"Very Unpromising Material"

And here's all you need to know about critics and reviews. (via)

From a 1955 review of Beckett's "Waiting For Godot:"

The play, if about anything is ostensibly about two tramps who spend the two acts, two evenings long, under a tree on a bit of waste ground “waiting for Godot.”

Click the link above to dangerous minds to read the review in its entirety, but pretty much all you need to know is that you've heard of Samuel Beckett, and you've never heard of Guardian reviewer Phillip Hope-Wallace.

Having been on both sides of this divide, reviewer and reviewed (at least, reviewed as an actor; I haven't had any of my plays staged yet, but looking to get one up for a staged reading this spring) I can tell you it is a fuck of a lot harder to create a show than it is to create a review. Not that what reviewers do is without value; not that they (we) don't put a lot of thought, sweat and time into creating a good, honest review. And certainly by putting our work out there, artists of all stripes are asking to be looked at, and thought about, and engaged with.

But I think there is a certain lack of humility in some reviewers, a lack of understanding where one's place in the food chain really is. I think a lot of reviewers could greatly benefit from being part of a show, from table read to closing night, just to get some perspective on what it really takes. If you're going to casually shit all over something, at least be aware of what it is you are beshitting, right? :-)

That said, here's some closing words from Mr. Hope-Wallace:

It is good to find that plays at once dubbed “incomprehensible and pretentious” can still get a staging.

Best of luck to him in his career, pointless, incomprehensible, and pretentious as it may be.

--kjb

Amateur Night at the Big Heart

This is such a great cast, and the show finally came together opening night. One of those where I think the leads just had to put down all the noise and the jabbering and the tension of tech week (and a really short rehearsal schedule) and let go somehow, to let the characters out. And it happened on Friday. We all just kind of relaxed into things, and the audience loved it. Here's the promo video, and a few of the cast interview videos they made to promote the show.















And finally...me. I had really bad allergies at the time, so don't judge my puffy eyes.




Go to the Aurora Fox's youtube channel for much much more.

pulp shakespeare

From the Hollywood Fringe Festival, 'Pulp Shakespeare.'

some thoughts post-Othello Project

Nothing like laying around in bed until noon (actually closer to 1:00) the day after an opening. That was my Saturday, followed by a ‘Six Feet Under’ marathon and finally reaching the Acceptance phase with my pet cold--I shall name him Iago. He has been threatening doom this past week, whispering in my ear of betrayal as the stress of tech week loomed.

Acceptance that one is sick is something one cannot abide during tech week--I usually stick with Anger and Denial. Deny, deflect, and apply Emerg-N-Cee powders internally and externally as needed. (Rubbing orange powder all over my face and forehead, paying special attention to the sinuses? Why not. Might work. I shall weep tangerine tears all week.)

Of course the sad thing about this opening weekend for this phase of ‘The Othello Project’ is that it is also closing weekend. One night only, for this incarnation of the show, which is somewhat frustrating and feels like a triumph in the same breath in which it is a bit of a let-down. But of course this is only Phase One, so there is more to come. And it is my first time working with the wonderful people of Visionbox--a nascent theatre ensemble and studio--but hopefully not the last.

The project is the brainchild of Visionbox founder Jennifer McCray Rincon, and the piece we put on was just the bare-bones version of what will eventually be the first act of the completed project. As Jennifer points out, Bill Pullman’s similar (but not similar at all) multi-media project on which she worked took over five years to develop from a thirty-minute staged reading piece into a full-blown three-hour, fully-performed event.

So it’s all good, and it’s really good to be on board at this stage of the project, because I can see it developing into something amazing. In this incarnation of the piece, Jennifer has inter-cut scenes from Othello with pieces from Simone de Beauvoir’s writings on gender, as well as some truly harrowing scenes taken from police interviews and court transcripts documenting a convicted murderer’s account of the stalking, rape and brutal slaughter of his ex-wife.

We had a house of maybe 80-100 people, and I definitely heard some laughter in certain spots, as well as sniffles and uncomfortable shifting around during the recounting of the murder. Also, with an audience--as always--the performances took on an extra heightened urgency; some parts of the Othello text were ‘en fuego,’ as they say.

It has been a great group to work with, and I look forward to working with Visionbox again. Jennifer is trying to set up a true ensemble, a group of people who work together on various projects, readings and shows, as well as in classes and doing studio work together, something I have never been a part of.

And which is sadly lacking in the area. Aside from Buntport and LIDA, as far as I know, there aren’t any true ensembles who put together original work--and I don’t think either of them have studio-type classes and workshops for actors. (I do NOT count any of the various improv groups. Generally speaking, calling improv groups and their performances ‘theatre’ is akin to referring to Applebee’s as ‘fine cuisine.’)

One big problem with the way things are done in most smaller to mid-level houses in the Denver/Fort Collins area is that actors are treated as the lowest life-form in the theatre biosphere. We come in for auditions, wide-eyed and hopeful, grateful for any scrap we are tossed, just happy to be cast. And if we are cast, we are brought in as freelance cowboy gunslingers from show to show, expected to devote and donate weeks and weeks and hundreds of hours of our time to put up a show that benefits only the theatre. You may be helping to ‘build a brand,’ in terms of helping a given theatre and director put on a quality show and build an audience, but once the show closes, you get...what? The opportunity to audition again? To go straight to callbacks? To again work for nothing? You as the actor are not truly part of the theatre, not their success nor their failure.

(SIDEBAR: I grant that there is invaluable learning that one absorbs working on any show; that is where I got the bulk of my theatre education, working on shows. But there comes a breakover point where being expected to essentially pay for an education in the form of time and effort is no longer a bargain for the actor.)

After a show closes, we are tossed aside--once we’ve helped with strike, of course--then left in the cold until the next round of auditions, having been sent on our way with a check that usually pays us something on the order of 25 to 50 cents an hour, including time spent rehearsing and learning lines on our own outside of rehearsals.

And of course, we are referred to as ‘family.’

Which is great, don’t get me wrong, and not unappreciated--the family part, that is. But the 'family' designation is also a bit disingenuous; one is 'family' only as long as the show is up. And the truth is it isn’t a sustainable model, not if the true intent is to create not only quality shows, but also a real family, a solid, core group of talented people who will and do and are capable of coming together and putting up consistent, quality shows. If you only pay directors, and costumers, and set designers and administrators anything even remotely approaching what their time is truly worth, then what are you left with?

You are left with actors who are expected to work for nothing.

And of course there is a place for free, unpaid theatre. People can only learn so much from college theatre productions. And I’m not suggesting I or anyone else should or could get rich doing theatre.

But think about this: at the next level, something above community theatre, somewhere where you charge people two or three times the price of a movie ticket to see your shows, why on god’s green earth would you put in all that time and careful effort, spend all that money on sets, design, direction, publicity, and administration--not to mention rent, lights, and insurance--and then completely neglect one of the main pieces of what it takes to put on a truly great show? You’re going to cheap out on the people who are actually going to PERFORM? Why would you scrimp on the last line of contact between your theatre and your audience?

It is insanity.

Because I can tell you from experience, you get what you pay for. Oh, sure, you can get some wonderful performers and performances out of people who will work for nothing. You can and often do. But not always. And not consistently, and never across the board.

So what’s the result? You end up with a board of directors sitting around bitching about how they never get the respect and coverage the larger theatres get. Well, if every other show you put up is great, top-quality and all that, you should be very proud. But if every other show you put up is amateurish because you are using, well, amateurs, because you are too cheap to pay for quality actors, then you have no one but yourself to blame.

And by the way, the money spent on the people who harangue and harass and beg the public for money through email and phone calls and pre-show announcements? Who organize an endless, ongoing string of fundraisers using donated items and donated talent and yet more donated time? You might not have to work so hard at that part if you put up consistent, quality shows. If that were the case, people might be coming to you and offering to help in whatever way they could.

What invariably happens is theatres of this size become temporary lily pads for quality actors who are not only talented but also devoted to doing the work necessary to get better. These smaller theatres chase these actors away, eventually, through not only a paucity of pay, but also through a lack of investment in actors in the form of making them a part of a company, not just treating them as hired guns.

Instead, the theatre must go back to the tedious annual ritual of weeding through the awfulness of open auditions to find the odd unpolished gem on whose back they can ride for a season or two, before he or she too bails out for greener climes.

Hint. At auditions you are not the one holding the leash.

(SIDEBAR 2: I fear I say all this at risk of sounding like an ingrate. Understand: I love and adore many, many people and theatres I’ve worked with. I am not angry, nor am I resentful. I am in fact enormously grateful for the gifts I have been given by people I’ve worked with, as well as those gifts I have discovered within myself through the efforts of people of the theatre and through working on shows. I merely wish to point out that the accepted way of doing things is askew; it’s very weird and twisted when you think about it. And we never look at it as such, we just accept it. Maybe it’s time to think about another way of looking at things.)

If you want to play with the big boys, pay like the big boys. Or at least start approaching the problem from a different and more equitable direction. Treat your actors like something more than meat props, as something easily replaced by the next warm body that comes along that stands at a similar height, has the requisite genitalia, and can remember more than two lines of dialogue at a time while not breathing through his or her mouth. Because the current model does a disservice to everyone: to your actors, your theatre, and your audience alike.

If we can agree that quality and depth and breadth of support for a given theatre is directly related to the quality of the performances they put on, then it follows that said theatres should do whatever they have to do to ensure they get the best performances possible.

We all know you get what you pay for. If you spend all your money on administration and set design, don’t be surprised if that is what you end up with: administrators standing before lovely sets begging half-empty houses for more money on top of the overpriced ticket they just bought to the half-assed show/debacle they are about to witness.

For you will have no one of quality to perform, and your audience will go home disappointed.

Make an investment in your actors. Make them part of something larger than the next show coming down the pike, and I guarantee they will make an investment in you. As will your grateful audiences.

###

theatre heresy

One of my favorite comments that I get from actors I’ve just met who come from a theatre school or theatre grad school background is that my acting is ‘...very naturalistic.’ Or ‘organic.’

Now, I am not so stupid as to miss the underlying intent of comments like these; unsults are hilariously pathetic to me, the product of people so weak and insecure and false that they can’t even come right out and honestly dislike something or someone; they must couch their bitterness and distaste in false praise.

And of course there's truth in these comments, and they are not always meant snottily.

But honestly I always take comments like this about my acting as compliments. To me there’s nothing more painful in the world of the stage than watching someone ‘act-act,’ as they were taught to do by some well-meaning but douchetastically inept instructor.

So when I got David Mamet’s ‘True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor,’ I was deeply gratified to see that Mr. Mamet supports my views and my (admittedly accidental and back-assward) education in the theatre.

I just read nearly the whole thing in a night (and mostly re-read it immediately after I finished it) and I recommend it highly to all my actor friends, and even to anyone remotely interested in what acting and theatre entail. It could even be read as a treatise on what it is to be honest in one’s life, true to oneself and emotionally honest with our fellow humans in a larger sense.

Most people familiar with the man’s work either despise Mamet or worship him; there rarely seems to be a middle ground. But it’s hard to argue with his success: 30 years of writing for the stage, for film and for television, directing, acting, a Pulitzer, Oscar nominations--all of this gives him a unique perspective when it comes to performance and what it takes for an actor to deliver.

And what he does here is burn to the ground a number of sacred cows, starting with theatre education:

'Let me be impolite: most teachers of acting are frauds, and their schools offer nothing other than the right to consider oneself a part of the theatre. Students, of course, need a place to develop. That place is upon the stage. Such a model can and probably will be more painful than a life spent in the studios. But it will instruct. And it is probably finally kinder to the audience to subject them to untutored exuberance than to lifeless and baseless confidence.'

Is that not the shit!?!?!? '...lifeless and baseless confidence...' --only Mamet.

Another:

'Here's what I learned from a lifetime of play-writing: it doesn't matter how you say the lines. What matters is what you mean. What comes from the heart goes to the heart.'

Mamet reflecting the old hip-hop adage, 'Real recognize real.'

And it's true. So many actors feel the need to twist and vocally mangle the words in front of them in order to infuse them with some meaning that simply isn't there. I worked with an actor some time ago who absolutely refused to simply say a very funny playwright's very funny lines as the jokes and punchlines they were intended to be. The result was quirky, indeed, which I'm sure was the intent, but it was also not funny, and not at all genuine.

The result was a person trying very very hard to look more interesting--which is of course self-absorption, which is of course the opposite of acting, which, we are all told all the time is Listening. If you're so busy listening to the sound of your own voice and the funny little kooky quirks you put into it, how can you possibly be listening to anyone else on the stage?

And possibly my favorite quote of all:

'Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.'

More on this later.

the othello project

Here's the press release for 'The Othello Project,' the latest theatre piece I'm working on. It's a wonderfully collaborative piece with a fantastic and fantastically talented cast, but it is no doubt the brainchild of the awesomely talented and wonderful Jennifer McCray Rincon of  Visionbox.

We perform one night only in this incarnation, next Friday the 27th, so I hope you can make it! (FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE...you get the idea. :-)

.

The Othello Project, Phase I
A free multimedia performance event
January 27, 2012, 6-9pm
L2 Arts & Culture Center
1477 Columbine St., Denver 80206

As part of the production, there will be an art show by local artists in the L2 lobby from 6-7pm. At 7pm, in the upper auditorium Visionbox will present The Othello Project, Phase I, excerpts from a new low-friction adaptation of Othello combining Shakespeare’s text and characters with contemporary scenes of Domestic Violence. The production is conceived, adapted and directed by Jennifer McCray Rincon, Executive Artistic Director of Visionbox. Following the performance there will be a talk back with members of the Crime Victims Advisory Council, a unit of the Victim Services Network, part of the Denver District Attorneys Office and the cast and the creators of the project.

Tickets to the show are free.

The material you will see on January 27th is the beginning of a full length production we will present to the public in May 2012. Please be advised that the material contains scenes of graphic violence and is for mature audiences only.

We are also writing to remind you of our January 2012 match grant campaign, initiated by Amber and Mike Fries after our December 8th performance event with Bill Pullman. Amber and Mike Fries have agreed to match every dollar we raise by the end of January up to $50,000. We hope you will consider a donation at this time. No donation is too small...or too big. A contribution of $250 or more will come with 2 free tickets to The Othello Project in May 2012, and a contribution of $5000 or more will include free tickets to all of our 2012 events and VIP parking!

To make a contribution, and for more information about classseswebsite, Visionbox.org, or checks can be made out to CNDC FBO Visionbox and mailed to CNDC 4130 Tejon St., Suite A, Denver, CO 80211. Visionbox is a project of the Colorado Nonprofit Development Center, and contributions to CNDC for the benefit of Visionbox are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

We need your help now to ensure we can bring the excellence and diversity of our programming to as wide a community as possible. Please help us as:

“The Great Work Begins” (Angels in America by Tony Kushner)

Sincerely,
Jennifer McCray Rincon
Executive Artistic Director

acting quotations

Found these at various sites when I was looking for quotes regarding the differences and similarities between stage acting and screen acting. There's a whole crop of younger actors around these days who seem to think that what one does on stage is radically different from what one does on camera, and I just don't think that's true.

Can you act? Can you, as someone besides yourself express emotions, demonstrate desires, go after objectives? This is all acting is. It may be bigger and louder on stage, it may be smaller and more intensive on camera, but it's the same goddamn thing.

To me people who shriek about how much different film acting is are people who don't really know how to act. They have no sense of what acting actually is, and because they sense this paucity or weakness or lack of knowledge or skill in themselves, they react as the insecure always have and always will: they cover it by applying a false superiority to themselves.

In a more generous vein, I would assert that perhaps people who have seen stage actors bomb before the cameras have been subjected to what I would delicately call 'bad acting,' not necessarily 'stage acting.'

Here's some related and unrelated quotes:

"[Human beings] will begin to recover the moment we take art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money." - Ernst Levy

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being." - Oscar Wilde

“Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.”
― David Mamet, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor

“Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit.”
― David Mamet, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor

“All drama is about lies. All drama is about something that’s hidden. A drama starts because a situation becomes imbalanced by a lie. The lie may be something we tell each other or something we think about ourselves, but the lie imbalances a situation. If you’re cheating on your wife the repression of that puts things out of balance; or if you’re someone you think you’re not, and you think you should be further ahead in your job, that neurotic vision takes over your life and you’re plagued by it until you’re cleansed. At the end of a play the lie is revealed. The better the play the more surprising and inevitable the lie is. Aristotle told us this.” ― David Mamet

"The articulate, trained voice is more distracting than mere noise." - Seneca

"Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part." - William Hazlitt

"In theatre, I have been able to take parts I didn`t think I could do - you have time to rehearse and learn. In movies, they want you to do what they know you can do - there isn`t the time." --Ian McKellan

The Lion in Winter

What an incredible week-plus. Just back in Denver for a few days following ten days of intensive theatre doing ‘The Lion in Winter’ at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts with Thingamajig Theatre Company. Seven days of that was prep for the three performances we did this past weekend, all of which were incredible--even, eventually, the Sunday matinee to cap off ten straight days of exhaustion and immersion in this monster.

Me and Anna Hershey as King Henry II and Princess Alais. My, what big, furry shoulders you have, your majesty...

It was an incredible weekend especially considering the radically reduced rehearsal time-frame. Pat Payne, the director figures we put in close to 60 hours of rehearsal in just 7 days.

What an incredible group of people to work with too.

Imagine taking nine people you don’t know--or, to be fair, of whom there are several individual connections, but who as a group have never worked together before--and trusting them to put together a show as complex and emotionally raw as ‘The Lion in Winter’ from top to bottom in just seven days' time.

If you’re not familiar with the play, do yourself a favor and watch the multiple-Oscar wining 1966 film version, starring Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole; it is incredible. It joins the uber-dysfunctional family of King Henry II for Christmas, 1183-style. But this is no holly-jolly Christmas, believe me.

The set of 'The Lion in Winter.'

Pagosa Springs has an a amazing facility, with LED lights and a huge, beautiful lobby that doubles as an art gallery/reception hall.

The emotional roller-coaster this man and his family go through in 24 hours is frankly brutal to portray. From the final scene of Act One through the end of the play, I (as Henry) get to disown my three sons in a tearful shriek (‘Goddamn you!!’) get told off by Queen Eleanor (who I have kept imprisoned for a decade) nearly lose my lover Alais, narrowly escape death myself and nearly commit murder.

It’s a crazy ride. We are getting great houses and a tremendous response to what we’re putting out there. Tons of audience tears flowing by the end, which I always take as a good sign (in theatre, not in relationships, haha, although the latter seems to occur more often. :)

Anyway, the Pagosa Springs local talent have been peerless in their welcome of us Denver peeps. I’ve been staying at a house that the theater owners Tim and Laura Moore bought (Tim also plays my son Richard). It’s less than a mile to the theater, and has a roof, heat, and a cold Beer Storage Unit...what’s the name for that thing? Oh yeah, a refrigerator. And that is mostly all I need. I go running at a reservoir connected with Pagosa Lake a mile or so away from the house, and the town and surrounding countryside are gorgeous and have been mostly sunny, even in winter.

Myself, David Trudeau and Robin Hebert (they are playing King Phillip of France and Henry’s son Geoffrey, respectively) have had a great time there, and I’m looking forward to more fun as well as another two weekends of shows after Thanksgiving. The show, even over the course of just one weekend so far, has grown tremendously, and I look forward to seeing what we are able to do once it has sunk into our bones even more.

Anyway. Wanted to decompress some of that, so thanks for indulging me. Please come down if you can; you won’t be disappointed. The set and costumes are rented from the Arvada Center’s production of the show, and reflect the nearly $100,000 budget they had for such things.

Aside from that, there is a great deal of talent on that stage, a great deal of honest, genuine emotion, and the show is well worth the drive.

Bonus: You can crash at 'my place' when you come down--just stay the hell away from my Beer Storage Unit. :)

ADDENDUM: Oh yeah, the damn hot springs are AWESOME! How could I forget our late-night adventure at the springs on Friday after the show? After all, it is called Pagosa SPRINGS for a reason...Nothing like frost on the handrails and ice on the paths as you soak in a steaming, 107-degree, sulfur-infused pool. I believe all theaters should attempt to replicate this. Hot tubs for all actors! It's my new crusade! :)

the lion in winter, in winter

Theatre: The Adventure Continues

Well, some of you may have noticed that I dropped off the face of the earth to some degree during and after Grapes of Wrath (we closed on October 30). I’ve had personal issues but also that show took a lot more out of me emotionally than I thought it would. Trying to not only play my part, but also help keep the trains running on time with a cast of, what, 26 (or was it 60? 237? 9337? I lost track...) was a chore in itself.

At any rate, I was totally down for some well-deserved time off afterward when I got a text from director and ubiquitous theatre-gnome-about-town Pat Payne. “I may have a gig for you. Call me.”

Now Pat and I have very nearly worked together several times, but up until now, the gods of the muse saw fit to put us elsewhere when push came to shove. In this case, though, he was offering me the role of King Henry II in “The Lion in Winter.”

For those of you who haven’t seen the film version of this, get the Oscar-winning 1966 Peter O’Toole/Katherine Hepburn version. It is amazing, both the script and the acting (of course.) The emotional journeys of these people as well as the verbal chess game/sparring match among one of the most dysfunctional royal families in history is epic to witness when done properly.


That's me. I've aged horribly. And grown back a bunch of hair.

And me being the theatre whore I am, how could I say no? especially when considering that the company putting on the show is Thingamajig Theatre Company in Pagosa Springs. They have artist housing, and so I’m getting a mini-vacation of sorts (strictly a working vacation, as you’ll see) up in the mountains while getting to perform one of the all-time iconic roles of theatre history.

I’m excited but also a bit apprehensive, however, as we are doing this on a quick turnaround timeframe: I’m driving up today for our first night of rehearsal and we open next Friday.

A week from tomorrow.

I’m supposed to be off-book (real close! Real, real close!) but even with the rest of the Pagosa-based cast having already begun work, I anticipate a hard, long climb to get where we need to be for next (fucking!) Friday.

Still, I’m mostly excited for a new adventure. Look for updates here and on FB.

And don’t wish me luck--say break a leg.

Your boy-correspondent,

kjb

fuck yeah, thespian peacock

This is one of my new favorite sites, Fuck Yeah, Thespian Peacock. This theatre girl (Maya, I think is her name, in Maryland??) saw the meme world, with Foul Bachelor Frog, and Socially Awkward Penguin (see below),





And as a typically shy, quiet, wallflower type of a theatre person, she decided to make up her own meme, Thespian Peacock. Also typical of theatre people, she chose a shy, not at all flashy animal as her meme.

It may not have the broad appeal of some memes, but nonetheless, the result is hilarious, especially but not only for theatre nerd and their friends. Here's a few faves but check out her blog for many, many more.

headshot final finalists

Opinions welcome!

The Who's Tommy

Here's my latest review from the Post.

I hope I made it clear how much fun I had; it was just frustrating that the sound person had the vocal mics set where the band's volume should have been. They clipped and cut out constantly, whereas the band was way way to quiet. (They cut my point about just HOW LOUD the vocal mics were from the piece, but just trust me.)

At any rate, had a great time both at the show and in Dillon. That fucking lake-- I could live right there, in a tent on the shore.

At least until October or so.

THE WHO'S TOMMY

It was the 1960s, after all.

For a small slice of just how ridiculous — or magical, depending on your perspective — that era was, try to imagine the pitch meeting for The Who's rock opera "Tommy" had it been written today:

"Well, there's this kid who sees something traumatic, right? And he goes catatonic as a result. Eventually, he recovers by smashing a mirror then becoming a world- class pinball player and quasi-savior."

Ooo-kay . . .

But as is known to anyone who appreciates the original album or even the ultra- weird film version (starring Ann-Margret, Elton John and Jack Nicholson — it was the 1970s, after all), there is an understanding that Pete Townshend and the Who, at the height of their powers, were not subject to the usual rules of storytelling.

Lake Dillon Theatre boldly brings the sprawling, reworked 1994 show, "The Who's 'Tommy,' " to its postage-stamp stage, seeming to embrace that lack of cohesion, taking the audience on a whirlwind trip through the looking glass.

The sense of events being completely out of deaf, dumb and blind Tommy's control is the show's real strength. Keeping us off-balance under the rapid-fire succession of scene changes and shifts in tone seems to be director Chris Alleman's goal here, and largely, he succeeds.

Some liberties have been taken in Act 1 with how the timelines of young Tommy (Alex Anderson) and older Tommy (Josh T. Smith) cross, and how they interact with each other, but it works. Somehow, both characters' experiences make more sense as viewed through the lenses of memory or premonition. It's a way to show that we are all, in a way, trapped in a younger version of ourselves.

And there are some fine performances here — Smith as adult Tommy is a riveting messiah, and his interactions with Anderson as his younger self are poignant.

As Mrs. Walker, Amy Jo Jackson brings a human warmth to a troubled woman. Michael Jayne Walker as Cousin Kevin delights in a joyful wickedness during his torment of Tommy, and Brett Michael Wilson as perverted Uncle Ernie is a greasy, twisted loon who would make Keith Moon proud.

Often lost in talking about the music of the Who, amid the detritus of Townshend's smashed guitars and Moon's jet-engine drumming, is that the band composed and performed astounding four-part harmonies. Lake Dillon's company does justice to that tradition.

That said, this is rock 'n' roll, damn it. Even with the understanding that it isn't the Who performing, the music must, by definition, rock. The offstage band was mostly capable, but almost everything it played seemed tentative in terms of volume, as well as tempo, as though it was afraid of overwhelming the singers. (Which would have been impossible: the vocal mics were almost universally too loud.)

The band needed to be louder. Much louder. The music of the Who — even the theatrical version of it — should be a freight train threatening to crush all in its path.

And that's tragic, because the show's potential was apparent in not only the individual performances but also in the cleverness of the scene changes, the swooping, vertiginous sensation of time and events taking over and pushing everyone into their next phase.

Still, for a fun retro-ride, the show is worth the drive to the mountains — there are many glimpses of beauty and power and rage and loss. It's just too bad its potential hasn't fully been reached.

"The Who's 'Tommy' " ** 1/2 (out of four stars)

The Lake Dillon Theatre Company, 146 Lake Dillon Drive. Directed by Chris Alleman. Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend. Saturday-Aug. 28. 1 hour, 45 minutes. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $15-$29. 970-513-9386 or lakedillontheatre.org

little shop review

Hey all--
As many of you may know, my life has been extra-extra crazy lately because I’ve been moving and also opening a show. I have been neglectful of friends and fam, methinks, but hopefully I can earn forgiveness at some point, and maybe a little empathy.

Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself! Far from it: doing Little Shop has thus far proven to be one of the most fun and educational experiences of my theatrical career. My castmates and director have been amazingly helpful and they have welcomed me with open arms to the Equinox family.

And the hard work is paying off--here’s another amazing review from Father Patrick Dorn. Industry night tomorrow (Monday 6.6--pay what you can--7:30 curtain--more info follows).

Hope you can make it!


Equinox Theatre Company's production of "Little Shop of Horrors" plays through June 18 at the historic and quirky Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo Street, Denver. Tickets are $12-$15. Call 720-984-0781 or visit www.equinoxtheatredenver.com for information or to purchase tickets.

That's me with the beehive on the left.

Okay. No it isn't.

The Vagrant

Here's another review of mine in the Post, for Dangerous Theatre's 'The Vagrant.' Full text follows below.

"The Vagrant" is an unusual play about a homeless man, played by Winter Maza, who chooses to live on the streets. (Provided by Dangerous Theatre)

Despite some clunkiness here and there--a couple of the smaller roles were played by people who seemed to have very little experience, or at least to have been given poor direction--it was a truly moving show. I'm always fascinated by playwrights and screenwriters and authors who can make you feel without seeming manipulative. There are far too many films and plays that prey on your emotions rather than bring them out honestly. I'm hard-pressed right now to define the difference; it's one of those 'I know it when I see it things.'

But in any case, 'The Vagrant' connected without being cloying.


THE VAGRANT
3 stars
running time 1:32

If you still don’t believe reports that the decelerating engine of American Empire is forcing people out of their houses, drive down Park Avenue West past the shelters sometime. Just a few blocks from Coors Field, that towering edifice of triumphal capitalism, you will see fifty, perhaps a hundred people spilling out into the street every evening as they queue up just hoping for a chance to sleep inside.

But that crowd is more than a faceless, amorphous blob. It is a demographic composed of individuals who have stories very much like our own. They have parents and siblings and sons and daughters; very likely, they once had a roof over their heads too.

And while there are complicated and overlapping issues coloring any honest discussion of homelessness--mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse, perpetual funding shortfalls--perhaps the most maddening of all is our lack of empathy toward those whom we as a society have deemed invisible.

Dangerous Theatre’s show “The Vagrant” seeks to address this, to re-humanize the problem of homelessness.

Enter Lenny, played by Winter Maza. He appears to be a jolly street-philosopher, taking homelessness as a sort of carnival act, cadging lunch from hapless hot dog man Rodney (Steve Towbin) through his gift of gab.

Soon we meet Lenny’s friend Maggie (Winnie Wenglewick), a grumpy, bag-toting sort who is perhaps not so high-functioning as Lenny. He reminds her to take her heart medicine, and gently pulls her back to reality when she rants about Shriners being aliens in disguise.

In an jarring moment during her entrance, Maggie turns the tables on the audience: she stares out hard and tells Lenny, “The bastards are back again, looking at you with their beady little eyes.”

It’s discomfiting to be among those on display, to have the luxury of privacy revoked even for a few seconds--a luxury the homeless never enjoy.

Lenny is soon visited at his park bench by John (Alexander Wu) and Rachel (Norrell Moore) a pair of young, struggling stockbrokers. When Lenny offers them a few stock tips resulting in better-than-expected gains, the pair are intrigued by this enigmatic man and drawn in different ways into his story.

Rachel is the personification of the argument against helping any individual homeless person: the problem is too great; I have my own problems, etc. She embodies unabashed selfishness, the dimwitted Randian mantra that greed is the only possible good, or even the only possibility for human behavior at all.

But Moore also manages to show us another, nastier component of this argument: there is an unspoken assumption buried within this philosophy that anyone less fortunate than ourselves probably only got what they deserved. Moore shows tremendous poise and grace as she plays out these multiple yet intersecting levels, which, in a less-skilled actor’s hands, could easily be shrill or overly simplistic.

Alexander Wu as John is the kinder, gentler counter to Rachel’s heartlessness, reaching out to Lenny and showing a compassion that is rare when the more fortunate are forced to deal with the homeless face to face. Wu infuses John with a bemused warmth, an instinctively human desire to help, to understand.

At the heart of the story though is Lenny, played by Winter Maza. His sonorous baritone voice calmly cuts through others’ self-delusions; he alternately laughs and cries, feels sorry for himself and empathizes with others. He cajoles, entreats, and raves. It is a beautiful performance marred only by rare occasions when actor momentarily seems disconnected from character.

Despite some supporting characters that are clunky at best and a couple of odd directorial choices, this is a moving, honest show that pulls at one’s emotions without being cloying or overly manipulative.

It may be an old saw that we’re all just two paychecks away from joining the ranks of the homeless, but in these times it might behoove us to remember that they are people too, flawed, fallible, imperfect people--just like us.
###

Little Shop opens tonight

Welp, it has been a helluva month (two months? three? seven?) working out the kinks in Little Shop, but tonight's the night we finally see how people like it. It has been wonderful working with Colin Roybal, Deb Flomberg and the entire cast. It is a great, fun group of people and an immensely talented bunch of singer/actors. There are layers and levels and tweaks and twitches in each character that I never would have imagined back when we first started walking through this.

To me, the biggest difference in working on a musical versus a straight play (insert musical theatre/homosexuality joke here) ) ((haha, he said 'insert,' haha)) is that, while there is of course somewhat less depth to the characters in a musical, that doesn't mean it's any easier than doing a Serious Drama.

That is to say, it is true that in order to be effective as an actor--at least for an emotional train wreck like myself--I have to struggle with someone like Dr. Dysart from 'Equus' or Roy Cohn from 'Angels' in order to tease out every nuance of his motivations and the layers of his past. It is a challenge and raw, emotional, exhausting work scraping the veneer off the various internal engines that drive these characters, in order to attempt in some small way to honestly expose the truth of them without being obvious or false about it.

And while musical theatre characters may not have, ahem, quite so much depth to them, I'm finding that the challenge is equally intense, at least for a noob like me.

Of course you have to find a way to play a character during your spoken parts, remembering your lines and characterization, just like in a straight play. But you also have to remember song lyrics, listen for musical cues, go off the band even when you're not quite on the same page as them--not to mention singing on key--and remember and execute movement (I dare not call what I'm doing 'dancing' for fear of causing actual dancers to rise up en masse and burn me at the barre in a fit of--no doubt graceful--rage).

Essentially you have to spin plates, juggle, recite the Gettysburg Address and do a little Rockettes dance number all at once, while staying ever-so-intense--yet casual--about the whole thing.

Our Divas: Kansas, Chachi and Celia, spinning plates, juggling and looking fabulous all at once.

So I admit it: I have a much greater respect for musical theatre actors than I did going into this thing. The two types of theatre, while posing different challenges, are, to me, equally difficult.

Looking forward to playing for an audience tonight. Hope you can make it! Info follows.

May 27 through June 18
Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30
At The Bug Theatre 3654 Navajo Street
Free Parking
Tickets: $15 for Adults or $12 for Students/Seniors! 720-984-0781

the lady with all the answers

Here's my latest review for the Denver Post on "The Lady With All the Answers," playing at the Arvada Center.

Alex Ryer as Ann Landers. Via the Denver Post.

I suffered doubts because I wasn't sure if I was being too harsh simply because it isn't really a show for me. The show is set in 1975 and she gives lots of advice to lovelorn married people of that era, going back as far as her beginning as a columnist in 1955. The concerns of aging suburbanites in fading marriages are not exactly my wheelhouse.

But as I reflected on it, I think I'm right in that there just isn't a lot of substance to the play, certainly not a lot of dramatic tension. Even for older folks who are more in tune with the Ann Landers oeuvre, with her whole midwestern, matronly vibe, it had to feel somehow unsatisfying to walk out of there after nearly two hours consisting of small tidbits of emotion, slathered over with huge dollops of filler.

At any rate. Here's the piece in full or go here if you'd prefer to leave a nasty comment on the Post site. :) And if you read this, thanks to whoever followed up the original commenter on my 'Howl' piece with a comment for that angry gentleman. :D

THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS

2 ½ STARS

RUNNING TIME: 1:50

Writers have long been fascinated with writing stories about the writer’s life.

For some reason.

Knowing writers, it’s likely that the day a hominid first put a piece of charcoal to the wall of his cave and scratched out the very first rudimentary letters, he was jotting down ideas for a screenplay about his quirky experiences as a writer.

Of course, if one assumes a writer is actually performing the activity by which he has named himself with any kind of regularity, that life might not be terribly dramatic.

Enter “The Lady With All the Answers,” a play about Eppie Lederer, better known as advice columnist Ann Landers. Performed at the Arvada Center by Alex Ryer with a Midwestern, homey charm, Landers welcomes us into her apartment on a night in 1975 as she is attempting to write the most difficult column of her life--perhaps not the most potentially action-packed scenario around which to build a play.

But the column promises to be a doozy: in it she must announce to her readers that, after two decades of advising married couples to stick it out no matter what, her own divorce from her husband of 36 years is imminent.

As a writer, naturally the first thing she does is procrastinate, nibbling chocolates, taking informal surveys of the audience, playing records, and sharing some of her favorite letters as she prepares them for an upcoming book.

Unsurprisingly, it is these letters that make up the bulk of the show, as they are the entire reason for us--or her, for that matter--to be here at all. A few of the other activities and asides in which she indulges seem a little forced, a little too obviously filler to stretch this thing out to a full-length play instead of the one-act to which it could easily have been condensed.

Regardless, this Ann Landers does indeed have all the answers. Given all her perfectly-crafted responses to letter-writers as well as the bon mots she tells us she delivered in person to the famous and powerful people she knew, one wonders if writing this particular column might have been the first time this woman ever encountered self-doubt.

But there is no denying Lederer had verve, as well as a cheerful strain of chutzpah. According to David Rambo’s script, when it came to dealing with those who stood in her way, she wouldn’t so much stare them down as she would wear them down with her relentless ebullience.

For instance, as far back as 1967 she cajoled President Johnson into allowing her to visit the troops in Vietnam, and went on to personally place 2,500 phone calls to relatives and loved ones on behalf of soldiers laid up in the hospital. She championed the rights of homosexuals long before it was remotely popular to do so, and she spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to get the National Cancer Act passed.

Of course Landers’ heyday was a time when people did things like read newspapers and even write letters on actual paper, so there is a demographic toward which the show is undoubtedly aimed. But regardless of one’s age, the stories are often genuinely moving--not only the ones about her troubled letter-writers but also her personal stories.

Nonetheless, as sweet as some of the anecdotes are, and as charmingly as Ryer wears Landers’ bouffant and pantsuits, there just isn’t much there there. The play isn’t so much a play as it is an excuse to string together some of Landers’ best letters and her pithy responses to them.

And while Ryer does a fine job of spraying the audience with the firehose of Landers’ inexorable enthusiasm as well as sharing her more heartfelt moments, Rambo’s script gives her very little to work with.

Perhaps, like people who find that life changes based on glib advice from a stranger often don’t last, audiences may ultimately find that the show rings a bit hollow.

###

3.21.11

Jose Zuniga and me. I'm the one leering demonically.

3.21.11

Just shaved my beard and head following my furry stint as psychiatrist Martin Dysart in ‘Equus.’ It’s strange how liberated and free and alive I feel today, and not just due to of the relief of getting rid of all that hair. I should be exhausted; it was an incredibly long week with much theatrical carousing--both standard and long-form--not to mention an added matinee on Saturday. But instead I was up at 8:30 a.m. which is utterly ridiculous. (I haven’t been up that early in a looooong time. It doesn’t count if you’re up all night.)

Instead, here I am, Monday morning, going to the store (it helps my motivation that I was out of coffee) doing laundry, accomplishing things, piecing my life back together after so many weeks of tearing up and down I-25, living out of my backpack. It’s spring, and I feel reborn in that anticipatory early-morning way, like when you’re a kid on the first nice Saturday morning of the year, and the whole weekend opens up before you as you leave the house after breakfast. You can smell summer coming even though there’s still a bit of a chill in the air; the cruel winter gods have been laid to rest for another year.

And goddammit, I want to ride my bicycle.

Of course, there is always a bittersweet sense of newfound freedom when a show ends, a feeling of sadness and simultaneous joy, and perhaps a dose of saudade, that nostalgic feeling of sweetness and loss.

But with this particular character, I feel somehow as if I was carrying around a lot more ennui and self-doubt and angst than I was even aware of. Dysart is such a sad, broken person, truly a man without any hope, suffering the quintessential 1970s existential crisis, an utterly lost soul.

Now, with any character, some of it gets on you. And some of you gets on them. Smarter people than I am say that you can’t play a character--not genuinely, not with true heart and spirit--without there being at least some sliver of that character already in your psyche, some part of you that you can relate to the character’s life and outlook.

And certainly I am no sunny optimist; I definitely go through dark times of doom and gloom, probably more so than many.

But this guy, this fucking Dysart guy, I realize today, rubbing the stubble on my head and watching the sun coming in the window, this guy drained me. Going to a place of despair--utter, bleak, impossible despair, completely desperate hopelessness--doing that every night took more out of me than I realized. The tears after the final show were cleansing somehow, a rebirth, appropriately on the first day of spring.

However, I am not bitching, believe me. I am so happy I did this show. Craig and the entire cast were amazing; we all really functioned cohesively--seeming to be one unit, as an audience member said at a talkback. And my thanks go out to Zuni in particular, Jose Zuniga, who played Alan. He’s one of those fully committed, fully natural actors who--with such ease and grace you want to rip their heads off--raise the bar and force you to take your game to the next level. Go big or go home. And I think playing Dysart opposite him really brought out a lot of unexpected levels in not only my acting, but also in my own emotional life.

That is one of the secrets actors are reluctant to tell you: on some level we get to not only play these people on stage, we get to become them. And not just during the show or during the run, but afterward as well.

The obvious--and correct--answer for why people act is, of course, we’re attention whores. Any actor who says he is not an attention whore is, well, acting when he tells you that.

We’re the perpetual middle children of life, jumping desperately in front of our siblings, raising our voices to ridiculous levels in even the most staid setting. We’re the gabby, cackling douchebags at the next table in an otherwise quiet restaurant; we're the loud laughers at the funeral home. Of course we get off on the adrenaline rush of performing, and the attention, and the applause.

But the secret, other answer for why we act is you also get to take home parts of those characters. Things your characters learn--or at least things they should have learned--can teach you and inform you and carry forward in your own life, if you’re open to them.

Dysart’s angst and bitter disappointment with the world he created for himself will wash away. They are washing away already.

But his compassion I get to keep, at least as much of it as will fit in my desiccated, black soul. :D

If I could paraphrase Dysart here, he is essentially saying to Alan: We’re all fucked up, kiddo, the whole goddamn human race. I can’t tell you why we’re so fucked up, or why we’re here, or what kind of fucked-up, evil god would create such a fucked-up, evil species.

But I can tell you there is no ‘normal’ here. This bus don’t go to ‘normal,’ baby. We go to Wackville, and North Nutbar, and probably Crackton, but we don’t go to Normal.

And what’s important, what keeps us human, you and I, we outsiders, we the daring and the different and the weird and the free, and what disallows the machine to take away our souls is realizing this about our fellow humans: they’re all just as fucked up inside as we are.

In order to remain human we must fight, every day to feel compassion for our fellow humans. We must make a conscious effort to do so, even as we and they struggle to make some sense of this fucked-up world, even as angry and frustrated and hopeless as our fellow humans make us feel sometimes.

For if we do not, if we allow our hearts to shut down, then we become part of the machine ourselves. We become dead, eyeless cogs in this clunky, wheezing contraption, complicit not only in our own slow deaths but also in propping up this dying empire where we are told everyone is meant to be alone, wrapped up in the cold arms of the machine, where only things are meant to bring some hollow joy, things that the machine is only too happy to sell you, offering some short-term remedy for your pain and loneliness and your sense that you are the only one who is fucked up, a remedy that will quickly fade, until the next thing comes along and you buy that as well.

And so on.

Compassion is the gift Dysart has given me.

I hope I can hang onto it. I hope I am worthy of it.

And I hope in some small way I have given a form of that gift to you as well.

kjb

oh, hell no

And if you refuse, the cast will insert said bassoon somewhere extremely unmusical.

via via

wm. shakes review

Got a great review from Stacy Nick in the Coloradoan yesterday for 'Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)' so we're looking to be selling more tix. Quoth Ms. Nick:

Next up, the play goes after perhaps Shakespeare's bloodiest play, "Titus Andronicus." The basic plot of the actual tale: When the emperor's daughter is raped, he cuts off the head of the rapist, cooks it into a pie and serves it to the rapist's mother. "Shakespeare" converts the story into a hysterical Julia Child-style cooking show.

If you find this in poor taste, you may be out of luck with this show. As Reeves notes after the cast raps its way through "Othello": "That was unsurprisingly offensive."

Come down and check it out! You've got three (very) white boys rapping, and what could be funnier than dudes dressing up like chicks?

Nothing. That is near the top of the comedy food chain, just edging out poop jokes, dick jokes, and fart jokes.

Oh, wait. Boob jokes are number one. Those will always rule.

Brooks Reeves as Romeo.

info:

Runs
January 7, 2011
TO
February 13, 2011
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.

Matinees (2PM):
February 6, 2011
January 16, 2011
January 23, 2011
January 30, 2011
February 13, 2011
Thursday:
January 20, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

Location
Masonic Temple : Proscenium
225 West Oak Street
Fort Collins

Tickets
Buy Tickets Online
Ticket Info
Box Office : 970-221-6730

wm. shakes abridged

Had a great student/preview night for 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)' last night, and really looking forward to opening tonight. What an amazing difference it is having an audience, especially for a show like this that is based on sight gags and lots of frenzied humor. No matter who the director/AD/tech people are who watch you throughout the rehearsal process, the 18th time you've seen the same joke, it's a little tough to laugh.


And the other amazing thing I can never get over in theatre is how different the energy is when the audience is with you. It seems either trite, or all hippy-dippy, depending on my viewpoint, but the people in the room with you when you're performing change the show in some fundamental way.

Anyway, hoping to see lots of people tonight for opening! Wear your shakespearean tights for a special discount. ;)



Relevant info follows:

Runs
January 7, 2011
TO
February 13, 2011
Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.

Matinees (2PM):
February 6, 2011
January 16, 2011
January 23, 2011
January 30, 2011
February 13, 2011
Thursday:
January 20, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

Location
Masonic Temple : Proscenium
225 West Oak Street
Fort Collins

Tickets
Buy Tickets Online
Ticket Info
Box Office : 970-221-6730