In January, I was a participant in the month-long intensive at Shakespeare & Company. Tina Packer, Dennis Krausnick, Kevin Coleman and their colleagues have been teaching the intensive for more than 30 years, and intensive is categorically one of the operative descriptors: the hours are long and the work is profound (should one choose to…
I recently found myself lying on the prison floor, talking to George Gibbs about grief. [If you are new to my blog, you need to know that I am directing Our Town at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.] Thornton Wilder’s stage direction reads, “George sinks to his knees then falls full length at Emily’s feet.” My…
In Acting II at Sing Sing this summer, we’ve been working on developing points of concentration, physical awareness and sense memory, discovering the dramatic action and building a character. In this regard, our class is much like Acting 201 just about anywhere. But we’re also looking for life skills, for mindful ways to interact with…
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 tables; I am not asking…
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 stammered, “Uhhhh …. well …….
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. At the initial casting session,…
“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 difference between being seen and…
[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, say, Shakespeare. It might seem irrelevant or irretrievably…
Overview Amy de Lucia first approached me with a copy of Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Fräulein Else in 1999, while we were working on How I Learned to Drive in Bangor, ME. Amy said she felt sure that there was a play in there, if only she could figure out how to unearth it. After I…
[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 backstabber or a deceiver. I never knew what…
[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 I would have liked: I didn’t get…