Drunken Shakespeare

D-Train came up with the idea to do Shakespeare scenes in a bar, during which time both actors and audience would be drinking. And last week, his idea came to fruition at a The Closet (which is a vintage/art store called "Everything But the Girl" by day, and a small performance space by night.

I chose to stick to drinking water (no, seriously, I did; Voice Professor taught me well). But I did some Shakespeare anyway. :)

I did a Luciana monologue from The Comedy of Errors (in a very contemporary style), and a Constance monologue from King John (in a New York dialect). I also helped Iceman as a silent Isabella in his Angelo speeches from Measure for Measure, and D-Train as a silent Ophelia to Dane's Hamlet in his "To be, or not to be?" soliloquy.

It was SO MUCH FUN!!! I hope we get the opportunity to do it again.

Two awesome photographers came and documented the event, and I'm completely obsessed with their shots, so I thought I'd share them here!

The first batch came from Scott Braun.












The second group are by Gabriel Hernandez

Monday, February 21

Las Meninas
The rehearsals for Las Meninas are going well. We have blocked the entire show, and run each act separately... and we don't open for another month.

I've been going on as an understudy for all or part of most rehearsals. I'm understudying Acting Professoressa in her two roles as The Queen Mother & The Mother Superior. Because of her teaching schedule, when we rehearse from 11-4 or 12-5, she has to leave at 1:30, and I'm her for the rest of the day. Also, she's been off on recruitment (auditioning students for the incoming class of 2014... oh my!), so I've been playing her roles while she was out of town. At this point, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I've been in her roles more than she has.

On the one hand, that's great: understudies don't generally get this much rehearsal, and I'm further along in learning the lines/blocking than I would be otherwise. But on the other hand, it's tough: because I'm playing my own character AND her two characters, I get confused a lot. I keep missing one entrance as the Mother Superior because I'm already on stage as my own role, a Lady-in-Waiting. (My understudy can't attend most rehearsals because she's in classes). I feel like I'm letting everyone down.

Wifey, Thrill, and Two-Shots-Up all have HUGE roles in this show, and they're rocking them. As the Artistic Director (who is directing this show) said, Las Meninas is the show this season where there are students in the main roles, and the Equity cast is supporting the students. It's neat to see. I'm super proud of them.


Boeing Boeing
The show has been a lot of fun. We only perform it about once a week, which is tough (quite a memory exercise). But I love it when we do perform it. Our audiences have been terrific, and we've been sold out or close to it for every performance we've had, which is awesome.

I have 5 assisted changes during the show, which I am making with the assistance of two lovely ladies named Deborah and Michelle. Deborah is our costume crew, and Michelle is wigs/hair/makeup. All of my changes involves hats/headpieces/wigs getting put on or taken off, so Michelle does that while Deborah helps me with costume pieces/accessories/shoes/props. It's kind of crazy. But the funny thing is, when I tell people who have seen the show that I have 5 assisted changes, they can't think of any of them! A couple of those changes are SUPER FAST, but the stuff happening on stage is so dynamic that the audience doesn't realize that I just changed out of my (incredibly complex) air hostess uniform and into a nightgown in 20 seconds.


Donor Brunch
The 3rd-Years had our annual brunch with donors this past weekend. It was lovely. It's amazing to be in a room with that many people who love and support you.

I mentioned to them that I'm working on moving to London, and I need a way to do it and be legally able to work. If anyone reading this has any suggestions or ideas, please let me know.


Showcase
We have chosen our scenes for our New York Showcase in April, and have started rehearsing them. I'm doing a scene with Two-Shots-Up and a scene with Thrill, both of which are comedic. I'm happy with what I ended up with.


The Thrill of the Chase
We did a free staged reading of a play my boyfriend wrote while he was visiting me from London. We had a great turn-out, especially considering that we did mostly word-of-mouth advertising. The reading was fantastic (and I'm not just saying that because I was in it). People seemed to be really affected by the piece (which is dark and twisted), and I'm STILL getting comments from them about it, and how glad they were that we did it. I'm glad we did it, too. :)


The Love Late Night
The 4th Annual Love Late Night was a huge success. I did a monologue that I wrote myself. D-Train and 1st-Year SB did a scene that my boyfriend wrote. We had a great time.

Free Staged Reading: 01/31/11

Hey everybody!

I'm doing a Late Night this coming Monday, and I thought I should mention it here. Sorry for the late notice, but please come if you can. It's a free staged reading, very casual. My boyfriend is in town from London. He's a fantastic (award-winning) playwright and screenwriter, so we're doing a reading of one of his plays. It's rated-R for graphic/violent content, but it's only a reading (so the violence/sex will not be staged... just read in stage directions).

Please come if you can. Information below. :)

_____________________________________________


FREE STAGED READING

Monday, January 31st @8pm


"The Thrill of the Chase"
by Philip Gawthorne

Starring: Devereau Chumrau, Dane Dandridge Clark, Jesse Dornan, and Angela Sauer
Directed by Nick Tierce

A provocative drama that explores themes of masculinity, religion, and loyalty through an explosive conflict between two lifelong friends.

When Nicky reneges on their break-up pact, Charlie proposes a dark wager which threatens to destroy not only a childhood friendship, but potentially their entire existence ...

Written by the award-winning British playwright Philip Gawthorne (recently listed as one of the top ten young writers in the UK by Broadcast Magazine) who will be in attendance. Philip's previous plays have been performed across the globe at venues such as David Mamet and William H. Macy's Atlantic Theater Studios in New York, and Kevin Spacey's Old Vic Theatre in London.



The free staged reading of this exciting new play will be in the Cook Theatre on Monday, January, 31st, 2011 @8:00pm

NOTE: This play is rated R for graphic content and is not suitable for all audiences.

Sunday, September 26th

LATE NIGHTS

There are 2 performances of Red Light Winter today. By the time you read this, you'll still be able to make it the the 8pm performance tonight (Sunday). It's free, and it's excellent. I have a brief cameo in the pre-show, so come say hello.

There was a performance on Friday night that was extremely well-attended. The space only seats about 60 people, so we had a standing-room-only situation, and had to (sadly) turn some people away. I hope they can make it tonight.

It's a seriously great show. Iceman directed it, and it stars All-the-Way, D-Train, and Killer. Come if you can. It's worth seeing.

(Note: This show has nudity and sexual content.)



ANTIGONE NOW
Rehearsals have been going fairly well, except that half the cast is under the weather.

The show was fully blocked by Tuesday. It's a short play, so we made it through quite quickly. Now, we're mostly just running it and doing work-throughs.



UNDERSTUDYING
As a 3rd-year, I have understudy responsibilities for the Rep, just as I did in my 1st-year. Our understudy assignments were posted on Friday, which it felt like we'd been waiting for forever.

I'm understudying the Queen Mother/Mother Superior in Las Meninas (bonus: the actress playing those roles is my 2nd-year Acting Professoressa! How cool is that?). I'm also understudying a role in Deathtrap: a Hungarian psychic named Helga. You may have heard about Deathtrap recently, as it just opened on the West End (and there's a decent chance that it will be transferring to Broadway) starring Jonathan Groff (of Spring Awakening and Glee fame). Our theatre magically got the rights to do it JUST BEFORE the rights were locked up by the West End production. So we are the only other theatre (that I know of) that is being allowed to do it this season. So that's kind of cool. I'm really excited for my understudy roles.

And you know what else is kind of awesome? Someone is understudying ME this year! One of the 1st-years is understudying me in two different shows in the season. I've never had an understudy before. Ever. This is crazy.