Summer Studio Week 2

Hi, everyone!

Liz here again. We had a great first week with our strong group of students at Summer Studio. There are so many highlights, I'm not sure where to begin. One piece that was especially exciting for the group to work on was "Mama Who Bore Me" from Spring Awakening. At one point, Ben (New Rep Summer Studio, Musical Director) referred to them as a "choir of angels" singing -- which was an apt comparison. The group is also interested in looking at some of the original Bill T Jones choreography, so Wendy (New Rep Summer Studio, Choreographer) is looking into recreating some of his signature swirly moves. We also worked on "Invocation and Instructions to the Audience" from Frogs, which stretches our comic acting skills. Our facial muscle isolations and work on focal points are coming in handy -- and the group is seeing that Nathan Lane was not built in a day!

On Friday, we worked on monologues, which can be daunting and intense, especially on a sunny Friday summer afternoon. They dove right in, analyzing text for salient words, establishing objectives, and creating a physical life for their characters. It truly wowed me that their early work was so rich and their readings so expressive and natural. (On a practical note, I'm glad they'll be able to rock upcoming auditions with this new material.)

Oh, and how could I forget our new best friend Maurice Parent?! Part of the New Rep’s cast of Ragtime, Wild Party, and Cabaret, funny and charming Maurice came to chat with us about his life as a working actor and creating the role of black in Wild Party, whose music and original text we had sampled earlier in the day.

This morning, I'm watching Wendy give a technique class, and wishing more schools would have formal dance instruction as part of their arts curriculum so teens could have great teachers like Wendy. (There, I said it. Write your school boards!) Later today, each student will show a piece of their own choreography they created this weekend as "homework." One student told me this morning that she's done a production number and we each have a part. I guess I'd better go stretch!

King Lear

Let me try, from memory and a few notes, conclude my comments on the week, concentrating on our day in Stratford on Thursday through our departure Sunday morning.

I won’t follow chronology exactly because in an earlier blog, written on Saturday, I shared some observations of our encounter at tea on Friday with Tristam (!) who played Peter’s role in A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH, but otherwise ignored events of Thursday and Friday.

We were well prepared for this year’s Lear thanks to an ingratiating visit with Jonathan Hyde (“Kent”) before the performance. I found that meeting him (he and all of the persons who addressed our group were riveting in style – they all spoke at times directly to each of our group – as well as substance, but Jonathan was perhaps the most engaging) particularly fortuitous. Of course, the play casts its heroes and villains without much subtlety, but I found that after meeting “Kent” I had a clear rooting interest; I cared less, alas for Lear than I did for Kent. Alas, neither audience nor chance were asked to rewrite the ending. I took away from our visit to Stratford:

· Shakespeare was reared by an upcoming, ambitious father and may not have been quite the country bumpkin (that seems a word taken from Shakespeare) the Oxfordians portray him as. Carolyn, incidentally, has more to say to support the notion that Shakespeare did, in fact, write what he is credited for.

· The type of stage influences the production. Here, in the temporary theater which the town insists self-destructs in five years, the thrust into the audience added greatly to entrances and retreats, involved the audience frequently, but also interrupted sight lines.

· Even at the Vatican of Shakespeareana, cutting a play is allowed and, as we learned, costuming choices abound.

· The recordings of great speeches at the Globe made clear that readings vary tremendously and that emphases sometime accord with timebound styles.

· If you want to see the actors after the performance, the Dirty Dog is the place to be. (Query: is there a place to which they go to drink BEFORE the performance?)

· The return of Frances Barber as Goneril was not matched with any acting pyrotechnics. Indeed, her previously repressed younger sister, Regan, physically demonstrated a blood-thirstiness at Gloucester’s blinding that was, for me, the most notable aspect of the production, eclipsing even Lear’s brief nudity. I was reminded of the appalling savagery of some our troops during the hazing and humiliating of prisoners at Abu Gharib. How civilized are any of us when faced with the humiliation of enemies? Do we not have to remind ourselves of our common humanity whenever tempted to extol our schaudenfreude? (There’s a good chance that at least one of you will correct my German spelling.)

Quite rightly, so much of our language and, more important, our metaphors stem from the Bard of Avon. It was a privilege, on the same trip, to visit both the Globe and Stratford and to find Shakespeare as living theater.

- Bill

Photo Shoot Results

Leigh Barrett as Madeline True.











Todd Alan Johnson (Burrs), Marla Mindelle (Queenie), and Maurice E. Parent (Black)

Rehearsals for Bill W. and Dr. Bob

Well....we just finished our first two weeks of rehearsal here in New York, and it's been wonderful getting back into it with this great cast. The authors, Stephen Bergman and Janet Surrey, and I worked on a revised draft of the play after the New Rep production was over last Spring, and we've gone on now in the first two weeks to continue to make even more changes. Little word changes, line trims, and rewrites continue to make the show tighter and clearer every day. It's both fun and a little strange to be back in New York after so many years of working in Boston. Rachel and I are even living in an apartment in Brooklyn, the borough in which I was born and raised. We so miss our home, though. I'll get to be back in Boston in about four more weeks, but Rachel may be here as long as 7 months if the show is successful and continues to run.

We had our first run-thru yesterday in the rehearsal hall, and it went quite well, all things considered. These runs are sometimes called "stumble-throughs", because that's the way they usually go, but this one was a pretty tight affair. I know it has helped a great deal that the actors did the show a little less than a year ago. Even though we are working with a completely different set, and I've thoroughly changed the staging, their familiarity with these characters is making the work go very smoothly.

We had a very special research experience this past week when we were special guests at Stepping Stones, the home of Bill and Lois Wilson about 45 minutes north of the city. It's now run by a foundation, and we were given a tour by the Executive Director, as well as access to all the Bill, Lois, Bob and Anne correspondence in their archives. It was incredibly enlightening for all of us, and a nice break from the rehearsal hall for a few hours. The actors discovered all sorts of interesting little nuances about their characters from the private letters, and I'm sure this knowledge will alter some of their moments on stage in unexpected ways.

This week, we'll spend our last few days in the rehearsal hall, which is in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. Saturday will be our first day on the stage at New World Stages, where our lights and scenery are beginning to be loaded in today. This will be a very busy week, as our preparations for the first preview on the 16th really start to take on momentum.

More soon!

Rick