I realized as I was posting on Bad Quarto's blog today that I've neglected my own blog for quite some time. And I've been involved in some projects too. Shame on me. So, here's the update:
Since my last post, I've been involved in 3 projects:
1. Hamlet (for the second time). This time I played Guildenstern and the Player Queen. The twist to this project is that I got cast as a last minute replacement and only had a week and a half to prepare before we opened. Most people thought I was crazy to take on the project, but I wanted to see if I could do it. Could a learn a show (and Kabuki type mask) in a week and a half? Lo and behold, I totally did it. And, I think, managed to turn out a pretty great performance all told. I have to admit it was a lot of fun getting to jump in that late in the game. The phrase, "getting tossed into the deep end" just about sums up how it felt. Everyone else had been on the project for more than a month when I got handed a script. There as a "well oiled machine" aspect to the whole process that I had to (very quickly) find my place in. In any case, lots of fun was had by me.
2. The Queens. I got tapped to just do the pre-show music. Around here we do live music before shows and during intermissions. Normally, this music is performed by the actors. In this case, the director didn't want to take up his limited rehearsal time with music learning, so I was asked to put together a band. We called ourselves 4Legit and, I have to say, we rocked. We got to rehearse completely outside the jurisdiction of normal rehearsals. In fact, I made our rehearsal schedule and simply informed the director in case he wanted to drop in. We started rehearsing the music right after the show was cast (in October) and the show didn't perform till mid-February. So, we had quite a bit of time to get the music in good working order. We all played various instruments and sang and generally had a lot of wacky fun. The director couldn't thank us enough and we just kept telling him that he really shouldn't. He allowed us to dick around and play music and like 3 hours a week. We should be thanking him.
3. Mucedorus. I just recently got done directing a staged reading for the American Shakespeare Center. The goals of their staged reading series are two-fold: 1. Put up plays that have not been seen in a good long while. 2. Get a good look at shows for potential Renaissance seasons to come. All in all (and I know I've been tooting my own horn quite a bit in this post), this was probably the most successful a staged reading as I've ever seen at the ASC. The director of mission, Ralph Cohen, could not say enough how great he thought the production was. What it really came of was getting a great group of people together and casting them in the right parts.
So, that's what I've been up to. I'm currently directing a staged reading of the First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet. More on that later.
