So I haven't posted on this in a while, mainly because things have been busier than usual (yes, that is somehow possible). But right now I'm on my day off, which is the greatest thing ever, and I figured I'd go ahead and update this thing.
So.
To surmise what's gone on over the past month or so:
1. I finished up as an intern at NYTW - it was really a great experience, I should probably write more about the people I got to interact with, the casting sessions I was privileged to be a part of (sitting in a room with Roger Rees and Alex Timbers talking about their concept for a play and their opinions on the actors we've just seen - pretty surreal), and the workshops and readings I was lucky enough to help out on. Yes, there's office work, and yes there can be moments that are tedious, and sometimes you may or may not have once fucked up a coffee order and been yelled at by a higher up who was in a bad mood - but the good stuff, the stuff I've mentioned - that's what will stick with me when I think back upon this internship. It was a great experience, and I'm so thrilled to have had the opportunity.
2. On December 11th I had auditions for my play BROKEN which is premiering at the Strawberry One-Act Festival in February. I saw a number of really great actors, and it's quite interesting (almost intimidating, at first) to be the only one in the room, and to be the one running the show. I've done it before, sure, but always at Cornell or in Iowa City - two places I'm pretty comfortable with. Somehow doing it in NYC feels different. In the end I got a great cast, and it should be (fingers crossed) a really successful production.
3. I still work at Island Burgers and Shakes. Yum.
4. There was a massive snowstorm in NYC - you probably hear about it on the news if you don't live here.
5. Unlike in Iowa, the snow from that storm melted!
6. About a week ago we had auditions for Assisted Living, the play I'm directing at Emerging Artists Theatre, and again, it can be bizarre running the show, especially when everybody else around you, including all the actors you're seeing, are considerably older than you are. This production is an Equity Showcase, meaning I was able to see and cast equity actors in the production - a first for me. Emerging Artists (or as I'll refer to it from here on in, EAT) is seeming so far like a great company to be working with - the show opens March 8th and runs through March 20th. As a side note, it is amazing to me how many actors there are out there - there were over a hundred actor submissions for each of the three roles in the production. Crazy. The process of picking which actors you'll see from that bunch, well, it's really a crapshoot. Because resume's seem to tell you precisely zero regarding the actual ability of the actor. People with great experience show up and are really, really just... terrible - while some with very minimal experience blow your socks off. I very much understand why many casting directors keep going with people they've worked with before - they're known commodities, they're safe, and it is very difficult to know what you're going to get from someone you've never seen before.
7. So we cast Assisted Living -with some really talented people, including actors who have been in off-broadway productions. So that's exciting.
8. And yesterday I had rehearsal for the first time (technically second - the first was a readthrough) for BROKEN. It was great to be finally up and directing again - I get manic when I haven't done anything for too long (no, NYTW doesn't count as actually doing theatre. I was around it, but I myself wasn't being particularly creative for the most part). Although I'm pretty much always manic in the rehearsal room - I pace when I talk, when I stage, pretty much all the time really. It's better than sitting, much better. If you're sitting and watching you're also sitting and being disconnected. The actors are up and working, so should you be as the director. It means you might sweat with the actors, you might be working just as hard while you try to figure out what the hell you're doing next and where the actors are going to move - I work spontaneously, see, no preplanned staging here - but that's a good thing. A very good thing.
Which brings me to a question I've had to toss around for a while and now I finally have to face head on. There are certain things, as a director, that you can do with college actors that may not always fly with people who are doing this as their career. Meaning, I've always been a director who puts actors through the ringer - acting takes hard work and physical effort and total dedication. I've always started rehearsals with extensive warm-ups and have interspersed staging with exercises, planned with the unplanned. And this was appropriate - especially when the productions I was working on were ones with strenuous demands on the actors physicality in performance.
I'm not so sure that in the world I'm living in now I can pull out those exercises, run my actors until they have to stop to catch their breath - I'm not sure they'll stand for it. I still believe it to be effective and even necessary - one thing I fully believe in is that a rehearsal process is just as much for the benefit of the actor as person and as an actor going forward as it is preparation for that particular production. But I worry at times that these things can be seen as a gimmick. Grotowski, Viewpoints, Laban, Lecoq, whatever it is - all of these methods and training styles seem to most like a thing to do while still in school. I feel like most actors don't treat their art in the same way a musician or dancer understands you must. The clarinet player trains constantly, I've known musicians who practice their instrument eight hours a day - dancers are constantly in class when they're not in production - actors, however, seem mostly immune to this dedication. And some take acting classes, which are great. But part of being an actor is being taken apart - being ground down so that you can be built back up. The rehearsal process can and should aid in that.
But it is really unlikely that I'll be working like that, at least for the moment. Because I just don't feel like I can - not in this environment. It feels like one would have to found their own company - dedicated to that sort of work - for actors to even entertain the notion of participating fully. This isn't me trying to rage on all actors, hell, as an actor I'd probably have the same reaction if a young director without many qualifications starting trying to run me through the ringer. So there we are.
9. Not to end on a down note - I've also been asked to go an interview to direct a production at the Complete Theatre Company - it would happen in April, which means that if I get it I'll be directing productions in three months back to back to back. Which would be cool - and would be a pretty good start to my directing career in NYC.
That's all for now.
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