Humanity 101
Last night, we had the first session of an Intro to Acting workshop at Sing Sing. It was supposed to be for the men new to our program, but in the event, we had a nice mix of veterans and newbies, 15 men in total.
I was leading a Patsy…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Harley Granville Barker, a director, Shakespeare scholar and clever redhead, wrote, “Let us humbly own how hard it is not to write nonsense about art.” He wrote this in his preface to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is a kind of nonsense that becomes art. In no particular order, A…
Law & Order: Denmark
Last night, we put Claudius on trial.
Miching mallecho
If you’ve been reading my blog or following me on Twitter, you probably know that I’m teaching a Shakespeare workshop at Sing Sing Correctional Facility this autumn, that the men were curious but deeply skeptical about Shakespeare when we began. A…
Nay, answer me
I’m sitting in a run-down classroom as the sun slowly sets on the other side of the Hudson River. The windows are threaded with metal, and there are metal grates on the outside of the glass. Every so often, a corrections officer walks past the door. Twelve men sit with…
Putting it together
Bit by bit
“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” — Knute Rockne
How many hours each week are you working on your dream? I don’t ask how many hours you temp or wait…
And I have found Midsummer, like a jewel …
I just finished an exhilarating, thrilling, grueling and very fun rehearsal process, directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the American Shakespeare Center. There was no opening night. At least, not yet. My production comprises one-third of the 2011-2012 Almost Blasphemy Tour, and the day after our second dress rehearsal for…
Gimme five
Once upon a time, when I was a little baby director, an artistic director asked me to name five playwrights whose work I particularly admired. Because I wasn’t prepared, and probably also because I was a little baby director, my mind went blanker than Peter Brook’s empty space and I…
Behind the scenes, behind bars
I used to imagine that incarcerated actors would have no schedule conflicts. That they would be available to rehearse at any time. That they don’t have anything else to do. I was as wrong as I could be. I marvel at how busy the men who participate in Rehabilitation…
… like you were walking onto a yacht …
You probably think this post is about you, don’t you?
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Last Thursday and Friday, I was casting a show that I’ll direct in June. The artistic director of the theatre and I were working with two capable, consummately professional casting directors.…
Friday night fights
Two weeks ago, I started a fight at Sing Sing.
If you don’t know Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts, there is a sprawling, protracted, chock-full-o-storytelling unarmed fight between two characters late in the second act. I was apprehensive about staging the fight because, in the playwright’s stage direction, “It goes through…
Listen to a silenced voice
I have tasked my assistant director on Superior Donuts at Sing Sing with keeping a rehearsal journal; if we were working at a theatre outside the prison’s walls, he might be writing blog posts for the company’s website regarding the progress of rehearsals. He has started to find a nifty…
Maximum security casting
I was surprised, schooled and humbled by casting Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts, which I am directing under the auspices of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It was not unlike casting a grad school production in the sense that it wasn’t about casting the…
Headshots: brilliant image or fuzzy concept?
“There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept.” – Ansel Adams
“”The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.” – Edward Steichen
They’re your calling card, actors. They are your ticket through the door. Very often, they are the…
The strip of (textual) terror
[This post originally appeared on www.2amtheatre.com, which is a very cool place to appear.]
Collation line. Apparatus. Strip of terror. Whatever you call it, it’s that somewhat inscrutable line or two of apparently Enigma code between the text and the annotations, particularly in a modern edition of,…
Theatre behind the walls
[This post originally appeared on www.2amtheatre.com, which is a very cool place to appear.]
“Theatre inspires me.”
“Theatre teaches me about myself, and helps me to understand why other people do what they do.”
“Theatre relaxes me.”
“Theatre teaches me empathy.”
“Everyone in my life was a…
Like an old tale still
[This post originally appeared on www.2amtheatre.com, which is a very cool place to appear.]
Last week, I coached an actor who had a big audition this past weekend. It was of the ‘bring two contrasting pieces’ variety. She came to me a little later in her process than…
Talking amiss of her: speech, silence and shrewishness in The Taming of the Shrew
[I wrote this essay as part of my graduate work at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK.]
“Surely we’re trying to find out at the beginning what we mean by ‘shrew’. Supposing we said ‘shrew’ equals ‘noisy one’. Along comes a man to tame the noisy one. And for almost
…
Open stage to empty space: the Granville-Barker inheritance
[I wrote this essay as part of my graduate work at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, UK.]
Harley Granville-Barker’s dramaturgical criticism has transformed our collective perception of Shakespeare’s plays. Full stop. Once he had completed his work as a director and as an analyst, it would no longer be defensible to…
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