being told, "No."

I love that the universe keeps throwing writing ideas -- nay, entire fictitious worlds! -- my way. Thanks, universe (read: friends).

* * *

Well. That happened. It was fine, apart from some nit-picking on my own part. The start went better than the end, and I thought I'd at least get a chuckle. Alas, no, but I can hardly blame the casting assistant. I lost a little breath control toward the end (it

is

an awfully long line to carry through) owing to, I think, nervousness and not enough abdominal stretching, but overall I feel pretty good, and it's always nice to know one's resume and headshot may now be occupying space in someone else's files. I don't believe they were casting, however. Maybe a few roles, but I doubt it. Couldn't say exactly why, really. Only the casting assistant was there, and something about her "thank you" -- just a feeling. Of course, as we've already learned, Dear Reader,

my "feelings" rather suck

.

Lately I've been fantasizing quite a bit about what it might be like to be a professional writer. Fortunately, I just read a book on

Neil Gaiman

that disabused me of some more fanciful notions. It is hard work indeed, becoming a paid writer, and then even harder work still to stay one. Heck: The high degree of fame and accomplishment that Gaiman has accomplished only makes his life more chaotically busy. The only advantage over acting I see is that most of the rejection that happens is written rather than spoken (and seemingly it actually gets done, instead of letting one drop off the face of the earth, tied to one's own sense of expectation). It would even seem that writers need to do as much networking as actors. Who could have imagined that an acting career would be so much like so many others?

I

should have, for one. Art imitates life imitates art, etc.

Still, it is a nice fantasy, this idea of doing work that I want to, when I want to, and receiving compliments and praises left, right and center. Plus, I could sit at a nice desk (you can justify the expense and cost of a "nice desk" when it supports your primary income) and drink tea and dream about more fantasies, and more teas, expensive teas, teas that defy you to resist their calming, meditative influence! Dear God! It would be beautiful! There would be affectionately attended potted plants during the day, not the neglected, lonely aloe I have now! At night, candles with subtle musky scents, that I could monitor regularly enough to make them of actual FLAME, and not a flickering LED! I would read and write and read and write and write some more!

And man, oh man, but I'd miss acting. *sigh* Anyway, it appears that fantasy is based largely on soothing things, and if I've learned anything at all in my life to date, it's that soothing things don't generally pay the bills.

Hugh McLeod

is of the opinion that staying busy with the business of living actually aids one's creativity. Maybe I should teach yoga.

There'd be mats, and Vinyasas, and chanting, and . . . !

Dead on my Feet

Last night I participated in

a developmental reading

of

Steve Deighan

's work-in-progress,

The Last Stand

, which was held at his gorgeous apartment on the Upper West Side. I won't say too much about the play itself here, as it's none of my business to go about spilling other writer's ideas. I mean, steal all of mine you want, but Steve's are off limits. I will say that it's a very funny script that takes some familiar stage tropes and turns them lovingly on their collective ears.

The people of this little reading were great; just great.

Daryl Boling

directed the night and read stage directions (gleefully intoning them with a '40s radio personality's spin), and my fellow actors for the eve were

Hank Davies

, Carolyn Gordon (Carolyn, if there's somewhere I can link for you, please let me know),

Ryan Michael Jones

and

Laura Schwenninger

(Laura: McFadden: WHAT?! I just spent five minutes of my life Google-searching "Schwenninger"! How do you expect to

receive anonymous feedback from casting directors

like this?). It was largely a reunion. I have worked with Steve, Daryl and Laura on several occasions, and Hank on one. Mike was in Daryl's admirable production of

All the Rage

, with Steve and Laura, and I believe Carolyn had worked with folks too, though I never got the skinny on that. In other words, all who weren't already friends made strides toward it through the course of the work and discussion.

It was only a few hours, but it was a few hours I very much needed. Just a little contact with theatre work, when I feel somehow deprived of it, can go a long way, and even longer when it's with a group that I enjoy and trust. It was a late night for yours truly. (As an interesting [to me] side note, I don't think I've ever had so much attention paid to my Facebook status as when I wrote this morning that I was too tired for push-ups.) I didn't crawl into bed until midnight, and that's at least two hours past any usefulness from this little bear.

Sometimes, though, more than sleep, one needs the company of a few friends and a play.

Running Up the Bill

I've spoken with a few people about the curious case of the open call last week (see

3/12/09

) and continue to feel the way I felt about it at first blush. And believe you me: I did blush.

This morning I awoke later, though still ahead of my alarm, and unhurriedly got myself bundled to stand in line for a time slot in an open call again. This time the call was at The Public, for their summer production of

Twelfth Night

. There is very little reason to believe that I will be cast from an open call for such a thing and, besides that, I have committed to other adventures this summer that would interfere something fierce. The agency with which I freelance claims to be looking into the barest possibility of maybe potentially setting up a scheduled audition for the exact same show, perhaps. So why attend at all? Well, that's exactly the sort of question one asks oneself whilst waiting outside for one's fingers and/or toes to drop off. Add to that the fact that I was potentially losing precious paid hours at el day jobo, and it seems downright foolhardy to stand around for a couple of hours with March's lions raging about you. But

Running Girl

(where-so-ever she may now be) had an interesting effect on me. In addition to putting open calls into a more sensible perspective, she got me wondering how much I still have to learn.

Intellectual curiosity is a wonderful gift.

I've had every intention of continuing to audition, open call or no, beyond my experience with Shakespeare on the Sound. Somehow, though, embarrassing as it was, receiving a specific response to my experience of auditioning that day made the whole effort seem far more rational, more attainable to me. More human, to put a finer point on it. I had proof that auditions were not just about a monologue, however uneventful they may seem, but a dialogue. It was a weird experience to hear back from someone I mercilessly critiqued -- reminiscent of reading my own reviews for productions, especially when they're written by total strangers. I suppose casting directors don't often hear such direct critique one way or another, and it's probably owing at least in part to Running Girl's acting background that she could have such a grounded response to my ignorant assessment of her state of being. Of course I was embarrassed. I was also inspired. So, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, Running Girl -- and also: Thanks.

More after the audition . . .

* * *

Now was that so bad? (Answer: No, it wasn't.) I've figured out very specifically what my misconception about auditions is. While I know it not to be true from my intellectual side, my emotional side still insists on every instance of minute-and-a-half audition time being my chance to change things for myself. This is a common ailment amongst those who want something so bad they can just taste it. It is a little less common to have made as little progress as I in abandoning this fantasy by my age, but I'll not dwell on that. I've always been a bit of a slow learner when it comes to certain bits of common sense. I live day by day, but I thrive on my dreams, and it can be a simple matter to dwell in one's thriving.

I just made registration for the audition slot, speeding from work at the last possible minute and getting directly on the 6 for Astor Place. The Public was a'sprawl with young actors, and a few older ones, and the proctor was glad to see I made it in time. It wasn't too long before we lined up outside the rehearsal studio, and I was third in line. It was another popular call, and another in which they were fitting in as many people as they possibly could. They had so many alternates, though, that they were turning away non-Equity performers just as I headed inside. Within there was just one of the three casting associates from the billing, but with an assistant. I did the same monologue, and tried to enjoy it. I think I was lacking in my "living in the moment," but that may be my own comparison to dozens of other times doing the balcony monologue. Either way, I was thanked and I left with very little response from the pair one way or another, and I felt . . . like I accomplished something significant. Small, but significant.

Then again, you need a little dreaming, even if you just aim to live. When I auditioned for

Spider-Man

(see

7/28/08

) I had NO hope of getting the part, and I had a fairly terrible audition, but just acting on the dream was fuel for some good work thereafter. I can't say for certain where we find the right balance between the dream and the life, but I can say that I'm pretty happy with what progress I've made thus far toward finding the one in the other. And for that, I actually owe thanks to everyone who has participated in the dialogue.

Thanks, everyone. Luck 'o the Irish to you in your thriving.