Monthly Archives: February 2016

I never understood the concept of camping. I never could see the “joy” in leaving a wonderful, comfortable decorated home with all of the goodies and toys you have collected over a lifetime – – to take essentially a very expensive trashbag with metal rods out into the woods – – through a road that has yet to see concrete – – to a place that real estate developers have found unfit to develop – – only to unpack clean food, clean bedding and clean clothing for what is likely to be dirty and infested in only a few moments rest in the parking lot/field/mud pit/swamp of what is now a weekend home. Read more →

Directing a show has about a million and a half chores – everything from deciding what the heck to be doing in the first place – to picking up the feet trompled programs from the audience floor after a performance. BUT one chore that tends to fall of the radar for me every year is the director’s note for the program. Read more →

There is always that time in school when a massive fieldtrip or event pulls more than half of the student body away. Today is one of those days. We have an annual showing of the best of our school (Extravaganza) that is having its final rehearsal all day in a theatre downtown. This has left a small grouping of students at our school – most of them the “non-musical theatre” kind. A lot of them are the kids that I work with every day and every afternoon. But – with so few other students here – and none of their scene partners – it’s going to be one of those days. Read more →

There are times when I think that the student that gets the most out of my class is me. Our work in Meisner has now taken us to the idea of “really doing.” The concept is a simple one, but, oh so easy to overlook when doing a play. The idea is that when you are folding the laundry, writing the letter, or cleaning the dishes on stage you really DO the laundry, WRITE the letter or CLEAN the dishes. Read more →

One of the causalities of 3 years of Stanislavsky training for these young high school actors is that they are deadly afraid of risk taking and even more afraid of “indicating.” If the moment is not coming from their pooling of moments from their own world they fret. If the moment even smells of artificiality they panic. If it comes from the body before it comes from the mind, they go crazy. Read more →