Todd Theatre | UR International Theatre Program

Pinning down excitement

2012-01-28T18:44:00.003-05:00

I try to feel andknow unfamiliarity thoroughly. There are quite a few people around the tablewho I don’t know. I’m happy to not know them. I’m happy to not know why Mr.Zero goes to the Elysian Fields. My intestines are a-flutter, the actor acrossfrom me has a few hours ago purchased a copy of the show script, the cover is starkwhite, coat gloss. I look at it closely because soon the gloss coat will dullwith layer upon layer of fingerprints, the spine will crease, pages will bepenciled and highlighted. I delight in my current state of unknowingness—it istemporary. In the next moments, and throughout the semester-long rehearsalprocess, I will come to know the people, I will formulate ideas about the show.However, in this moment, I am not yet there. I do not yet think the thoughts Iwill think, I do not know precisely what these thoughts will be, but I knowthey will occur. From this, my excitement sparks.

I did a “close reading” of Adding Machine: A Musical, alongside themusical score a week before the start of rehearsals. I greatly enjoyed it, Ithought I “got it,” or at least broadly understood how the show functioned on athematic level. However, a comment made by our director, Nigel Maister, at ourfirst rehearsal jolted me back into unknowingness and spoke to the richness andcomplexity of the text. He said he thought he ‘got’ the first half of the showfor a while, but only quite recently has come to an understanding of the secondhalf: he didn’t “get” why Mr. Zero goes to the Elysian Fields. I realized thenthat if Nigel, after the length and nature of the contact he has had with theshow didn’t “get it” until recently, that I certainly couldn’t “get it” after acouple of readings.

To offer a bit of context: Adding Machine: A Musical was adaptedand composed by Jason Loewith and Joshua Schmidt from Elmer Rice’s 1923 play, The Adding Machine. The play follows thebigot, racist, misogynist anti-hero Mr. Zero, who works a dead-end job countingfigures in a department store. On the 25^th year anniversary of hisemployment, Zero expects a promotion. Instead, his boss informs him that he isobsolete, that an adding machine can perform his functions in half the time andwill replace him, offering highfalutin business-speak on efficiency and “theengine of economics.” Zero kills the Boss. He eagerly admits to the crime, isprosecuted, and soon executed. In the second half of the play, we see Zero inan afterlife, in “The Elysian Fields,” which, like the Greek conception, is aplace of “laughing, singing, drinking [and] dancing.” However, things are notpleasant. Stirring underneath the story are voices of mechanization that echoand assert Zero’s bigoted, number-crippled mind in chillingly dissonant chorus.

I thought “I got” the ‘mechanization’stuff. Like the introduction of the adding machine in Zero's workplace, today’s“advancing” technology, machines have subtracted human touch and physicalityfrom communication, music and literature. The content of soft pages, longletters and delicate vinyl records can now be contained in untouchable pixels,electrical impulses and fragments. So, what’s lost? I think, at the least,time, focus and attention. One no longer must take care to not drop,fingerprint or scratch a record. Rather than needing to listen attentively andbe nearby the phonograph to flip a record, one can play mp3s for hours to anempty room. We are able to “keep in touch” with each other effortlessly throughthe instant exchange of fragments, rather than extended reflection.

This is not all. I’m still unfamiliar.There is much more going on, there will be much more to think about in the nextfew weeks, much more “to get.”

Colonel Bird Week 6: Same Asylum, Different Lunatics

2011-11-30T01:46:00.001-05:00

As we roll into our final dress rehearsal and preparefor opening night, things are going unbelievably smooth. Which, of course, isnot making anyone even slightly less anxious about Thursday's premiere. Moreimportantly, in my opinion at least, we've finally reached a point in ourrelationship with this production where it's actually not only appropriate, butnecessary, for us to share it. In some cases it's taken the entire six weeks ofrehearsal for us to get to exactly where we want to be in just one moment ofthe play, which can be scary – but it also opens up new possibilities toexplore that aspect during performances, rather than becoming too accustomed toit by ourselves.

"Some of these birds are a bit constipated at the moment. We're working on that." - Chris

Watching dress rehearsals with all the orchestrationadded by Tech has really made me appreciate the aspect of heartbreak in the story,something Chris has talked about several times but which for me has often been overshadowed by the play's satire. The play's historical setting,namely the Bosnian War, along with the connection between Bulgaria after thewar and South Africa after apartheid, was simply contextual background beforenow. After hearing some of the chosen South African cultural cues included inthe production, however, the point has really been driven home. In the words ofBoytchev, "Fate will always find a way to divide people." It's a problem asprevalent today as it was during the Russian oppression of Bulgaria or theNational Party's political regime in South Africa; and as relevant to anAmerican audience as it would be to a universal audience.

Chris mentioned that South Africa was lucky to haveNelson Mandela to act as their Colonel Bird during a dangerous point in thecountry's history, and to lead its inhabitants out of that time into a new era.I'm tempted to equate this production to South Africa and Chris to our ColonelBird, but for the heartbreak of the story, which is in the isolation anduncertainty that follows the mental patients in their journey out of theasylum. The attempt to blend the lines between audience and actors, to createthe feeling of being inside the asylum, is an attempt to bring you into thatuncertainty for yourself. We want you to question where the Line is; we wantyou to ask society whose Rules it plays by; we want you to want to stop theColonel before she, in a manic military frenzy, leads you off a cliff.Regardless of what we want, though, it's what you want that will determine whatyou get out of it; but fortunately, TheColonel Bird is somehow a political, mental, and societal message all in one.I’ll leave you with a quote from Mandela himself.

"There is no passion tobe found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the oneyou are capable of living."

He also once said, "You know you are really famous the day that you discover you have become a comic character." But that's a different production.

Colonel Bird Week 5: The New Enemy Is Time

2011-11-21T14:41:00.001-05:00

Two-thirdsthrough Tech and we have already done our first stumble-through. (It’s a Toddmiracle!) Now we are left with the daunting task of integrating the previousfive weeks of hard work with three days of intense tech-ing to somehow create aunified, consistent and yet intriguing whole. Luckily, the nature of this playis such that the schizophrenia of the writing, of the characters and even ofthe supposedly “sane” society outside the asylum allow for a similar contrastin other, technical aspects of our production. One of the challenges isavoiding the temptation to represent the asylum and its habitants as literallyas possible. As Chris has pointed out, “You Americans are obsessed withrealism!” Boytchev’s writing is abundant in its metaphors, not only in theattempt to invoke some kind of sociopolitical commentary, but also in theartistic sense; our task is to create the equivalent of those metaphors incostumes, lights and sound. Whether it is a musical motif to represent thebirds (no one would dream of asking Props for live pigeons… for variousreasons) or a single, focused light to show isolation, there are definitelyways to emphasize the story’s themes through technical additions.

Personally,though, I am just obsessed with our designers. Tech is their time to shine, butthey get to do so only under extremely stressful, tight time constraints. Thefact that we’re already doing our first runs after Tech just speaks to theirpreparation and efficiency. And that’s completely apart from the work thatthey’ve done, which can be incredibly difficult, since it’s their job to worktogether to create the vision we’ve been working with for the past month.

Thewords “ahead of schedule,” though, don’t really ever apply in theater, becausethere’s always more that can be done. Which is why we’re still using whatlittle time we have left to get actors used to their costumes, allow stage managementto rehearse their new cues, fix the last few details on the set, and somehowstill keep everyone’s energy high enough to use these tech rehearsals as actingrehearsals as well. It really raises the stakes of these last two weeks,because we also have to deal with taking five days off for Thanksgiving break. Which, to be honest, no one is complaining about.

2011-11-18T16:33:00.001-05:00

David Tan's The Colonel Bird trailer

Colonel Bird Week 4: The Rules of the Game

2011-11-13T12:35:00.001-05:00

Unbelievably, four weeks have gone by and we are all still unscathed, at least mentally and emotionally (I won't go so far as to vouch for the safety or stability of those bed springs). I have to admit I'm surprised, and I think most of it has to do with Chris's dedication to finding enjoyment in the process, or "falling in love with the story," as he likes to say. It's a strange concept at first, because the play is filled with such extremes: the cruelty of hope against despair, the humor and satire of Boytchev's political analogies, and the heartbreaking truth of the situation. Juxtaposing all of these gives the piece a unique texture, and one that is difficult to play for an audience that has already made up its mind about the way society deals with the insane.

Ourjob is not necessarily to change that perception, but just to portray theopposing side of the game. The Game is everywhere in this production – in thetext, in the physical challenge of the set, and most of all in our attempt tostay one step ahead of the audience's imaginations. This is a nearly impossiblefeat even for a play as strange as ours, and we've gone to some ratherunorthodox measures to get there. This week I was somehow roped into helpingcompose a 25-second "orchestration" of the show, finding the expression of the progression of the story through vocal instrumentation. I've also watched actorsgo head-to-head with stage managers in an attempt to realize the strugglebehind a speech. Now you understand why I'm surprised we're still unhurt…

Stella tackles Billy. "WELLINGTON, YOU'RE NEXT!"

Inall honesty, though, these exercises help, and not just in keeping us laughingin the midst of a dark storyline. Chris and Liz have both also been workingwith the actors on their rhythms, which has included comparisons ranging fromthe art of comedy ("Set up. Move. Hold. PUNCH LINE!") to classical music ("Thisline isn't Bach anymore. Not bum bum bum BUUUUUUM. This is Mozart. Baba BUM ba da bum"). Basically, he really likes orchestrating things.

Nextweek we roll into the dark cave that is Tech, so these are some of our lastrehearsals to really get the gritty details down. We're busy adding last minuteblocking moves, tracking down the right props, and losing our minds. So I guessthat means it's going well.

Colonel Bird Week 3: Find the Line

2011-11-06T11:28:00.002-05:00

Post-Designer's Run week. Now that we've seen the big picture, it's time to move the focus to the details. These past few days we've been through almost every line of text, interpreting motivations, intentions, inflections and reactions. Nothing in this story is stop-and-go; everything dissolves into the next beat, action or scene, taking the idea of "flow" to an entirely new level.

It's an exercise in "growing" with the story, as Chris has told us. The story is a little bit like a child - as time goes on, it gets bigger and bigger, and we need to keep it full and active in order for it to stay alive. We feed the story with energy, and we keep it active with the stakes, which get higher and higher as the story grows. If that's a little too abstract for you, I understand - being a physics major, I sometimes like to think of it in more concrete terms as well. Like plots. Intensity versus time? Definitely an exponentially increasing relationship. The story over time: nearly linear. (If you really want to get into it, the energy needed to fill it would be the integral of, or the area under, the story. Ok, I'm done.)

Thisis actually a better nerdy joke than you realize, because our story, the childwe're raising, is the Line itself. And the time we spend filling the story withenergy is time spent developing that Line. Physically, it's a bit of achallenge to keep up a character's energy when standing in the military line;fortunately, our characters are not all military-trained, fully experiencedsoldiers, and so we can find ways for them to move around and react to oneanother. Mentally, it's more complicated, because the Line is always there,even when there is no physical line. In the words of Boytchev, "the line withinus supports us all" – but finding that line, that specific place where each oneof us crosses from sanity to insanity, is hard for even the most normal people.

Sofor six mental patients led by a schizophrenic Colonel, it's significantly moredifficult, as you can probably imagine.

Colonel Bird Week 2: Uncharted Territory

2011-10-30T22:17:00.003-04:00

This week saw us move through a multitude of rehearsal spaces. (Welcome to Todd Theatre, where three is a multitude!) But for a show with a set as integrally important as ours, the changes have required a lot of flexibility from everyone involved. Especially during the crucial period of first blocking the script, knowing the space you are working in has a huge effect on the outcome. Fortunately, many of us know Todd well, and have been able to use that knowledge during rehearsals at Drama House and St. Agnes to imagine the real theater that we'll be performing in. Theater is all about imagination, after all. (Just keep telling yourself that as you're stuck rehearsing in the corridor leading to the Todd office.)

Nowthat we are back home, however, things are picking up as we fit our previouswork into the new (and more spacious) space. In preparation for Designer's Runon Tuesday, we've "done the traffic" of the entire play and only just begunwork on a more intensive interpretation of each character's individual journeythrough their mental, emotional and physical landscape. As we move on this weekafter the run, we'll be doing a lot of one-on-one work to figure out whatexactly that journey is for each person.

"I'm helping Lydia feel tall and powerful for a speech, and I think it's working." - Billy

Iwill say, though, that moving rehearsals around definitely teaches you a thingor two. I have seen Chris imitate a sound wave twice now in an attempt to teachactors the acoustics of different spaces. (Trust me, it's funnier than itsounds.) You also learn what you take for granted in a normal rehearsal. Suchas stage management. Or spike tape. Or being within a walk-able distance fromcampus. Oh, and chairs.

Colonel Bird Week 1: Boot Camp

2011-10-22T13:56:00.002-04:00

This winter, Todd is tapping into its militant side with Bulgarian playwright Hristo Boytchev's fascinating and introspective masterpiece, The Colonel Bird. Partly existential, partly comedic, and a good part of it insane, it has so far driven us through an intense first week of rehearsals. And when I say "intense" I don’t necessarily mean the action (blocking can be tedious...) but rather the content of the play itself, which reveals more and more the closer we study it. Focused on a group of abandoned patients in an insane asylum in the Balkan Mountains during the Bosnian War, the play begs its reader to question the traditional idea of "sanity" by providing those patients with a leader, the long-comatose, now awake Colonel. As their physical isolation parallels their mental states, their plan to escape suggests a similar journey of the mind, but does not make itself too explicit to the reader. We have been through the first few scenes many times, and spent a lot of time discussing the relationships between patients, since this is extremely relevant to overcoming that isolation.

That's not to say, however, that we haven't had our fair share of action thus far. We're constantly getting the chance to experiment with the different obsessions of various characters in the asylum. Davud is running around threatening castration! Nina is a seagull! Matei is under the bed... again... and of course the Doctor is busy shooting up. This weekend in particular, there has been a lot of doing drill, which has provided more than its share of amusement. (Why didn’t we cast any ROTC kids again? Oh. Right.) Props to our actors, though, for keeping on their toes throughout it all, and not even losing the momentum they've gained this week while exploring their characters.

We're probably having more fun with it than we should, mostly due to our zany and lovable director Christopher Weare. His professional experience is more than apparent from the way he has brought the slightly-schizophrenic text together in a single vision, but even more important is the trust he puts in the actors, allowing them to use their own creativity (and slowly evolving Eastern European accents) to develop their parts. It makes the process more fun for them, and more interesting for us, because we see something they legitimately believe in. At the same time, he has a definite agenda for what he wants the audience to see, or in some cases, not see.

But really, Chris, I think the push-ups were unnecessary.

A Foley Grail Indeed

2011-09-29T19:17:00.005-04:00

Well, we've made it through the Designer’s Run and we’ve been raked up one side and down the other. Yes, it’s just what you’re thinking – we’re rehearsing on our newly raked stage! Very exciting indeed. So far there have been no tumbles, and no dramatic falls. A few slips and slides up and down the stage and several pairs of heels have been up in the air, but those have primarily been due to the’ rising sap’ in some of the characters and their inability to control their emotions when the opposite sex is in the room. C’est la vie.

Another fun addition to rehearsals lately has been the new and improved Foley table. The art of Foley will add a special exposure to the inner workings of farce. You as the audience will be able to see how every exaggerated sound is created via the many mechanisms and gizmos our Foley artists will be using throughout the production.

Leah Barish puts her Foley skills to the test in the video below.

In addition to the Foley table, we have the added bonus of this lovely drum set to provide us with another alternative means of everyday sounds…well, at least every day in the world of farce.

Georges Feydeau: More Than Just a Source for Great French Farce?

2011-09-19T15:25:00.006-04:00

Welcome to another thrilling season at Todd Theater! Yes it’s that time again you crazed fans you. There have been many sleepless nights, spastic personalities are engaging in shouting matches and gallons of coffee are being ingested by the hour. That’s right! Rehearsals have begun and we couldn’t be more excited. To start things off, Nigel Maister will be directing a show called An Absolute Turkey written by Georges Feydeau. It’s a French farce that is being masterfully restructured to keep you on the edge of your seat, tears streaming down your face and chronic pains in your stomach due to the immense amount of laughter that will sure to be erupting from you every 30 seconds.

I’ll be your trusty AD keeping you updated on all the happenings of the rehearsal process and so far, I have loads to tell you.

First off, hello! My name is Melissa Martin. Other titles include the following: coffee fetcher extraordinaire, dishwasher, maintainer of mental and physical health, and supporter of creative endeavors. It’s absolutely been a beautiful mixture of Home Ec and hands on education so far and I couldn’t be happier.

If you happen to pass by our lovely abode of Todd union, the sweet sound of heavy Swiss accents may fall upon your ear. Cheating, feuding couples will be running 10 yard splits to and fro, obviously just for sport, and you’ll be begging for more.

We’re in a mad rush right now to finish blocking this beauty before the designer’s run on Monday when the designers come so they can see how the show is shaping up and what not.

However, nothing gets in the way of the quality of this show, not even Designer’s Run.

This particular production of Feydeau’s farce will be quite different from any previous creation. Our director said himself that ‘Feydeau is spinning so fast in his grave, they’ve disconnected the wind turbines in France and Feydeau is keeping them running ‘… so to speak. This is referring rather to the nervous excitement of taking a piece like An Absolute Turkey that’s been done time and time again, and never with many differences, and completely re-interpreting it. The farce will be completely exposed, showing every cog in the well-oiled machine that makes up any great farce. So, while I’m not completely on board with the idea that Feydeau is our newfound untapped source of energy for the world at large, I would have to agree he’d have something to say about this new spin on his work.

But for now, it’ll be the designers telling us what they think.

Here we go!

Masks, Movement, and Mayhem

2011-04-06T19:42:00.002-04:00

We are coming down to the wire of our Winter's Tale experience. On Friday, we are supposed to have all of the acting figured out and hand everything over to the tech team. So... the theme of the week seems to be creativity under pressure. Yesterday we completely re-blocked a scene and added in a new video sequence, and today when I walked into the theater, I almost ran into three of the actors doing a scene silently in the lobby while wearing masks. Now I am watching senior Andrew Polec lick sophomore Spencer Klubben's arm.

The more we rehearse, the more I realize how difficult this play is. There are so many threads in the story line to keep track of, so many characters with moments in the sun. There are still lines and exchanges that I am just beginning to understand for the first time this week, and I wonder if it is because I have now heard them so many times that they are only just setting in, or if it is that the actors are bringing a new clarity to their lines? I am inclined to believe the latter of the two.

We have almost all of our set pieces now. Designers are congregating. We have hot stage lights and heavy music. In short: opening night is almost tangible.

But first... Tech.

"I wrote them on my penis"*

2011-03-17T19:01:00.005-04:00

When I stepped outside this morning, saw the blue sky, and had to remove my jacket after I started sweating, I felt the last of my winter blues melt off. I'm not naive. I know it will snow again before the end of the semester. But I still felt energized in the face of the post spring break work load. Now, with natural light gracing our evening rehearsals for the first time since the production began, I cannot help but be reminded of the very sudden change from winter to summer, tragedy to comedy in The Winter's Tale.

The spring semester at Rochester seems to me more like two. There is the winter term, full of students burdened by heavy black coats and vitamin D deficiencies. Then there is the spring term, full of bright colors and bare legs.

Today campus is full of frisbee-playing, green-clad carousers, and the air is exploding with months worth of pent up sexual energy. If you were to add some sheep into the mix, you would have Act 4 Scene 4 of the play.

I do not mean to demean Shakespeare by comparing his depiction of an ancient, pastoral tradition to a frenzy of college students looking to bang. But this campus undoubtedly experiences its own kind of re-awakening, a concept explored extensively in The Winter's Tale. What's more, it takes skill to write about a very specific ritual in such a way that it will still seem applicable to young people 400 years later. I guess that's something Shakespeare had a little of.

*Nigel Maister said this while I was writing this post. Clearly, it has nothing to do with the content.

The Winter's Tale Romance

2011-02-17T22:54:00.000-05:00

Will they understand what I mean when I speak? Will they laugh at my jokes? Will they want to see me again? Will they ever love me? Am I about to vomit?

These are all insecurities you might expect to feel on February 14^th. Perhaps they occur to you as you gaze across a candlelit table at your sexy date or just before you deliver flowers to your previously hidden crush. Or... if you have devoted your semester to Todd Theatre and The Winter’s Tale, these questions may arise as you stare out at the first audience to view your prepubescent production.

I cannot speak definitively for anyone else in the cast, but when I saw our risers filling up for our designer’s run Monday night, I certainly felt like curling up in a corner to cry. This was the first time I had ever worked on a production where the phrase, “designer’s run,” meant anything more than a few extra people at a rehearsal. I thought everyone in the cast and crew was running around like a chicken with its head chopped off merely because we had to have the whole show blocked and rehearsed in time to put up a coherent run within three weeks. (Actually, come to think of it, that’s probably enough to stress people quite a bit.) But then there is the added pressure of presenting a play to the professionals that have agreed to put their names on it. We know that they know that it is a work in progress; we know that they are there to help us bring the production to life; we know that they enter the theatre wanting to love it. We know all these things, and yet there is still that ever-present fear of rejection.

But actors are practiced in the ways of putting themselves out there, so despite a few awkward transitions, line drops, and the run lasting three hours, we didn’t scare anyone away. Maybe that description sounds a bit underwhelming, but I think all anyone wants to see at this stage of development is potential. They want to be a part of the process of putting the fragments together and turning it into a piece of art.

Of course, after being so warmly embraced, we all went straight home to write papers, study for tests, and stress eat chocolate. What a romance!

Urban Shakespeare

2011-02-05T13:53:00.001-05:00

Before rehearsing a scene for the first time, Nigel asks the actors to make sure they understand everything they are saying. With 16th Century English, especially Shakespeare’s English, this task can prove quite difficult. It is even harder to transfer the understanding the audience members, who do not have handy footnotes to translate archaic words for them.

Then there is the issue that sometimes words have adopted completely different meanings in the 400 or so years since Shakespeare wrote them down. For instance, our edition of The Winter’s Tale defines “dildos” as “a nonsense word used as a refrain in ballads”.

Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly how hip-hop artists use “dildo” in their songs today. A nonsense word that sounds cool. They most certainly wouldn’t be referring to a fake penis!

This made me wonder what has happened to other Shakespearean words over the years. Have they fallen out of usage, or are they slang terms? I consulted my friendly, neighborhood Urban Dictionary in my quest to find out. Here are some of my favorite modern definitions.

Visage: 1) a woman that suddenly appears and is so gorgeous that she's a cross between a vision and a mirage. 2) a person whose ass tends to resemble their face.

Hermione: 1) a sexy smart ass girl that kicks ass in the Harry Potter movies. 2) (verb) to correct an inaccuracy in grammar during sex.

Swooned: To get hit so hard that you lose all virginity.

Sneaping: the act of "fake" sleeping in order to convince others, then sneak away from present place.

Sooth: Rural Tamil slang meaning buttocks/ass.

Limber: sleek, flexible, or otherwise. . . .really good in bed

Smutch: 1) to soil or stain. You know what I mean. "Smutch me, you saucy jack." 2) halfway between some and much “we are having smutch fun together”

Cuckold: A man who gains sexual pleasure in the knowledge that his wife has made love or is making love to other men. Cuckolds are usually submissive, often have a small penis, suffer from premature ejaculation, 'enjoy' sexual humiliation and are rarely able to satisfy their wives.

Lo: 1) slang for Hello 2) the perfect woman. smart, nice, fun, outgoing, beautiful “damn, isn't she just a Lo”

thou: an incorrect chatspeak misspelling of the word “though” or "although"

Bosom: 1) a woman’s breast; a boob 2) a collection of brassieres, similar to a pod of whales, a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese, etc. 3) to boo a little bit, but not too much

Durst: 1) when something reaches a point where it is no longer enjoyable 2) (noun) food of any kind, but especially food that is dursty 3) (verb) to eat and a fast pace, a large amount, or something that is dursty

Dursty: most commonly used to describe extreme hunger or something that is very appealing.

Doth: 1) does, from Shakespearian English 2) the ability to turn invisible

Tinker: Penis; an mild, harmless slang term often said regarding prepubescent boys, but sometimes used concerning older males, too.

Fie: 1) an adjective describing something that is good; “That chicken is fie” 2) Less vulgar synonym for f**k; “Oh fie, I locked myself out of the house again” 3) sperm, semen, or seed

Baser: one who uses crack cocaine and other addictive drugs

Interestingly enough, most of the words I typed in did not have wacky definitions. Instead, many of them were described as Shakespearean words, used just as Shakespeare intended. And many of the words above were defined first as Early Modern English terms, and then as humorous slang words.

At first it surprised me. This is Urban Dictionary – what are almost literary definitions doing on the site? But it makes sense when I think about it a little more. Shakespearean language has permeated so much of our modern culture. Never mind high school English classes; just take a look at all the romantic comedies popping out of Hollywood that quote or parody Shakespeare. Say you were to walk up to a random person on the street and say, “Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!” I would be willing to bet that they would recognize it as a Shakespeare quote, even if they couldn’t tell you what play it came from.

To be honest, I don’t think we need to worry that when the audience hears, “make conceive a bark of baser kind” they will think we mean, “make conceive a bark of one who does crack cocaine”. They will probably assume it means something along the lines of “make conceive a bark of simpler kind”. As for confusion over the usage of “dildos”? Well, if they think we are singing about fake penises, they will only laugh harder, and that is not something we should complain about.

Exit, pursued by a bear

2011-01-29T16:01:00.013-05:00

Today in rehearsal, we finally reached one of theater’s most famous stage directions: Exit, pursued by a bear. It's short. To the point. Shakespeare is certainly not known for writing extensive stage directions: Enter. Exit. Exeunt. They fight. Tybalt falls. Exit, pursued by a bear.

But still. Odd.

I have an image in my head of Shakespeare chewing on a quill and scratching his scalp, arguing with himself over what to do after Antigonus ditches Perdita on the beach of Bohemia.

SHAKESPEARE: Awwww, screw it. He’s gonna get eaten by a bear.
SELF-EDITOR: Are you sure you want to do that? Does it have any kind of significance?
SHAKESPEARE: Sure. I need to knock off Antigonus.
SELF-EDITOR: So you’re lazy.
SHAKESPEARE: I’ll just tell people the bear symbolizes the irrational rage of Leontes consuming poor Antigonus at last.
SELF-EDITOR: You think your audiences will get that much out of it?
SHAKESPEARE: Probably not, but it could also be a reference to rebirth or fertility or something, and if all else fails, everyone always enjoys a good bear mauling. It's good spectacle.

That’s great, Shakespeare, I do enjoy me a good bear-mauling. But for such a simple little stage direction, it does present a bit of a problem. As in, how the hell do we stage it?

We could borrow a bear from the Seneca Zoo and hope that it doesn’t actually eat someone...

We could use a man in a bear suit...

We could stick a fierce-looking baby in a bear suit...

We could shower the stage with vicious gummy bears...

But my favorite option would be to dress someone up like the legendary founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, John Barton...

... and have him attack people with brilliant techniques for playing Shakespeare.

I suppose the possibilities are endless. And to be completely honest, I won't be surprised if our slightly deranged director, Nigel Maister, decides to go with the live bear option. You'll have to show up to the production to see what we do, but rest assured, if we do use a real bear, you'll probably be safe sitting in the audience.

It's wintry out there

2011-01-25T12:44:00.003-05:00

Well hello there, followers of Todd Theater. I know you’ve been wondering what to do with yourselves since the lovely Emperor of the Moon closed in December. I know I personally went into hibernation so that I could wake up in January well rested and ready to work on our grizzly-bear-of-a-Shakespeare-show:

THE WINTER’S TALE

Whether you are an actor, stage manager, curious passerby, or stalker lurking in the props closet, I invite you to share the journey of the show through this blog. My name is Sarah Young, and I am the person who was crazy enough to agree to assistant direct this beast. What can I say? I’m a sucker for fetching coffee and taking line notes until soliloquies lodge themselves in my brain like pop songs. When I found out that I could fetch two or three cups of coffee a day and listen to hear hip-hop versions of Shakespearian poems... Well, can you blame me for giving in to my inner masochist?
If you are curious about the things to come in the next few months (which you are, even if you don’t know it yet), take a look at the fireplace of Todd lobby. You will find a collage of images: emo puppets, toy boats, couture sheep herders, pregnant women, fields of flowers, austere mountains, sterile gadgets, Putin and Medvedev, teddy bears, gummy bears, and mangled clowns. If you are too lazy to make the walk through the snow to see it, here’s a little electronic teaser:

The Time Has Come

2010-12-02T11:25:00.004-05:00

Everyone is ready! We have reached the end of a long and exciting rehearsal and technical journey, and stand at the beginning of what is sure to be a fabulous run of performances. For the last week in tech we have tweaked and tweaked again. Everyone has truly thrown their all into this work and as a result the show is a true delight. Prepare yourself to laugh, possibly to the point of tears. Prepare, to smile, giggle, and clap away. The cast is fantastic, they really know who they are as characters and have made this show something very unique!

What can I say about the designers of this show! I adore them. These gentlemen are some of the most joyful and talented people I have yet to meet. There is not one aspect of this show that is not simply magnificent. Together, the set, costumes, music, and lighting have created a remarkably beautiful and meaningful work. The strength of Ms. Behn's work resonates wonderfully and is tied into the shows comedy in an incredible way. I cannot wait for tonight, and I hope that you are just as excited!!

Oh What A Dear Ravishing Thing....

2010-11-16T23:34:00.002-05:00

We are headed into the homestretch and everyone is throwing their all into the work. Matthew concluded tonight's rehearsal by telling the actors how happy and proud he is of what they have created. We all watched in amazement tonight; Even without costumes, a finished set, or props, everything about tonight's run-through was honest and wonderfully enjoyable. The actors were focused and committed more then ever before and we; Matthew, Danny, the crew, and myself became completely drawn into the work. The actors took it into themselves and found a way to really share the story with us. They worked together and individually in a magnificent manner. We, the audience, laughed like never before and understood things that we had never noticed. It was a joy, and for the first time I observed entirely as an onlooker, as though I had never read the play or seen a single rehearsal.

Tonight the applause belongs to the actors entirely. I hope that they are aware of just how wonderful they were this evening, I tried to explain.....but when I am impressed my smile usually silences my words. There were times this evening that I just blurted out words or laughter or lord knows what. I clapped at times when the actors clapped in the scene and sang aloud with them, as though this show was as well known as a work on Broadway. I am confident in saying that this performance will be stupendous, the cast and the story are nothing short of phenomenal, and we haven't even begun tech. The actors have truly found the essence of the work and present it beautifully. What else is there to say? You must come be a part of this too! You shall not be disappointed but filled with an "abundance of pleasure".

He Was The Wisest Bard

2010-11-14T09:27:00.001-05:00

Last night Matthew and I ventured into Rochester to attend a performance at a local theatre company. After the performance we spoke for a while about the importance of caring about what you are doing. I remembered a time when I told my younger brother that, "it doesn't matter to anyone else, unless it matters to you." Even though I had said this, and I had meant what I said, I am not sure that I understood the idea all too well myself. But last night Matthew helped me to realize just how significant it is to really care about what you do. Although he and were both looking forward to the performance very much, and we both had the desire to connect to the work we were seeing, we were unable to because the company wasn't connected to it themselves.

I gained so much respect for passionate people last night. It was very apparent that Matthew loves what he does, and that he has a great respect for his work and the people he works with. He understands that he is one part of the whole system of theatre, and that awareness is why he is so willing to collaborate as he does. He wants me to appreciate his ideas, to laugh, and engage in conversation at rehearsal because if I can understand and appreciate his vision then he has been successful in what he aims to do. Because he respects and appreciates my opinion I am constantly making greater efforts to understand how he approaches his work. It may appear as though I have a childish awe in what is occurring with the show, but I truly am learning a lot. About dedication, and focus, and teamwork. I am very grateful for this opportunity to learn, and I hope that I can find more ways to express the experiences we encounter during rehearsal each night.

Till Nobler Nature Did To Custom Change:

2010-11-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about the show recently, and how it is coming together. I am attached to the work in a way that is very difficult to explain; I suppose the best way to relay it is simply by explaining the smile that radiates from me when I am in rehearsal. It is as though the smile has become a part of who I am. I have truly begun to adore the actors and Matthew. Everyone is committed to doing their best, and every one's role is respected and remarkably well executed.

Sure there are the nights when we are goofy, and there are times when people are tired, or coughing, or for whatever reason are not as focused as usual; but more often then not people are really absorbed in what we are creating. I have noticed that the actors go out of their way to make sure they are listening to and learning from Matthew. They clearly have a lot of respect for his vision, as he does for theirs.

I have watched certain actors begin the process with an idea of who they are, and then gradually they acquire connections to and understanding of their characters in entirely different ways. The gentlemen are nothing short of beautiful. They have grace and poise that it unexplainable. The ladies exhibit grand confidence and have begun to present themselves magnificently. But the reason they have been able to do this is because they are gradually realizing that the sexuality of their characters is fluid, and gender roles are not black and white but can be intertwined. They are all willingly recognizing these ideas and allowing them to present themselves in very natural human ways. I can not say too much more regarding this idea without giving away the greatness of our story....but what I can say is that this show is bound to be fun, meaningful, and most importantly dignified.

But The Farce, Where Is It To Be Acted?

2010-11-08T23:52:00.013-05:00

The Emperor Descends

2010-11-08T19:34:00.008-05:00

The greatest pleasure that comes from working on this production is watching Matthew engage himself in the work so entirely. It is such a joy to observe, that I find myself disappointed at times by the fact that he likes to stand behind me while giving direction. He often mirrors the actions of the actor's, and mouths their lines throughout rehearsal. The freedom of his movement allows his thoughts to flow and from them his direction and vision is created.

When Matthew explains an emotion or action that he desires one of the actors to portray he physically interprets what he is looking for. This is not an effort to get the actor to mirror what he is doing, because he likes it most when the actors discover their character's mannerisms in the moment, but occurs because he has become so much a part of the work that what he envisions manifests itself physically

Watching the work develop in this manner is magnificent. I can see that the actors take a lot from it as well, and that it plays a large part in the how the show evolves each evening.

Matthew is very capable at addressing the work and its meaning as a whole, but at the same time has mastered the ability to focus on finding what is significant in each and every moment. There are times when we will stop and work the same line over and over again until everyone clearly understands the meaning instilled in it. Vocal inflexion and active listening are two of the key techniques he is constantly asking the actors to explore. He wants every character to be present and truthful in everything they do, so that not one moment is without a defined purpose. Matthew does this so well because he understands and appreciates both the humor and the complexity of work at a level unlike any other. He very much respects the message contained in the piece and this is apparent in how he directs and discovers. He desires that people laugh and enjoy this creation, but more importantly he wants them to think. His method pushes both the actors and the audience-to-be to recognize that there is purpose and value in everything, no matter how absurd it may seem on the surface.

Here We Are

2010-11-08T18:00:00.001-05:00

Every evening at rehearsal I become more aware of the meaning that lies in the work of Aphra Behn. Initially I laughed because I found the lines amusing or clever, but in my mind each line stood independent from one another. As I am further introduce to the plot of the piece and the characters who express it, I find the work growing more meaningful and enjoyable, and I begin to discover the reality that lies behind the farce. This reality is being uncovered as Matthew and the actors work together to reveal the lessons that can be found underneath the comedy. This is by far the most magnificent part of what we are creating! By analyzing each character and working to understand the purpose of theatre we are acquiring a greater appreciation for the influence that theatre has on all it's players. Matthew is very open to collaborating with everyone, and it becomes more apparent everyday that the shared opinions and observations are beginning to form a fantastic direction for the show. Any time a scene or even a single line is unclear we stop, discuss, understand, and then the actor willingly reflects the change. It is a breath of fresh air to watch the cast collaborate in such a way, and as a result my appreciation for the performing arts increases nightly.

The beauty of the performing arts is that you have to listen: in order to truly experience what is happening you have to be willing to engage. This is an idea the Matthew clearly appreciates and respects very much. He is constantly pushing the actors to find purpose for every entrance, exit, action, and line they speak, so that the audience will be able to become engaged in the most personal way possible.

As a group we have spent hours questioning and analyzing the importance of live theatre. We have discussed extensively the direction that the theatre is heading in today, and the differences that exist between film and live theatre. This not only helps us all to focus in on what we are creating together but also gives us insight into the minds and opinions of one another in a wonderful way. Matthew introduced the idea that while film is a visual medium of art, theatre is an auditory one. Film a picture of an experience, while theatre is a map that invites every member of the audience and cast to engage in. This is our goal: to prompt the audience to engage in the work at a level that pushes them to believe the story as if they too are a part of what is happening; even when ideas are presented are ones that they may never have approached before.

Although we are working with a farce, the tale in no way lacks complexity and the actors are always working in complete awareness of what it is they are trying to portray. The comedy in no way masks the significance of the story. The actors are playing real people, and this experience no matter how whimsical it may seem, it is very honest and delivers an important message. Matthew is constantly reminding the actors to

"Let the characters be as intelligent as you are."

Prompting them to approach their roles very intimately, and as a result the company is becoming closely tied to one another and the work.

"You don't automatically have a name."

2010-10-18T17:48:00.003-04:00

We’ve made it through our first weekend of performances without any major technological disasters (which considering the state of the iPods by this point is a miracle), but more importantly, we’ve also seen a wide array of audience reactions to the different pieces. It varies show by show, person by person, piece by piece – and probably even further than that.

It truly has reached the point where we’ve struck some sort of balance; that is to say, we’ve rehearsed it so much that the actors are almost too good at it, but they’ve also rehearsed getting in touch with the language, and the combination of the two makes for a pretty captivating show. And then of course there is the fact that much of it is still a struggle. (No one can do an eleven-minute piece perfectly while they’re doing jumping jacks the whole time.) In a way, even though we’ve changed our original plan by having a set playlist that is the same for each performance, it is still a different show every night; the language changes while the words remain the same.

I know that I, at least, am learning something new every night. And I’m not sure if having an audience around has made me listen in a different way, or if it’s simply the way it keeps morphing into something ever-so-slightly different for each performance. But I had never really listened to "Forever Overhead" as a personal memory of David Foster Wallace’s before Friday night, and each time I hear "Interview #46," there is something new and even more frightening about it that sticks out to me.

I have to say I’m surprised that our hard work has actually paid off in the way we wanted it to – because, after all, how do you rehearse something to get the sense of it being almost "unrehearsed"? Then again, this feels like a whole different work now that other people are watching it. It’s as if our whole rehearsal process was one method of exploring the text, and performing it is another.

Instead of trying to explain or answer any other questions about the production, I feel it’s best to just let people absorb it and take it in as is. In an illuminating quote from his book Oblivion: Stories, David Foster Wallace says, "What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant." That seems pretty accurate to me.

RETURN TO TEXT

2010-10-08T19:08:00.004-04:00

One week until we open… and things are still changing nightly. One of the perks of a show like this, I guess, is that no one’s running around trying to find a way to replace the unattainable prop or set accessory, because everything is constantly being updated and adapted. The different pieces are becoming a little bit like “scenes,” but with the huge advantage that some of them are mostly independent of the others and so can be rearranged if we want to try a different opener, a different transition, or simply switch up the staging on two pieces. (I can’t say I’ve ever seen a production before where the staging for a scene could be spontaneously replaced by that for another scene without it turning into a disaster.) Even the dogs have already changed. (Luckily, they are still adorable.)

We’ve got a long and somewhat unusual weekend of tech rehearsal ahead of us, but even from the past few days, the sound and lights we’ve been experimenting with have added a whole new feel to the piece. This is obviously one of the main factors behind a lot of the change, because pieces can transform completely with the right technical effects. So although it seems sometimes like we’re spontaneously adding lots of last minute changes, in reality it’s kind of like tearing the cover off some of the pieces to reveal what was underneath the whole time.

For me at least it is really interesting to watch the designers interact and bounce ideas off one another, and to see where each different set of staging instructions will end up. It may be that some of the staged actions never get permanently linked to any particular piece, which makes it all the more exciting from an aesthetic perspective, and much more frightening from a technical one. But there’s definitely an added thrill to the idea that a show we’ve gotten pretty familiar with can change completely over the course of the next 48 hours… not just because of tech, but also because of the nature of the production itself.

"Titanic Inflatable Clown Again Presiding"

2010-09-29T22:54:00.004-04:00

It’s pretty cliché, but I now believe the saying that you can’t really appreciate anything until you’ve learned to live without it. That certainly applies to our slowly-evolving playlist of pieces for Brief Interviews. After going so long without setting anything in stone, working experimentally and constantly keeping in mind that the playlist would be changing every night, it feels like a huge luxury to have even a rough sketch of what the performances will look like. It’s still changing, of course, and it will continue to. But at least now we have an outline to go off of, which serves as a sort of reference frame for the actors. It makes me, at least, feel like we have something to fall back on, without losing the sense of being in the “now” that the audio scripting provides.

It’s impressive to see how the actors have improved, but interesting to note that a lot of times they’ve become “too good” at a piece, meaning they get a little less in touch with the language and tend to start commenting on the content of the text. This means we’ve been speeding up certain pieces to the point of them being on the verge of wildly out of control. And yet, it’s an effective trick – it’s so much easier to get engaged in their effort than exclusively in the story that they’re telling. (A little ironic, that we’d regulate something to make it seem unexpected and uncontrolled, but there’s always a little element of surprise in how the actors will handle it.)

On another note, tonight we met the dogs we’ll be working with, Molly and Sport. We worked a few scenes with them, which was useful in seeing how receptive they are to the space and the sounds, and how well the actors can manage them. Also, they are very friendly and adorable, which helps.

Other than that, it’s been a bit of a workout for the cast members. Lots of jumping jacks, tennis practice, and some very aerobic dancing. Not to mention yoga warm-ups. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off theatrically (and physically, we hope, unless the Hostess cupcakes take their toll) in the noticeable energy increase, and how it manifests itself in their speech. It’s another way of taking them beyond the comfort zone which sets in after they’ve done a piece multiple times. Whether or not we’ll need to keep coming up with more ways remains to be seen, but it’s clear that what we want is for them to be faced with challenges in each piece, so that every word is as much of an internal act as an external one.

Victory For The Forces Of Democratic Freedom!

2010-09-22T18:13:00.005-04:00

Just photos today... these are from before the Designer's Run (thus, much of the staging has changed...) but I think they still portray a lot of the rehearsal atmosphere and process.

"The Diaphanous And Epicanthically Doe-Eyed Petra"

2010-09-21T22:04:00.003-04:00

Designer’s Run last night meant I finally got a chance to sit in on a production meeting, which was definitely a worthwhile experience. Things are changing so quickly with this show that, although I’m in rehearsal every night, I can’t even keep up with where the audience will be during performances.

The “run,” however, actually taught us a lot of things about the work as it’s progressing. (I use the word very loosely, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, considering what we got out of it.) For one thing, it was useful to see how the actors work when not given directions or even cues to tell them who was to speak next. In my opinion, it made for a much more focused group, even though we were stopping and starting pretty frequently for different pieces. Seeing the pieces we’ve worked on in the context of a larger whole made me appreciate the way they are starting to link up – how the beginning of one refers to the end of the last, and how the staging is less random than it initially seems. (And it definitely helped to see the pieces that need to be worked on…)

One of the most important lessons of the night was that we really need to find a way to put action into the work without letting it slip into monologue-type acting. With a few pieces that run longer than 10 minutes straight, and only one person speaking them, there needs to be something keeping the whole thing cohesive and intriguing. The question is how to do that by using only the language. Tonight, one of our experiments has been doing pieces in the dark, to focus even more exclusively on just that – the language.

You can tell that it's a challenge to the actors, but in fact, that’s one of the things that makes it interesting. And it helps to realize that it’s not all about the speaker – the importance of reactions in other people is something that runs throughout the work, whether in the content of the particular Brief Interview or short story being performed, or between actors in response to the things that happen while the text is being communicated. Maybe that’s what makes the placement of the audience so critical… a placement which, I might add, has already been changed again since I started writing this, so I will hold off on speaking about that as of now!

Happy Birthday.

2010-09-11T20:44:00.006-04:00

It’s been exactly a week since I got my first taste of what Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is going to be like, a week since I first witnessed the process of audio scripting that has become the daily routine for the past seven days. Since then, I have seen someone play “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” on a ukelele, eight people learn how to tap dance, and more bad disco dance moves than I needed in a lifetime. Sound uninteresting? Try doing it while simultaneously narrating a story, an interview, or even just an assortment of memories and observations, which you’re hearing over headphones as you go.

These are not just “narrations,” of course. What our director Daniel calls it is “inventing a new kind of acting,” a sort of channeling of the language that is heard, which is somewhere between simply relaying the text and actually playing a character. It’s truly difficult to describe, and not something that can really be imagined until you see it, which has made for an interesting process of evolution this past week. As we rehearse through hours and hours of text, moments will stand out when the connection really comes through, and some sort of link is created between speaker, actor, and listener. There have been times when everyone in the room has been unable to pull their eyes from the speaker, and the atmosphere is charged with a sense of tension that encompasses our, the audience’s, feeling of a time-frozen present, as well as that of an unexpected future.

In a way it accurately reflects a lot of aspects of David Foster Wallace’s writing. It would be impossible to do this play traditionally, because Wallace’s style is so focused on the language that playing characters would transform it into something else. Obsessed with the connection between author and reader, and with the universal loneliness of humanity, Wallace wanted to write passionately, without straying too far from reality as he saw it. The purpose of reading fiction was, as he suggested in a 1993 interview with The Review of Contemporary Fiction, a “nourishing, redemptive” one, done in order to “become less alone inside” through identification with the stories revealed there. It’s a difficult task, but we are somehow trying to create a similar sort of situation between actor and audience.

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of Wallace's suicide. His was an incredibly tragic loss, and I leave you with one of my favorite Wallace quotes: "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."

Very Special Tony Award Winning Plastic Cup, AKA Tech

2010-04-08T21:18:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was the beginning of the long process of tech for Criminal Genius. We have learned the valuable importance of even a small plastic cup. Actors have to get used to designers talking while they are acting on stage. They must become accustomed to stopping and starting lots of times, because this is the time to shine for the designers. We spent the first hour working the intro to the play. As soon as the opening music came on I began to feel the countdown to opening night.

There are so many things to consider during tech. Adding lights, sound, costumes, and video will not only affect the actors’ performances, but also must be coordinated with each other. With the race against time the set needs to be near complete because lights look different on different colors and textures, and costumes need to coordinate with the set. For example, one of our actor’s socks looked zany enough by themselves, but when placed on the rug in our motel room they disappeared. Everything is so dependent on everything else that small changes often cause larger problems.

During this tech I have learned not only are their different ways for shower curtains to make sound, but that windows create huge problems for lighting. They are so reflective that they bounce back all the light. Solving the balance between visibility and reflectivity is a long battle. But the magic of the theatre prevails all- the sound system is so real that I have to double check that the thunderstorms occurring outside are really occurring outside and are not part of the show.

Also, working with a budget can create problems when you need to break objects. When you have a small number of them you can practice breaking, it gets a little nerve wracking. In attempting to break one of our test watches we almost destroyed a lamp, and have decided to use a different object to break the watch. I have also noticed in this show that both a watch and a clock are destroyed, and I’m wondering if this is a thematic contribution from the playwright.

When you are dealing with water, smoke, towels, breaking objects, and a motel room in disarray tech can be time consuming. Small things like the room number on the door (#3) can create lots of new background information for the actors. It seems like a whole new world, almost like the first time we had a door to work with. The hypothetical clock has begun ticking, and I’m looking forward to dress rehearsals.

A Spark of Originality

2010-03-17T00:19:00.002-04:00

Such a thing as a 'spark of originality' cannot be taught to actors. This is something they need to bring to the table by learning through their character and bringing it 'to life.' To give it that extra freshness they need to bring a situation to life, not play the situation, but live in the moment. The actors and actresses in Criminal Genius have been told tonight that this is what they need to work on. They follow direction very well, and remember most of what they are told. Now the next step is to go beyond what you have been taught.

How do they do this? Perhaps by taking a scene offstage and just running lines the actors can play with different scenes. Today the One Act Plays were having their dress rehearsal in the next room, so to keep us quiet for a bit we ran lines offstage quietly. I felt that this made it fresh, that the actors weren't just running lines for memorization, but were getting new feelings to each of the sentences by saying them differently than usual.

Today I also noticed something that I had never noticed before. There is one moment in the play where all the actors physically parallel what they are doing in another scene. I'm not sure if you would call this a foreshadowing or just a random coincidence but for some reason I couldn't get this out of my mind. Both scenes have a certain tenseness to them, awaiting something unexpected, and I found it highly unlikely that all five actors would act the same in both scenes, but somehow it happened and I loved it.

Tonight was the first rehearsal after Spring Break, and I believe that it went very well. It was interesting working next door to the One Acts (one of which is a musical) and having the green room full of people in costume when I ventured in to grab some coffee. It sort of felt like a collection of many different cultures with all the different plays, genres, and people. Such is the wonderful thing about being in and around the theatre.

A World Premiere: And So It Goes

2010-03-05T16:23:00.001-05:00

As I promised, here is the second post regarding our trip to Toronto, and the one that focuses more specifically on George F. Walker’s new play. And So It Goes tells the story of a middle aged couple dealing with the stresses of job loss and their daughter’s mental illness. One of their main coping mechanisms turns out to be holding imaginary conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, the famous (and deceased) author. Still, this seems to be effective in the short term and certainly some escapism is necessary. Their daughter, Karen, suffers from schizophrenia. This is a treatable disease, but Karen refuses to take medication and commits violent and harmful acts. She is ordered to appear in court regarding her alleged assault of a social worker, but before being sentenced she disappears. We soon learn that she has run away for the second time and become a prostitute. Later, in a moving scene, we find out that she has been murdered.

At this point in the play I was worried that Karen, easily the most fascinating character in the play, would disappear completely. This seemed like an anticlimactic end for such a fantastic role – the scene in the morgue during which her body was identified culminated in a monologue by her father that in many ways fell flat. This characterized a good deal of his performance; I got the sense that the play had been performed many times (the run has been extended) and perhaps the actors were somewhat tired. I never got this sense with Karen, though, and I was glad to see her return from the dead, so to speak. Just as Vonnegut spoke frequently to her parents, Karen began to visit them. I felt that this was a wonderful choice on Walker’s part, as it gave us an opportunity to see what Karen was like before her schizophrenia set in. In the scenes following her death, Karen behaved like a normal – though in no way boring – human being. She spoke to her parents about why what had happened had occurred, as well as about their present situation. The beauty of this device was that while it was clear that Karen’s presence was part of her parents’ mental subjectivity, and a coping mechanism to relieve in part the guilt they felt over her death, Karen remained herself. Her character was not modified beyond recognition; she remained identifiable, but lacking the illness that had in many ways clouded her.

As the play progressed, I did feel that it in some ways lost a bit of momentum. Karen and Vonnegut remained key players, keeping the play lively and engaging. At times during the monologues of the father or the conversation of the mother I felt as though a little of the energy of the show was diminished, but in some ways this mirrored the themes of the play. As the couple was dragged downward through the loss of their house and most of their dignity, the audience experiences their helplessness and apathy. We watch as the father holds cardboard signs with various phrases; one of his favorites reads, “Who is responsible?” While he holds his signs, his wife busies herself patrolling the shoe supply in the homeless shelter where they stay, protecting at least a small thing from being stolen from her family. Throughout their entire struggle, the jobless husband carries a gun he has purchased. It is unclear whether he intends to use it on his daughter’s possible murderers, or himself and his wife.

I saw some similarities between And So It Goes and other Walker plays I have read. Although reading and seeing a play are very different experiences, I could identify similar themes. The End of Civilization, one of the other six plays in the Suburban Motel series, also deals with the desperation of unemployment and loss of societal place. Here, too, a couple deals with their own inadequacy and inability to support their family, although with very different results. I’ve found Walker plays to deal with death and sexuality on a regular basis. In The End of Civilization, a young boy is killed and his murder concealed by a struggling policeman. And So It Goes represents another failure of the police system, this time through neglect. Karen’s father purchases the gun in frustration and rage after his daughter’s brutal stabbing – “Twenty six times… five in her heart, twelve in her torso, the rest in her face.”

Despite these dark themes, Walker’s plays seem always to incorporate moments of humor, however black, that keep the work from drowning in its own desperation. Vonnegut is a large part of this humor, with a light sense of sarcasm that keeps the other characters in check. In all, I truly enjoyed And So It Goes and found it to be another excellent work by a playwright I have come to really respect. I am hoping to read more of his work soon (I’m looking into getting a copy of The East End Plays) but in the meanwhile focus on our own versions of Featuring Loretta and Criminal Genius continues. In further exciting news, another Toronto trip may be organized for May. The Factory Theatre will also be running a production of Featuring Loretta, so we are all hoping to get a chance to see what they do with it. The stylistic differences between their show and ours should be very interesting to look at! For more information on the Factory Theatre’s productions of Featuring Loretta or And So It Goes, please visit their website at www.factorytheatre.ca.

Halfway There

2010-03-04T14:05:00.003-05:00

The beginning of March causes another page to be ripped out of my production calendar. I can't believe how far we have come along. Everyday we are adding new layers to characters, new meanings behind lines, and new parts of the set. Tonight is Criminal Genius's last rehearsal before spring break and I can't wait to get right into the action.

In my acting techniques class last semester we used the "Why Game" to get down to our characters inner self. To play this game you start by asking a simple question, and then ask 'why' to every answer the character gives you. The key is that the character finds a deeper level with every answer. One of my character's questions was "Why do you wear that ring?" and after all the 'whys' I got down to the answer, "I wear it because I'm afraid of being alone and it connects me to other people." Deep stuff. Although we have not strictly played this game in rehearsals we have come up with similar results. We discovered key words for three of the characters (Rolly, Stevie, and Shirley) and I'm inputting my own thoughts for the other two:

Rolly- Blame
Stevie- Hypnotize
Phillie- Bad Luck
Shirley- Meaning
Amanda- Revenge

Getting to the root of a character, knowing where the motivation to say certain words come from is extremely important. The actors usually only have one line to express one of the most fundamental things about their character. And what better way of expressing inner feelings than through photographs?

The publicity photo shoot was a really interesting experience. It seemed like the most important thing was to get at the root of a scene, not the exact logistics of a scene, but the feeling behind it. Characters wore the beginnings of their costumes and played around saying the same lines over and over to each other. I think it got some really amazing results.

So there is rehearsal tonight and then a whole week without it! With all that spare time I think I'll continue working/finishing up some of my essays for the program. Happy Spring Break!

And So it Goes... To Toronto

2010-03-02T21:05:00.001-05:00

Well, although we didn’t run into Mr. Walker on the way, the Canada trip was an enormous success! The trip itself was so much fun that I’ve actually decided to write separate posts on the play and the journey, so for the post pertaining solely to George F. Walker’s new work, look at the next one to come.

We started out in the wake of the heaviest snowstorm Rochester has seen yet this year. Drifts piled up several feet high on the sidewalk outside the theatre, and five of us piled into Becca’s very normal-sized car to work our way through it. Phil D. (“Michael”, in Featuring Loretta) Anna (Featuring Loretta Production Stage Manager) and I got in the back, and Phil W. (not involved directly in the Walker productions, but a regular in Todd) sat in the front as Becca (“Sophie” in Featuring Loretta) drove. Surprisingly, the roads weren’t too bad. We spent the three hours up to Toronto chatting about various things and, in Anna’s case, sleeping wrapped inside her outsized scarf.

We arrived at the border just after Nigel’s car, which apparently made it through after some heavy interrogation. Apparently TSJ (“Rolly”, in Criminal Genius) looked a bit sketchy in the back seat. With Phil D.’s Canadian passport and manly chatter about hockey though, our car passed through nicely and we made the rest of the trip quickly. Once in the city, we met up with Nigel, TSJ, and Professor Peck from the English department, and made our way to Epicure, a nearby restaurant. There we enjoyed a fantastic meal, in my case of gnocchi primavera and cranberry juice. I had the privilege of sitting next to Becca and across from Professor Peck, so the conversation was great. The third and final car in our group arrived midway through dinner, and we soon all made our way to the Factory Theatre for the show.

And So it Goes was, as we expected, a truly excellent show. I won’t go into the particulars too much here, since I’ll be writing a separate post on that, but I will say that the actor playing Karen, a young woman with schizophrenia, was particularly marvelous. I thought her performance was fabulous. We all enjoyed the play, and afterwards piled back into our respective cars to head home. This time Phil W. drove, and aside from getting turned around four times in three minutes when looking for a seemingly nonexistent gas station in the Buffalo area everything went pretty well. The roads were still clear, and we made just one other stop at a rest area in Ontario where Phil D. briefly considered buying a frightening object called a “Canada Donut”. Fortunately his highly foreign Visa card was rejected, and we got back on the road and were soon home.

All in all, it was a whirlwind ten or eleven hours, and a lot of fun! I enjoyed the play immensely and it was wonderful to be able to see it with other members of our Walker plays’ cast and crew. Plus, I happen to enjoy both car rides and heavy snows thoroughly, so really, what more could I request?

Sense and Stupidity

2010-02-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

The father-son relationship between Rolly and Stevie is a duo act- they constantly play off each other unaware of the world around them when they prattle on. Rolly's love for his son is unconditional love with strings or rather: conditionally unconditional love.

What is the reason for the father/son hereditary stupidness? Is it something that was passed down in their genes or was it acquired in their lifetime? Maybe they are ignorant of it. Perhaps they just have smaller brains, warped by something in their past. The answer to this question the actors will have to develop over time.

While most of the cast and crew went to the new Walker play in Canada I was down in PA for an interview, staying in two different hotels. These hotels gave me some perspective on life in a hotel. The first one I stayed at was very similar to our own hotel. It had a door leading to the outside world, and was not exactly glamorous. The floor was a hideous color, and you could hear everything outside the door very clearly.

But the most valuable lesson I learned while staying there was the feeling I got of living in the hotel room. Its that strange feeling of 'this is my room for the time being, but nothing really belongs to me.' By the time the shows come around the actors will be very familiar with the set- it might even feel like a second home after all the time spent in the theatre. But the actors will need to renew that fleeting sense of the room. Perhaps it will help to think of the audience's perspective. They are staying in the theatre for a few hours at most, and then leaving. Everything will be new to them and their senses will be heightened. This is something that will bind together the audience and the actors.

2/21/10: Designers' Run!

2010-02-24T20:50:00.001-05:00

All of the work we’ve been doing on the Walker plays came together last Sunday for a successful designers’ run. The designers’ run is a full run of the show in its early stages, performed for designers and other members of the production team. The set, costume, lighting, and sound designers are all present to get their first full look at the production so that their ideas for it can be developed. This is a very important milestone in a show’s evolution – actors must be off book and know all of their blocking very well to give an accurate sense of what they will be doing when they open for public viewing.

In general, Featuring Loretta’s designers’ run went off without a hitch. Of course there were a few things – unexpected actors in their underwear, a chair being flung offstage accidentally, the leading female temporarily becoming trapped in the on-set bathroom – but as a rule the actors did very well and everything was satisfactory. I took notes for Nigel during, and afterwards enjoyed sitting in on the production meeting. A few designers I have worked with before as an actor were present; Thomas Dunn is back for lighting, and Will Pickens for sound. It was interesting to get a little more insight into how they think about the aspects that they design, and I can only imagine that will get even better as the show goes on.

Tonight we’re back to regular rehearsal, which means lots of notes, stopping and starting, and generally working small aspects of each scene to make everything fit as a cohesive whole. There have been some changes to the set since the last rehearsal; more paint, some new furniture and knickknacks. The set always sort of seems to develop magically over the course of the rehearsal process, even though I know very well how much work goes into that seemingly effortless task! Sarah Eisel and Gordon Rice, the Technical Director and Production Manager at Todd Theatre, oversee this set work in all its complexity. Some of their challenges for this particular set are wiring a television and lights to work on-set, as well as reinforcing windows and walls enough so that they can withstand the stress of actors pounding on them, smashing into them, and generally contributing to wear and tear.

We’re making steps forward tonight, but this Friday we’ll all be taking a break! Much of the cast and crew will be heading to Toronto to see the world premiere of George F. Walker’s new play, And So it Goes, at the Factory Theatre. I’m very excited about this – I’m sure it will give us some great insight into what we’re doing, as well as simply serving as great entertainment! I’ll certainly write more on that after I’ve seen it, but for now I’m off.

Walker Play's PR photos are online!

2010-02-24T16:04:00.001-05:00

George F. Walker's Criminal Genius and Featuring Loretta -- two comedies from Walker's Suburban Motel series of plays open in the University of Rochester's Todd Theatre on April 15 and 16 (respectively). The two plays run in rep until May 1 (see the Theatre Program website for details).

Walker Plays PR pics

Off Book and Discovering the Environment

2010-02-09T20:25:00.003-05:00

Working with the beginnings of a set gives the imagination the brush and paint, letting form and function develop on their own (although without a movable motel bed some things are developing slower than others). Now that the actors are off-book they are much more free to interact with their environment and all of their surroundings. It is starting to give the play it's own heartbeat.

After the initial blocking rehearsal, the actors now need to incorporate their lines and the meanings to all their movements around the stage. Every step, motion, and action needs to have a reason to happen- the actors need to develop their character's inner monologue to find these reasons.

One of the most difficult things is that everything needs to be believable. Lines need to be real, and the actors need to listen to each other (not expecting the lines that they know are coming). Questions need to become real questions. Lines are filled with more than what you expect them to be. "Okay" could mean 'okay' but it could also mean 'I'm a little nervous about this' or 'yea right, like this is really going to work.' Finding these hidden treasures is a continuous developing process.

When working with comedy, timing is critically important. Lines can be ten times funnier if pace or blocking is changed. In this comedy the characters do not always realize how funny they are being, so it is important that they make sense of some of the things they are saying. Things need to build to urgency, and although funny to the audience, is not always something that the characters would chuckle about.

Progress must be made in battling shuffling on the stage, getting ending consonants, and playing the situation, not the blocking. Finding new ideas and exploring the play is making for a good start of February rehearsals.

Adventures in Autobiography: Developing "Featuring Loretta" Characters

2010-02-04T20:12:00.002-05:00

Things are still moving along for Todd with Featuring Loretta. Last night the actors brought some visual information and biographies they had constructed for their characters to rehearsal for table work. Table work refers to some of the efforts actors make off the stage to develop their characters. This involves thinking about the character, how they would act in certain situations, what their feelings and values are, what their history has been before the time during which the play takes place, and really anything else that could influence the way the character behaves. Every person has a deep set of personal circumstances that affect their actions, and characters in plays are just the same. For this reason, thinking about a character outside the scope of what the writer records within a play is an integral part of an actor’s work, and takes place for every role.

Table work is often very fun, and last night’s was really entertaining for me. I always like seeing what actors come up with for their characters. Nigel asked everyone to bring in some images that they felt represented their character, as well as write a biography of the character’s life before the time of the play. The biographies ranged from humorous to sad to disgusting, so in a word, they were pretty true to life. James (character: Dave) brought a series of pictures, including one of Stalin, a baby in a rabbit suit, God, and a testosterone molecule, which he had worked into a sort of equation. I won’t try to explain it, as I am emphatically not a natural sciences major, but it actually added (and multiplied and divided) up to something pretty representative of Dave. Annalise (Lorrie) brought an assortment of red carpet photos, and Becca (Sophie) had pictures ranging from the KGB (still watching you, apparently) to an antique Russian village. Phil (Michael) had a detailed biography in three parts that detailed his character’s career in the sex industry, including his relation to Japanese interests, which turned out to focus on Genki porn. In case any of you are thinking of googling that, let me recommend thoroughly that you not. Suffice it to say that it involves fish, very commonly eels, and fills a very specific sexual niche.

We concluded the exercise after a few hours, but the sort of thought it inspires will continue throughout the rehearsal process. As we all do every day, actors continually make choices about what to do in any given situation. They must choose more consciously, however, because they are choosing as someone else. In order to give a good performance they have to have a strong idea of who their character is. Right now I’m watching Annalise (Lorrie) work on a scene in which she has a phone conversation with her sister, Jane. Annalise talked about her idea of their relationship a lot last night – how Lorrie’s childhood with Jane has evolved into the present scene – and is using that now.

Lastly, in other news, we have an exciting event on the horizon! The casts of both shows and part of the stage management team will be making a trip to Toronto on the 26^th to see the world premiere of George F. Walker’s new play, And So it Goes. I’ll be going along, and I’m extremely excited about it. Walker himself is directing, and the play will be at the Factory Theatre, which is where he first submitted a play and has developed his professional career to a great degree. I’ll write about that when we get there, though, so more on that later!

First Impressions of Criminal Genius

2010-01-29T13:28:00.005-05:00

I have always been a fan of the theatre. Reading plays, as no surprise, has been one of my favorite past times. I began by reading Featuring Loretta a play which caught my attention with a woman connected to many people, yet trying to breakfree and rediscover herself, becoming an independent decision maker. The all-too-funny Russian housekeeper brought a warmth to the seemingly dismal situation and hotel room Loretta found herself in. After finishing the play I immediately began to read Criminal Genius, a play sprinkled with comedy overlapping serious issues of blame and relationships with other people.

In the first read-through of the play the actors took those characters off the page to begin to mold them into the beings they will become on the stage in April. As I sat listening, the actors would look up from their books and stare at me- I felt like I was one of the people Amanda was recruiting to kill her father. And you know if that kind of magic exists within the first rehearsal, it will exponentially grow within the next few months.

Criminal Genius, my personal favorite out of the six Walker plays, brings you into a world with some really stupid criminals. You find yourself immersed in a strange father-son relationship, and considering how criminals can survive by being non-violent. Then there is the leader of those men, Shirl-the-Pearl, aka Shirley. I wonder what brought her to be in the position of criminal, and how long she has been this way. Amanda bursts into the play, causing a power-struggle which ultimately ends in her gaining the leadership position. But the question remains- is she as stupid as the ones she commands, or does this inability to lead spread out from those she attempts to lead? Why does everyone stand around blaming everyone else until there is nothing left to do?

There is no doubt in my mind that Criminal Genius and Featuring Loretta will be amazing Todd Theatre productions. The fact that all of the plays take place in the same hotel room may get you wondering what has happened in all the rooms in your life before you existed in them.

The Whole Package: Reading George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel

2010-01-28T22:12:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading through Suburban Motel, a collection of George F. Walker’s plays that includes Featuring Loretta and Criminal Genius. I really enjoyed all of them – some more than others, of course, but as a whole they were excellent and a lot of fun. I can see from this small sampling why Walker is so popular in Canada. As I mentioned in my previous post, each play uses the exact same setting; a single motel room. This was not the only tie between the stories, though. While each is completely individual and able to be performed singly, they shared small connections. Characters reappeared frequently for a second bout of time in the motel, giving another look into their lives that somehow seemed much more natural than a typical sequel. The plays are not made to continue the story of any single character, but neither do they ignore information a reader of all the works would have about them. For example, in the first play, Problem Child, we meet Phillie, a man working in the motel. He reappears in Criminal Genius, but by the time we get around to Featuring Loretta his tenure on the stage is through. Other characters present in multiple shows include Denise, a recovered drug addict and prostitute; her husband R.J., and Michael, who also has a part in Featuring Loretta.

In all, the collection includes six plays: Problem Child, Adult Entertainment, Criminal Genius, Featuring Loretta, The End of Civilization, and Risk Everything. Walker creates for his stories a diverse cast of characters. Audiences who visit Todd this spring will see a find sampling of these creations, but I highly recommend looking into more of Walker’s work. I am already biased in favor of Featuring Loretta, after the beginning of rehearsals, but out of the plays not being produced in Todd this semester I think my favorite has to be Risk Everything. Denise and R.J. make their second appearance here, as does Michael. Furthermore, we meet Denise’s mother, Carol. In the first of the six plays, Problem Child, it is revealed that Carol caused Denise and R.J. to lose their daughter Christine to social services, and while that fact is mentioned again in the last play, it is not an integral part of the plot in any sense. One gets the impression that Walker has written out hundreds of episodes in his characters’ lives fully, and that Problem Child and Risk Everything are merely two that these particular men and women have experienced. The dialogue in Risk Everything is especially engaging and funny; it has the same feel as the other plays in the series, but shines even more brightly and serves as always to paint a vivid picture of the world Walker is speaking of. My only criticism deals with the final scene. Several of the plays in the series seem to end somewhat abruptly, and I got a sense of this with Risk Everything. Still, it by no means spoiled the total effect of the piece, and I did feel it was a good play to close the collection.

After reading Suburban Motel I am even more interested in the rest of Walker’s work, and more excited about the upcoming Todd productions. There is of course a great difference between reading a play and seeing it performed. While the characters are already created on the page, actors have an opportunity to bring them to a new level in a variety of ways. The way these people develop and interact onstage can be very different depending on the way the production is staged and what actors are involved. And since it’s a production at Todd Theatre, I can pretty much guarantee it will be an exceptionally lively time.

2010-01-27T08:16:00.000-05:00

Getting Started on the Walker Plays

2010-01-26T11:34:00.001-05:00

This spring Todd Theatre will be producing two of George F. Walker’s most entertaining comedies, Criminal Genius and Featuring Loretta. These one acts come from a collection of six of Walker’s plays, together entitled Suburban Motel. The name is drawn from the common setting of all six, a single motel room. In Criminal Genius the room serves as a base for the operations of some small-time criminals as we watch them change plans and run into trouble with just about everyone they come across. In Featuring Loretta the room becomes the home of Lorrie, a young, pregnant widow in need of money, and very close to entering the world of “erotic videos” to get it.

Both plays are fast paced and entertaining, even flat on the page, but as rehearsals have begun it’s been exciting to see them expand. I was able to get an idea of each show in the initial table readings, but as assistant director for Featuring Loretta, I have a much better view of that particular show. I’m particularly excited about the cast, which features both seasoned and new talent. Phillip Dumouchel, previously seen in A Family Affair, The Hairy Dutchman, and The Illusion, among other things, plays Michael, a very encouraging booker for strip clubs. Rebecca Weiss returns to the Todd stage as well, after recent performances in Danton’s Death, A Family Affair, and 365 Days/Plays, to put forth the role of Sophie, a Russian immigrant working in the motel. Newcomer James Eles plays Dave, another of Lorrie’s would-be lovers (and sometime kidnapper of his competition) and Lorrie herself is played by another debut Todd performer, Annalise Baird. All four seem to be developing their roles fantastically from the start, and I can’t wait to see how the show will progress over the semester.

This process is a unique one for Todd because it spans the entire semester – not merely half. Featuring Loretta will be put together at the same time as Criminal Genius, both rehearsing until spring. At this point both shows will run in the theatre in repertory, that is, on alternating nights. The common setting for the shows makes this possible in Todd’s black box space. I myself have never been on the production team for any Todd show, since I lean more towards performing, but I am excited to be working as assistant to director Nigel Maister on this one. I’m very confident that it will be a great experience culminating in another fantastic Todd production.

Danton's Death Trailer is now online

2009-11-14T10:09:00.002-05:00

Danton's Death PR pics!

2009-11-10T23:47:00.004-05:00

Danton's Death

2009-11-04T18:47:00.003-05:00

Rehearsal are underway for Todd Theatre's production of Buchner's French revolutionary drama "Danton's Death". At the helm is guest director David Kennedy who brings an abstract and evocative take on the German classic. Written in 1835 by the then 22 year old Georg Buchner, the play follows the revolutionary demagogue Georges Danton through his final days as he is tried and executed at the behest of the cruelly euphemistic Committee of Public Safety, the ruling authority in France during the Reign of Terror of 1793-1794. (Body count: 16 000 to 40 000) . On the surface the play is a timely story of political intrigue, but beneath lies a profound exploration of existential fatalism as embodied by Danton's contemplation and eventual acceptance of his death beneath the guillotine. Powerful stuff.

***

"Danton's Death" runs from December 3rd through the 12th.
Tickets are available online through Todd Theatre's sick website.

Opening Night

2009-10-08T16:22:00.002-04:00

So this morning, I thought to myself wouldn't it be great if this Illusion play was finally costumed, teched, and ready to go. Guess what! It is. In less than four hours we will be hitting the stage to perform for actual paying audience members. Speaking of which... Are you a paying audience member? If not you should hop over to our website and buy tickets. We run until October 17th, so you'd better hurry. It'll knock your socks off.

Costuming the Illusion

2009-10-08T02:23:00.000-04:00

Costume designer Arnulfo Mald0nado's vision for The Illusion has all but been realized. Seeing as this is the first fully period production performed at the U of R in many years, the undertaking was substantial. The costume shop has resembled something of a sweatshop over the last few days as student interns cranked out corsets, bustles, and doublets for the upcoming production. - Above Wardrobe Coordinator Nadine Taylor waits at attention by the machine.

Rehearsing "The Illusion"

2009-10-02T16:54:00.004-04:00

The rehearsal process for the Illusion continues. Less than a week now until the show opens on the 8th of October. The video above sophomore Kevin McCarthy, who plays the role of the aged Pridamant, as he receives direction from artistic director Nigel Maister. Pridamant is something of an audience member himself who bears witness to the vivid and often grotesque illusions of the magician Alcandre in hope of finding his long lost son.

More ILLUSION photos!

2009-09-17T11:20:00.001-04:00

See the new slide show with ILLUSION publicity shots below!

The Illusion: The Designers Run

2009-09-16T01:17:00.007-04:00

The University of Rochester International Theater Program's production of Tony Kushner's adaptation of "The Illusion" by Pierre Corneille hit the stage for its first rehearsed run-through yesterday. As with every Todd Theater production, about midway through the rehearsal process, a rough run of the show is performed for the professional design team. Yesterday's run went well, despite a few dropped lines and mis-parried rapier blades. (It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.)

The design team for "The Illusion" includes the talents of Thomas Dunn, lights, Will Pickens, sound, Arnulfo Maldunado, costumes, and fight choreography by J. David Brimmer.

The importance of these seasoned technical theater professionals to the U of R's Theater program cannot be overstated. They provide students studying stage management, set construction, light, and sound the opportunity to learn from their example. Us student actors also get a kickback from this arrangement; we look pretty darn good under those lights.

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"The Illusion" splashes down October 8-10 and 14-17 for your viewing pleasure at TODD THEATER. - check out our website for tickets and details.
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- half japanese half bike is a student actor at the U of R.

Looking for Todd Bloggers!

2009-09-12T18:51:00.001-04:00

Involved in Todd, and want to post to this blog? Let us know and we'll make you an author!

The Illusion - Fight Choreography

2009-09-12T18:16:00.004-04:00

The fantastic fight director, J. David Brimmer spent the day working on the sword fights with Clindor (Doug Zeppenfeld) and Adraste (Phil Dumouchel). Check out the photos (slideshow is below)! Videos below, and more to come.

Welcome!

2009-09-12T01:19:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the University of Rochester International Theatre Program, and Todd Theatre's official blog! Here you'll find posts about upcoming productions, from the stage postings about productions in rehearsal, and other fascinating trivia and news. Subscribe or participate...we welcome your views, your thoughts, your news, and your comments. And we'll be posting videos and pics too!