Theater Around The Bay: Talk Is Sheep

Charles Lewis III brings us a special report on the rebirth of Theater Pub’s performance branch.

Welcome back, old friend.

Right now I have three distinct memories stuck in my head.

The first takes place a few years ago when I found myself crashing on the sofa of Clint Winder (tech guru for PianoFight) and his roommate, Rob Ready (the artistic director). It had been a wild night of inebriated debauchery in which I probably did one or two things I’d probably regret if I could remember them. Needless to say, I was grateful to Clint for taking mercy on me and letting me sleep it off at he and Rob’s Chinatown bachelor pad. When I woke up the next morning – throat scratchy from weed and head throbbing from drink – I’ll never forget the first thing my eyes focused on was the blueprint on the wall. For quite some time, the PianoFighters had been talking about having their own piece of real estate. Not just being renters like every other non-profit indie theatre company in the Bay Area; no, they this was going to be a full-blown theatre owned and operated by PianoFight. It would have, as was described to me, “an upstairs, a downstairs, a full bar, a cabaret space, and different stages going all at once”.

Of course there were quite a few naysayers. Several theatre people (who shall remain nameless) laughed at the idea that “the Delta House of Bay Area theatre” could pull their shit together long enough to even get this ridiculous idea off the ground, let alone actually succeed. They thought PF’s plans were just a bunch of talk and waiting patiently for them to fail spectacularly. Me? I couldn’t predict the future of the space one way or another. I just know that the blueprint and the idea behind it were a pleasant sight to see first thing on a Sunday morning. That, and I really needed a Tylenol.

The second memory is walking down Market St. over the past decade. Even as a born-native San Franciscan, I’d never been in Hollywood Billiards. I had nothing against it, I just never found my way inside. I usually met friends at bars of their choice and our pub crawls never went down Market. Maybe it was my lack of any tangible connection to the place that kept me from lamenting its passing. I mean, its front doors had been replaced with a cool psychedelic mural that, to me, actually improved the walk down Market. The changes in my city irk me more than most, but still… those eyes, man. Those eyes were where it was at.

The third memory takes place several times in 2014. I’m at a bar with other theatre folk, in a kitchen with other theatre folk, or at a backyard party with other theatre folk. We’re all drinking, as we are wont to do, and throwing out ideas for theatre ideas we each think would be pretty cool. A full-length adaptation here, a night of hilarious shorts there, the occasional suggestion for a one-(wo)man show – the usual stuff. None of us are as dismissive as we usually are, no matter how ridiculous the ideas. All we need is a place to put it on and some folks willing to sacrifice their dignity to make it happen. It’s only a matter of time before someone grips their drink tightly in one hand, yells “Fuck!” whilst swinging their other hand, and laments “This would be a perfect show for Theater Pub!”, at which point we all mourn the fact that at the time that name only applied to the very website you’re now reading.

All three of these memories are on my mind as I walk toward the former home of Hollywood Billiards this past December. The psychedelic eyes are long gone, there isn’t a pool table anywhere to be found, and the inside is full of local eateries. When I was in Stuart’s play Pastorella one of my co-stars had told me about the changes, so I began stopping by every now and then. The place is okay, I think. I can’t mentally compare it to what it was before, but I’m more interested in how it will look in the future. As this was December, we were a few weeks removed from both the Thanksgiving announcement that this would be one of Theater Pub’s two new homes, and the original staged reading [/LINK] of our first new show, Satyr Night Fever. I look around and don’t see any place for a stage or a band, but there’s lots of room to maneuver around the way we did in our old space. I have no idea how this is going to work and, now considered an “official” member of Theater Pub, I have the presumptive gall to think “What the hell has Stuart gotten us into?”

There’s been a lot of talk about when (if ever) Theater Pub would come back and what form it would take if it did. That’s the think about talk: there’s rarely any requirement for it to be more than just that. But as I sit in the newly-dubbed The Hall sipping boba tea and munching a fish taco, the idea of a staging a romantic comedy about a lovelorn goat-man and a walking tree spirit doesn’t seem so crazy. I don’t know how it’ll happen, but I’m glad to hear people talking about it.

PianoFight’s new Californicorn that hangs above the new space.

Three months earlier I’m at SF SketchFest to see a show featuring PianoFight’s all-female troupe, Chardonnay. It was a really funny show. Afterwards we all head to a nearby bar and I catch up with everyone. Having known most of the members since 2009 at this point, it’s a bit of a trip to see how many of them have… I’m trying to think of a better term than “settled down”. That implies that they’ve somehow lost their edge and become a shadow of their former selves, and that sure as hell ain’t true. One thing I learned from the baudy show put on that night is that no one at the company is ready to give up on the raunchy satire that is their bread ‘n butter. But there’s definitely been changes in the PianoFighters themselves. Quite a few of them have gotten married, nearly all of them have gotten new jobs, and the new space is their base of operations after wandering through different venues. No, “settled down” isn’t the right term. “Grown up” fits better.

By December I’d toured the new space as it was a work in progress. Wires needs to be connected, walls needed painting, and pieces of wood were everywhere. But the Californicorn was up behind the bar. PianoFight’s logo is the California grizzly with added unicorn horns and angel wings. To christen their new place, they commissioned a mosaic of the logo by performer/artist extraordinaire Molly Benson. It’s really purrty. More importantly, it’s representative of how serious the company is to make this place work. They’ve planted their flag and staked their claim in the middle of the Tenderloin. Quite a few theatre people talk about what they’d do if they had their own space, but know they’ll always be at the whim of dickish landlords and a shrinking number of viable spaces. PianoFight decided to stop talking and actually make one of their own. Is it any surprise that we all thought “Wow, that place would make a great home for the new Theater Pub”?

That question was briefly on my mind last Saturday. This was the long-awaited day Satyr Night Fever made its debut at The Hall. It was the first ‘Pub show since December 2013 and the first ever “matinée” show, starting at 2pm. There was brunch, there were laughs, there were a few technical SNAFUs that were easily covered up by ecstatic moaning off-stage. Complete strangers who’d just stopped in for a quick snack wound up staying for mimosas and goat-man love. Familiar faces like such as Claire Rice, Marissa Skudlarek, Matt Gunnison, and Christian Simonsen could be seen all around. Most importantly, San Francisco Theater Pub was back and we were all happy to see it.

Yes, they made a stage.

Two days later I was sitting in the new PianoFight space getting a drink from Les, the sweet old guy who served us many a pint in the ‘Pub original heyday. Now here he was, beneath the Californicorn as Tonya Narvaez, one of our new co-artistic directors, gave the crowd the rundown for the evening. The last time I was part of Theater Pub, I directing Eli Diamond to not give any attitude to his ornery old granny. Now I was watching him be hit on then berated by a vivacious tree nymph in a horrible Christmas sweater. By the time Meg Trowbridge, our other new co-AD, gave her closing speech and hit up our audience for money, rest assured that they’d the single best Greek mythology love story that one could ever find in the cabaret space of the theatre building owned by a raunchy San Francisco independent theatre company. They had something to talk about.

It gave us all the feels.

In case you couldn’t tell yet, lots of talk annoys me after a while. I say that as someone who does a great of talking all the time. That doesn’t change the fact that it annoys me. Maybe it’s the person talking that gets to me, maybe it’s what they’re saying, maybe it’s the time of day when it was said – those things can count for a lot when someone is expecting me to listen to them ramble on and on. Hell, I consider it an act of faith that you haven’t clicked away by this point. The reason I bring this up is because the thing I most remember about Theater Pub is what people said – before the show, after the show, and what was said during the performance. We’d talk dreams and talk shit with equal aplomb. That’s what I missed most about Theater Pub going away, talking with everyone. Talking about Theater Pub was what I most loved and hated about the time when it didn’t have a stage home. Talking about it is what I look forward to most in its new incarnation.

None of us are the same as we were back then. We’ve changed, we’ve grown, we’ve transformed into things that would hardly recognise the people we used to be. There’s no guarantee of where we’ll go from here, but I can’t wait talk about where we are now.

Charles Lewis III will be at the final performance of Satyr Night Fever tonight if you want to talk to him. He’ll understand if you don’t. It’s at 144 Taylor St. in San Francisco. The show starts at 8pm, with a $5.00 suggested donation at the door.

Theater Around The Bay: It’s Alright, You Can Take Your Foot Off The Clutch Now

Our guest posts continue with a piece by Sam Bertken. Enjoy!

I hear you, I hear you—“Help, Internet! I am really nervous about this new thing that I’m going to start trying out, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle it! Can you please provide me with witty repartee and insight from people that have ‘been there’ so I feel less overwhelmingly nervous?”

Alright, alright, sure, I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.

Okay, let’s play a game: close your eyes. No, wait, actually, open them. You’re going to need to read this in order to see where I’m going. Sorry.

Alright, low start, but we can come back from it, because I got an ace in my back pocket:

Do you guys like Kermit the Frog?

Yeah, there we go, everyone’s on board now. Who doesn’t love a gangly, felted frog with weirdly-shaped pupils, opining for the greener grass on other side of that oft-ode’d rainbow? I mean, when you put it that way the list gets a little longer, but for the most part I’d say there’s a collective nod of recognition when anyone listens to The Rainbow Connection. It’s about achieving a dream, it’s a promise to strike out for one’s self. It’s not a lament about the lilypad upon which you currently find yourself, but more of a love song that’s about the one right over there.

If only it wasn’t out of hop’s reach…

But it isn’t! Not always, anyways. And sometimes, with the right wind current and enough hamstring training, you might land easily in a wholly different context, catching new flies, writing new love songs to different sorts of weather phenomena; sometimes you’re widely considered a performer and then suddenly you find yourself in the director’s chair. Sometimes you’re part of a group ensemble making decisions collectively for your art and then you’re leading a group as the even-keeled captain to achieve that same aesthetic. Sometimes you get really bored while taking time to do some tech work, but when you’re back in a performing role, the whole world behind the lights has turned itself on its head. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, sort of like a long, pink, sticky tongue primed for catching passing insects.

Let’s leave the frog metaphors behind from here on out, shall we?

As someone who recently sat down with his accomplishments from 2013, I came to a few realizations, all of which primarily oriented around trying out new paths, to see if I wanted to explore them a little bit further: Write more (here I am)! Try directiong, somehow! Produce something! But where does that impetus lie? How do you get off the couch and start making calls, writing manifestos and making it happen for yourself?

I interviewed a few of my acquaintances about their experiences shifting gears, so to speak, in their creative lives, to help you—YOU!—make a decision on whether that impossible dream may not be so impossible as you may think.

Adam Smith is the Artistic Director of the newly-formed San Francisco Neo-Futurists, and was active for years prior in their New York chapter. Siobhan Doherty is a local performer (also originally hailing from New York), who recently took a gig directing for the Bay One Acts and is running with the same wild abandon as a preschooler holding scissors. Eli Diamond was a high school performer who, for college requisites, spent some time in the lighting booth and painting sets, and has since returned to the limelight with a different take on what makes him look so good.

To get at the impetus, that tipping point where things start to really come together for someone whose just shifted gears that these fine folks share, I asked our group about the origin story behind their decision to make a creative change. Adam Smith had this to say about the new run of the SF Neo-Futurists’ ongoing production, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind:

AS: I learned I was going to move out here in the middle of my last New York Neo-Futurist production called “On the Future.” The immediate thought was, “Oh the Bay would be a great place to start another Neo-Futurist company,” but didn’t really think much of it. A few months later Lucy Tafler (now our Managing Director) and Ryan Good (one of our bi-coastal Neo-Futurists) were out for an extended vacation. We saw a couple of shows in the Bay, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was room in the scene here for Too Much Light.

SB: Yes, I can definitely see how having an established structure and group of experts working with you can make things start happening at a nice, easy clip.

AS: Needless to say Ryan and Lucy’s vacation has been extended even longer.

SB: Okay, no need to start crowing about it, okay? Congratulations. But what if you’re not motivated to break borders creatively just because you’re breaking them geographically? Siobhan has been performing around the Bay Area for years now—where did this itch to sit in the director’s seat come from?

SD: After acting for so many years, I started to form opinions about what makes successful theater. My impulse to direct sprung from my desire to see how those opinions would play out in performance. Also, morally, I longed to have more ownership of the overall messages I was putting out into the world.

SB: I hear ya! The more experience receiving direction on the actual stage, the more your own ideas percolate, is that it?

SD: I have experienced many, many times as an actor when I think a scene could have been more effective if a director had used more active, actor-centric language. For example, instead of “do that section faster”, saying something along the lines of “let the excitement of each new idea build and carry this section forward”, would have made a world of difference.

SB: Who better to know how to direct an actor than just another actor? I’m following your train of logic so far.

SD: Lastly, I would say about 80% of the theater I see is TOO SLOW. I hope to counter-act that instinct. I also hope to explore new formats for an old medium. Site specific theatre, and one on one performance, are two arenas in which I think there is lots of contemporary and relevant fun to be had.

SB: As a creative person, wacky-awesome ideas are always pulling you in different directions, like an unfortuante medieval criminal and his quartet of horses (perhaps an overstatement to the uninitiated, but just you wait—it can feel this intense.) Eventually, it seems, it just becomes too much, and you have to use the experience and the connection and the artistic will you’ve been cultivating to make your dreams finally happen, darn it!
What about you, Eli? What prompted your brief time dangling from catwalks, hanging gels and focusing lights?

ED: Well, the tech work mostly started at NYU. First year students have to run tech on all the shows. I did lots of lighting and set design. Set design was far more my thing than lighting. There’s something that feels really powerful in creating the world the characters live in, plus I feel like a MAN with my powertools.

SB: No arguments there, that’s for sure. Also interesting that your creative change, like Adam, didn’t really come from a place of internal need, but from a source of external compulsion (such as a degree requirement, or a job offer). Or maybe just a need to make screwguns make that awesome “WHIRRRRR” sound, in this case.

SB: So once you pick up the manly powertools and you find yourself other side, what’s happening now? It’s all started, sure, in a boring, general way, but once you’re in the thick of it, that’s exciting, right? Or does the floor open up beneath you, and you’re dangling above an entire universe of new opportunity? Is it breathtaking in a good way or a pants-shitting way?

AS: Ask me again in a year. It’s too early. The real test will be after about 3-4 months when everyone is really acclimated to the performance schedule and we’re trying to do gigs and workshops, and making big decisions about direction.

SB: This sounds like the dangly feeling I mentioned earlier.

AS: As Artistic Director, there are more tasks to accomplish, and there is more pressure to meaningfully contribute to the local, national and international art conversation.

SB: Yikes.

AS: I’d say it’s largely positive. As an artist, I’m creating work that I might never have created if I stayed in New York. Between the life experience of picking up and moving, and being in a role of leadership, it has been pushing me to re-think my artistic choices and impulses.

SB: Not so yikes. That actually sounds pretty compelling to any artist out there whose eyeing some fresh new challenge. I’d say that’s the dream a lot of people hope for when they do jump into something new. A different perspective, a more nuanced view of the work you were creating before—it’s like a boot camp for better artistic expression! What do you think, Sio?

SD: Directing has been satisfying in new ways. It forces me to find a succinct, verbal way to express the meaning of a scene. It may even force me to find several ways of doing so if an actor is not comprehending my message. I must understand the piece extremely well in order to do that successfully.

SB: Yeah, like, you gotta read the whole script, definitely.

SD: Also, it is a great feeling to be surprised by your actors with their own ideas about a scene. In many ways, I think a great deal of good direction depends on casting actors that are willing to experiment and then just helping them to shape what they are naturally drawn toward. Not top-down, but bottom-up. If it comes from them, or (a la Inception) feels as though it comes from them, the results are more connected and resonant for the actor, and therefore, the audience.

SB: It must be kind of weird to have these thoughts about molding people who are in the position you were once in. I mean, you can’t have been the first, right? But that’s a whole ‘nother blog topic, isn’t it?

SD: The ego-centric part of me misses some of the focused praise afterward, since people often have no idea that you are the director. Although, that anonymity does give you excellent opportunities to overhear unfiltered audience opinions…

SB: Sneaky! Would you consider abandoning directing for acting, or vice-versa?

SD: No.

SB: Oh. Well. That’s, actually, liberating, and a good reminder for folks hoping to make a switch in the near future. It’s not like a door closes behind you—nothing’s that dramatic. You can sort of skip between them as your mood shifts. That’s a comfort, to find one other form you really rise to, find great satisfaction from, isn’t it, Eli?

ED: Lighting’s a little bit more monotonous and tricky to pin down. Lots of the work involves changing minor details. The lens of the light, the filter, etc. Things that wouldn’t really be noticed by the common person watching.

SB: I can see how going from creating a work of art, a character, that’s the center of everyone’s focus, a part of the show that, to the general audience member, makes-or-breaks the production in a certain sense, is a little more interesting than picking between Light or regular Amber for a general wash.

ED: The satisfaction is just different for me. I’ve never been an artist in that regard, so when I do scenic work or lighting, ther’es a detachment. I simply don’t get as attached to my work there the same way I do when I’m spillig my guts, sometimes literally, onstage. When a sets onstage, the sets on display, not the designer, or his intention, or his inner life so much.

SB: I see where you’re coming from here, yes. I’m sure the opposite is true for the artist’s who end up making their actors look and sound as good as they do. And now that you’re on the other end, in the role that you presently inhabit, I’m sure things are different. Your world’s opened up! The hue of everything is this crazy, LSD-neon shade of blue, AM I RIGHT?

AS: I think the main difference is, if you’re cast in a company that already exists, it has a history and a wealth of knowledge to pull from. You can see different writing styles and how each ensemble member’s fits with each other. As a new company we’re establishing that with each other. As someone who has done it before, I want to support the expansion of ideas, but without being prescriptive to define what we do as being only one or two people’s perspectives.

SB: Okay, so perhaps switching your creative role isn’t completely earth-shattering. But it certainly isn’t back-tracking, from what I can tell here. Especially in the case where you’re adopting greater responsibilities and taking performers less experienced in your style and collective vision under your wing, there’s a lot of almost paternal excitement to see it grow.

SD: It has helped me as an actor empathize with directors. I have a first-hand understanding of just how difficult it is to juggle a mountain of variables when it comes to casting and scheduling.

SB: So now there’s this whole side-wink to every director you’ll be working with from here on out, now that you understand their pain.

SD: Also, it can be a blessing and a cruse to work with actors that you know from past projects. On the one hand, you can cut to the chase and you know what they are capable of, and on the other hand, they may not have fully made the mental adjustment that you are now in a position of authority.

SB: Directing friends. Another lengthy topic—let’s go get beers and hash it out!

ED: Doing these jobs gave me far more respect for them as an actor. I’m not going to lie. I was a dick in high school to some of the techies. When you haven’t been fully exposed to what it takes to make a show, you fail to realize – they are working.

SB: What was that far of chorus of “Finally, they realize!” I just heard from the stage manager’s box?

ED: Not to say that actor’s don’t work, but there’s a huge element of play in our profession that, for me, was lost in technical work. I’m sure there’s someone out there who gets the same thrill form changing filters in a light as I do from being on stage, but it’s not me.

SB: I’m not going to ask you to describe what the “thrill” feels like. Entrapment and everything, ya know?

ED: There’s also the respect you have to give when you’re working and you realize, “My job is to make this guy on stage look good. “ When I just acted, I didn’t even think about that. Now, I hope to make the techie I’m working with WANT to make me look good.

SB: And then spill in the chocolates, the roses, the invitations to dinner… But for real, it seems to me that, even if a creative role didn’t “do it” for you, there’s a whole different world that has opened up to you. One becomes less of a high school dick and more of a compassionate theatre professional who is sometimes a dick to high schoolers (but just the ones who deserve it, of course). That’s important for professional development, but as an artist, entering a new world, having everything turned upside-down, that’s only going to add to your empathy engines. And while that alone may not make you a better actor, or artistic director, or director, or writer, or stage manager, or blessed box office volunteer, it’s going to make you a better person to work with.

So there it is! The lilypad is in clear sight, and you don’t need to stay over there for the rest of your damned life. Why not leap and take the plunge? From what I can tell, the benefits speak for themselves.

Adam Smith and the other Neo-Futurists have begun their sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, always edifyingly personal run of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, which runs every Friday and Saturday.

Siobhan Doherty is going to be lending her new-found love of direction to an exciting Rough Readings piece for Playwrights Foundation by Anthony Clarvoe called Early Romantics, and it plays at Thick House 2/10. In addition, she is directing a solo-performance festival called Modern Lovers: Women & Technology for All Terrain Theater in the spring.

Eli Diamond is going to be laying low until DivaFest mounts Kristin Hersh’s Rat Girl in May. He’ll be playing the role of Dave- and the drums.

Sam Bertken is an actor and a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A company member with Naked Empire Bouffon Company and an intern for the SF Neo-Futurists, he has performed with various companies, such as SF Theatre Pub, Custom Made Theatre Co. and the Exit Theatre.

Theater Around The Bay: The Best of the Blog

2013 was a year of change on multiple fronts and our website was no exception. Though Marissa Skudlarek, as our first “official” blogger, began her semi-monthly contributions in 2012, the eight-writer line up that currently composes the blog’s core writing team wasn’t solidified until October of this year, when Claire Rice was brought on to replace Helen Laroche, who, along with Eli Diamond, stepped away as a regular contributor earlier this year. Eli and Helen, along with the current eight and our lengthy list of occasional contributors (most notably Annie Paladino), all get to share in the success of the blog, which steadily and dramatically increased its traffic over this past year. With 45,611 hits in 2013 (compared to 27,998 in 2012, 11,716 in 2011, and 8,435 in 2010), there can be no doubt that the San Francisco Theater Public (as we’ve taken to calling the blog amongst ourselves) is “kind of a thing.” With our current all time total just shy of 100,000 hits, we wanted to use the last blog entry of this year to celebrate the different voices that make our blog unique, while also paying homage to the vast and diverse world of online theater discussion. To everyone who makes our blog a success, including our dedicated readers and Julia Heitner, our Twitter-mistress who brings every installment to the Twitter-sphere, a gigantic thank you for making 2013 the best year so far! Here’s hoping that 2014 is even better!

STUART BOUSEL by William Leschber 

Whether it be Shakespeare, Ancient Greece, Celtic Myth, or the plight of the contemporary 30 something, Stuart Bousel always has something intelligent to say about it, and if you’ve read any of  his blogs over the past year you’ll know he has an ample array of in-depth thoughts about these things and so much more. I’m proud to have known Stuart for a number of years and the plentiful hours of intelligent conversation are invaluable to me, but my favorite 2013 blog entry of his is one that offers both a larger social insight and something very personal as well. The Year of the Snake blog isn’t afraid to be vulnerable, and offers the perfect mix of two brands of self awareness: the satisfaction that comes at being proud of one’s achievements, juxtaposed with the self doubt that comes whenever we embark on something new and challenging. These traits are heightened by a particularly uncertain year for myself and so many others who have had an odd go of it in 2013, the Year of the Snake, and maybe that is why this particular blog resonated so strongly. Although this year is possibly the most challenging some of us have had in recent memory, what Stuart articulates so well here is that sometimes we have to pass through the fire to come out stronger from the forge. The process of wriggling into new skin in due time…aye, there’s the rub: “…the truth is, the changes tend to kind of happen while you’re not looking, almost as a side result of trying to change.”

There’s Stuart, emerging from his security blanket just like 2013 emerged from the crap year known as 2012.

In other favorites-of-the-year news, I present you the Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith. For those in constant transit and who have an easier time taking in a podcast over reading articles online, this is for you. Now my favorite podcast surrounding film would fall to Filmspotting where new and old films are discussed weekly with humor and insight. But if I had to choose the single best episode  I heard this year it would be Jeff Goldsmith’s interview with writer/director Ed Burns. In the words of the host, the Q&A podcast aims to “bring you in-depth insight into the creative process of storytelling”. He interviews screenwriters specifically (often writer/directors) about how they go about their personal process. Not only are the insights into the writer’s process wonderful to hear but the peeks into their role in the film industry are also fascinating. The Ed Burns episode ranges in topic from 90’s indie films, to his writing process, then on to making micro budget films, and his thought on how the industry is changing and what he’s doing to work in the grain of the dawn of steaming entertainment. It’s great. And here it is: http://www.theqandapodcast.com/2012/12/edward-burns-fitzgerald-familiy.html

ASHLEY COWAN by Claire Rice

Ashley Cowan’s posts often feel like sitting on the couch with your best friend and chatting late into the night with a mug of hot coco.  Every post  is heartfelt and full of a kind of determined enthusiasm that is infectious.  Her post abouttheatre traditions/ superstitions was very funny (if I had known that thing about peacock feathers I might have made different choices with my life.) And her post about her grandmother and goodbyes was touching and beautiful.  But my favorite post would have to be Why Being A Theatre Person with a Day Job is the Best…and the Worst.  She beautifully lays out the complex and heart breaking experience of knowing a “the show must go on” mentality is an imminently transferable job skill, but a skill hard to sell to non-theatre perspective employers.

I read Dear Sugar’s advice column for the first time on September 1, 2013, my thirty second birthday.  The piece I read was Write Like Motherfucker  It was surprising, honest and full of so many of the things I had been thinking and feeling.  It was and is full of all the things I needed to hear. “We get the work done on the ground level. And the kindest thing I can do for you is to tell you to get your ass on the floor.  I know it’s hard to write, darling.  But it’s harder not to.”

Ashley Cowan and Dear Sugar – You’ve just made two new best friends. You’re welcome.

BARBARA JWANOUSKOS by Stuart Bousel 

Barbara Jwanouskos is the kind of theater person who figured out long ago what many of us take much longer to figure out: namely that one can balance theater with the rest of their life (she’s a pretty amazing martial artist in addition to being a playwright, blogger, grad student, and non-profit development expert), and that nothing happens if you sit and wait for it, you have to go after your dreams actively. Smart, generous, good-natured, Barbara’s writing reflects a serious mind and soul you might not immediately pick up on when you first meet her, though her bad-ass-ness is definitely apparent in her punk rock haircuts and straight forward conversation style. Her “calls it as see sees it” voice is still developing in her blog, but with “Young Beautiful Woman” she had a bit of a breakthrough, giving us a story both personally meaningful to her while also showing us where the issue of pigeon-holing women in theater and films begins: that most double-sided of backyards, the fine arts masters’ program. This blog had the greatest reader impact of all the contributions Barbara has made for us this year, and it’s the kind of thing I want to see more of from her. It’s with incredible eagerness I look forward to her 2014 contributions, knowing she plans to really hit our readers, black belt style, with more ideas like these.

Barbara Jwanouskos is so intense she needs to be photographed in Dutch Angles.

Outside of our humble little blog, I have read a number of interesting theater related articles this year, but this one from HowlRound seems to have stayed with me the longest. Though when I first read this I kind of had a reaction of, “Well, duh, it’s just part of the process- stop whining!”, I also admire that what Morgan is saying is that a life in the arts is pretty always a heartbreaking business, even when you do finally find your niche, your project, your collaborators. And it’s heartbreaking not just because of the lack of opportunities, or the difficulty in making a living, or all the other things we also talk about, but just from the sheer fact that if you’re doing it right you’re ALWAYS putting your heart into it and the nature of the business rarely appreciates or honors that- while, of course, still expecting you to throw your whole heart into it every time! I, and most of the theater people I know, spend a lot of time talking about sustainability in the theater community, funding and payroll, audience demographics and marketability, etc. and sometimes I can’t help but wonder when theater started to quantify and qualify itself the way I expect Wal-Mart too. When did it become about numbers and money and conventional ideas of success as represented through big numbers, and not about coming together with people of vision and making cool stuff because the world really needs that? Morgan’s article is a bittersweet plea to remember we’re all artists here and artists are delicate creatures in many ways, even if it’s probably through their strength that, ultimately, the world will be saved.

WILLIAM LESCHBER by Marissa Skudlarek

It has been a pleasure to read Will Leschber’s “Working Title” column since it debuted in September 2013. Theater can sometimes feel like an insular, inward-looking art; it’s not  a part of the mainstream cultural conversation in the way that movies, music or TV are (though we Theater Pub bloggers are doing our best to change that!) Even worse, theater people sometimes take a perverse pride in their own insularity, looking down on movies and TV as lesser, more commercial art forms. So I love Will’s idea of writing a column that places theater in dialogue with film. He acknowledges the virtues of each art form without belittling either of them and, in so doing, seeks to bring theater into the larger cultural conversation. Nowhere is this more evident than in his piece “To Dance Defiant” about one-man dramas Underneath the Lintel and All is Lost. The play is language-based and the film is image-based, says Will, but both confront stark, essential truths: “What decisions in life remain the most important? How do we measure it all? What significant artifacts do we leave behind? Is anything we leave behind significant? Or is the struggle and the suffering and the joyous dance in spite of all the dark, the only significance we are afforded?” Will’s column is about the importance of the art we make, be it on stage or on film — and therefore, is about the importance of our humanity.

William Leschber, proving saucy minx comes in a wide variety of hats.

In one of my earliest Theater Pub columns, I wrote about how much I liked local critic Lily Janiak’s willingness to publicly critique her own criticism and question her own assumptions. So it was great news this year that Lily was selected as one of HowlRound’s inaugural NewCrit critics, bringing her work to a national audience and allowing her to write longer, more in-depth pieces. Even better, Lily has continued to question her assumptions and acknowledge her biases, approaching criticism in a spirit of open-minded inquiry. I particularly liked her piece “Our Own Best Judges: Young Female Characters Onstage” because, if I may admit my own biases, Lily and I are both extremely interested in the depiction of young women in plays. And then we ask ourselves: are we right to be so concerned, or does it mean that we are (wrongly) holding female characters to a higher standard than we hold male ones? “Critics are supposed to be objective, to approach a work with no agenda, but in this case, I have one. […] It’s impossible to separate one’s politics from one’s aesthetics (aesthetics are never pure!), but sometimes I worry that my politics have too much control over my critical criteria,” Lily writes. The whole piece is well worth reading for its thoughtfulness and honesty. That it happened to discuss three plays that I saw myself, got my friends’ names published on a national theater website, and spurred a response from Stuart Bousel on our own blog is just icing on the cake.

Lily Janiak: Because This Picture Is Just Too Good Not To Include

ALLISON PAGE by Dave Sikula

Let me tell you about Allison Page.

I met her this year when I played her father. I had no idea who she was. I had friended her on Facebook and, looking at her posts, thought we might get along. We had some similar interests, and despite her terrible taste in other things (I mean, seriously, “Ghost Dad,” “Daria,” and Kristen Wiig?), there was enough overlap that I thought we might become friends.

Then we met and she instantly drove me crazy.

I have every reason to hate her. There are things she does and writes about that just annoy the bejeezus out of me – BUT, that’s what I love about her. Her pieces for this here blog combine the miracle of being confessional and personal without being self-indulgent. Obviously, I don’t agree with everything she says (she accuses me of not liking anything, but oh, how wrong she is), but even when she irritates me, it’s in a way that makes me need to defend my own positions – and that’s what the best art does for me. If I had to pick one post of hers that really spoke to me, it was this one on how we need and create nemeses. I find you’ve got to have someone or something to fight against or do better than in order to do your own best work.

But don’t tell her I like anything of hers or she’ll just hold that over me.

Allison Page: because this photo never gets old.

Moving on to something online that I found of interest was this, Frank Rich’s latest profile of Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim is one of those people my feelings for whom, words like “reverence” are far too mild. I know that if I were ever somehow to get a chance to meet him, I’d fall over in a dead faint, or at the very least, be utterly tongue-tied to the point where I’d sound like an episode of “The Chris Farley Show:” “You know when you did ‘Sweeney Todd?’ That was great.” But any chance to read about what he’s really like is fascinating.

CLAIRE RICE by Barbara Jwanouskos

What I love most about reading Claire Rice’s Enemy List is how Claire seems to pick up on an uncanny wave-length of theater topics that happen to be populating my brain (and others), like why there were so many plays dealing with rape this year. The post I particularly enjoyed was her interview with Dave Lankford, Executive Director of The Shelter and author of the internet famous blog post, “Dear Actor”. Claire’s interview gave a clear insight into Lankford, his background as a theater artist (playwright, actor, director, etc.) and what prompted the writing of the post. More so, her interview demonstrated through Lankford’s response, what it is like today to be a theater artist where so many of us are also using the internet as a means of communication, discourse and criticism about theater in general. For whatever reason, “Dear Actor” seemed to resonate with many people in a way that was surprising, but Claire’s interview presented Lankford at a more more meta level, which was fascinating to consider.

Claire Rice: just who exactly is the enemy?

I love tracking HowlRound essays by some of my favorite playwrights – especially when they write about things I’m actually dealing with… like teaching playwriting! “Teaching in the 21^st Century” by Anne García-Romero and Alice Tuan was a blessing to me sent from the heavenly gods of playwriting. I constantly flip back to this essay when I need to recalibrate my goals as a new teacher. García-Romero and Tuan’s approach mirrors what they had learned from the great Maria Irene Fornes. I appreciate their innovative approaches to get writers of all kinds jazzed about writing plays and how they deviate from strict adhearance to teaching structure versus other traits that good plays have – like voice and liveness.

DAVE SIKULA by Ashley Cowan

I met Dave Sikula earlier this year while working on BOOK OF LIZ at Custom Made Theatre. A project that inspired a blog or two on Cowan Palace and also provided a chance to get to know the guy who is now behind the column, “It’s A Suggestion, Not A Review”. After kindly driving me home after numerous performances and being graced with many Broadway songs on his impressive car sound system, I soon got to know Dave as a incredibly smart, insightful, and experienced theatre enthusiast. I’ve come to enjoy his contributions to the Theater Pub blog for the same reason. One of my personal favorites to read was his last piece, The Ritual Business. Ten years ago when I studied in London, I had the chance to see TWELFTH NIGHT starring Mark Rylance at the Globe and it’s a performance that’s forever stuck by me. I loved reading about Dave’s time in New York and his vivid description as an attentive audience member. I felt like I was there again reliving a magical moment of the theatrical experience of my past while also connecting to his observations and reactions.

Dave Sikula: suggesting you eat this cheesecake instead of reviewing it.

Aside from Dave’s contributions, it’s been an interesting year for the Internet, huh? I fell for every hoax imaginable and had my spirits crushed when I learned that no, there would not be a new season of Full House or an 8^th Harry Potter book to look forward to in 2014. With all that going on, one article that weaseled under my skin came from The Onion, believe it or not, and was entitled: Find The Thing You’re Most Passionate About Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life. I found it to be a humorous and honest piece about how many of us (in this artistic community) tend to balance our time. But the thing I truly want to share with you guys is this video, because at the end of the day (or year) sometimes you just need to watch some cute animals do some cute stuff.

MARISSA SKUDLAREK by Allison Page

Marissa Skudlarek and I communicate differently, but we think about a lot of the same things. If I’m a grilled cheese sandwich, she’s duck confit. She has the ability to say things that I know I’m also feeling, but haven’t brought myself to express properly without the use of a lot of F-bombs and references to Murder, She Wrote. Generally speaking, I like to accentuate the positive rather than wallow in a pool of the negative, so when her article “You’re Doing It Wrong, You’re Doing It Wrong” (Technically the second half of a two part article. The first one is also worth reading, but the second really drove it home for me.) The internet, and the world, can be a dark and dismal place. Some days it feels like there’s nothing to be happy about; nothing that’s going right. In a world that seeks to find the worst in everything, Marissa seeks out the subtle nuances of her theatrical experiences, and of the world around her. It’s refreshing and thoughtful, and a big reason I love reading her posts. Not everyone is doing it right wrong. I like to think Marissa is striving to do it right; for women in general and for herself.

Marissa Skudlarek: you bet your sweet ass she’ll make that dinosaur chair look classy.

Outside of the Theater Pub Blog, there are always a lot of conversations stirring up interest. Every writer, every playwright – hell, every person has a different way they like to work. This last year I’ve been focusing more on writing and I’m always trying to find new ways to keep myself excited about the writing process. That can be hard to do, seeing as you still need to sit down and fuckin’ write at some point. That part is unavoidable. Though this article is actually from the end of 2012, I didn’t read it until this year, so I’m counting it! It’s an interesting collection of the daily routines and writing habits of famous writers. Hemingway wrote standing up? Well, that’s weird.

Hi-Ho The Glamorous Life: 2013’s Most Memorable Theater Moments

Marissa Skudlarek jumps on the end of year list bandwagon.

“Nothing is forever in the theater. Whatever it is, it’s here, it flares up, burns hot, and then it’s gone.”

—Karen (Celeste Holm) in All About Eve

Theater is an ephemeral art, so I’m dedicating my last column of the year to celebrating five of my most memorable theatergoing moments in 2013. I don’t quite consider this an official “best of” or “top five” list; it’s more a record of five times in 2013 when theater did what it ought to do: surprised me, jolted me, thrilled me. They are arranged in chronological order.

Act Two of Troublemaker, at Berkeley Rep – I didn’t find Dan LeFranc’s comedy-drama about a troubled middle-school boy 100% effective, but parts of it delighted me beyond measure. As I wrote on my blog at the time: “Act One toggles back and forth between realism and stylization; Act Two goes completely nuts; and Act Three brings it back down to earth to for a more naturalistic, emotional resolution. That second act, though, man… it might be the craziest thing I’ve seen at a Big Theater in a long time. There’s a soup kitchen populated by homeless pirate zombies, the rich kid lounges on a divan as “Goldfinger” plays, our heroes do an unconvincing drag act (leading up to a gay kiss that managed to draw gasps from the liberal-Berkeley audience), Bradley’s smart and mouthy friend Loretta turns into a pint-sized femme fatale… I watched it in disbelief and giddy delight that Berkeley Rep was producing this in such lavish style.”

Finale of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, at Kazino (NYC) – This show is a sung-through, pop-opera adaptation of the section of War and Peace where young Natasha Rostova nearly runs off with a lothario named Anatole. I had seen Dave Malloy’s earlier Russian-themed musical Beardo at Shotgun Players and felt ambivalent about it: it was very clever, but also very arch, and it kept me emotionally distant. The opening scenes of Natasha, Pierre had some of that same winking irony, but by the end, it became heart-on-sleeve sincere. Despite war, scandal, and Russian melancholia, Natasha and Pierre achieve a measure of peace and understanding — symbolized by the passing of the great comet (itself represented by a beautiful chandelier). What began as a boisterous Russian party ended on a note of subtle delicacy. Shotgun, or some other Bay Area company, had better plan to produce this as soon as the rights become available, because I want to see it again.

End of Act One of A Maze, at Just Theater – If a play is titled A Maze, you can’t fault its first act for being puzzling and mysterious. Rob Handel’s script interweaves four different stories, three of them basically realistic and one a strange fairy tale or fable. At the end of Act One, though, all of the stories come together in a way that seems obvious in hindsight, but is completely astonishing (amazing?) in the moment when it occurs. I saw a lot of full-length plays this year, but A Maze was the one where I couldn’t wait for intermission to be over because I had to know what would happen in Act Two. I can’t go into any more detail than that, because it would be a spoiler; but if you want to experience this moment for yourself, Just Theater will be re-mounting its production in February 2014.

Ellen’s Undone, at the San Francisco Olympians Festival – Sam Hurwitt is one of my favorite Bay Area theater critics; his reviews are thoughtful and candid, and my tastes seem to align pretty well with his. But knowing what makes a good play doesn’t guarantee that you can also write a good play. Hurwitt, though, made an impressive playwriting debut with Ellen’s Undone, a contemporary interpretation of the Helen of Troy story. It’s a full-length play with just two characters, one set, and two long scenes – constraints that would challenge even a far more experienced playwright. This 100-minute argument between two smart, stubborn, acidly witty people reminded me of nothing so much as a modern-day Noel Coward comedy (perhaps it helped that Maggie Mason employed her natural English accent to play Ellen). A triumph for Hurwitt and for the San Francisco Olympians Festival as well – which continues to present an impressive variety of new theater every year.

Tinker Bell’s death scene in Peter/Wendy, at Custom Made – J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan depicts a whimsical world, where children can fly by thinking happy thoughts, and even the villains are comically blustering or incompetent. Still, there are darker and more adult undercurrents throughout, which burst to the forefront in the scene where Tink drinks poison to save Peter’s life. Anya Kazimierski (Tink) was honest and raw and terrifying in her death scene, and then there was a long moment as Sam Bertken (Peter) cradled Tink’s body and regarded the audience, seemingly trying to make eye contact with every single person there, stretching out the tension until we could hardly stand it. Finally – and without Sam needing to ask us the famous question – someone in the row behind me piped up “I believe in fairies!” And then another person in another section: “I believe in fairies!” It was a magical moment because the play got a little out of control from what the actors had expected; it was a magical moment because we, as an audience, were all in it together.

These were five of the moments where everything clicked for me, as an audience member watching a performance. But they wouldn’t happen without those moments earlier in the theater-making process where everything clicks for the cast and crew – those miraculous moments in the rehearsal room where you realize that, oh wow, this is actually going to work. So I also want to acknowledge some of my most memorable moments as a playwright: my living-room reading of Orphée last January, when I learned that my translation was playable; the first read-through of Teucer, in which actors Eli Diamond and Carl Lucania were already firing on all cylinders; rehearsing my one-minute play Cultural Baggage and making some subtle cuts so that its three overlapping monologues fit together perfectly. To everyone who made these and all of my theater experiences of 2013 possible, thank you.

Like a great comet, theater flares up, burns hot, and then it’s gone.

And I do believe in fairies.

Marissa Skudlarek wishes you a New Year sprinkled with fairy dust.

The Stuart Excellence In Bay Area Theater Awards for 2013

Stuart Bousel gives us his Best of 2013 list. 

Three years ago I decided that I wanted to start my own Bay Area Theater Awards, because my opinions are just as legitimate as anyone else’s, the awards I give out are as valuable as any other critical awards, (recipients of the SEBATA, or the Stuey, if you prefer, get nothing but my admiration and some free publicity), and also because there’s a fairly good chance that I’ve seen a lot of theater the usual award givers haven’t seen. The best thing about the Bay Area theater scene is that there is a huge diversity in the offerings, and so much on the table to begin with. No one person can see it all, and therefore it’s important to share with one another the highlights of our time in the audience seat, if only to create a greater awareness of what and who is out there making stuff.

Also, there are some people who think I don’t like anything, and I feel a need to not only prove them wrong, but to do so by expressing how much of the local color I do love and admire, as opposed to just pointing out that the reason they think I don’t like anything is because I generally don’t like *their* work (oh… I guess I did just point that out, didn’t I?). Normally I post these “awards” on my Facebook page, but this year I decided to bring them to the blog because the mission statement of the SEBATA is pretty in-line with the mission statement of Theater Pub, and having come to the close of an amazing year of growth for the blog, it now has a much farther reach than my Facebook page could ever hope to have. Congratulations SF Theater Pub Blog- you just won a Stuey.

Anyway, because I am a product of the generation that grew up with the MTV Movie Awards- and, because I’m the only person on the voting committee and thus can do what I like- I have decided that my categories are purely arbitrary and can be stretched to allow me to write about anyone I feel like. The two limits are 1) I can’t give myself an award (though I can have been involved in the show on a limited level) and 2) I won’t go over thirteen (though there may be ties for some awards). Because seriously, how (more) self indulgent would this be without either of those rules? Oh, 3) I won’t give out awards for how bad something was. I’m here to be positive. And chances are those people were punished enough.

To all my friends and frenemies in the Bay Area Theater Scene… it’s been a great year. Let’s you and me do it again sometime. Well… most of you.

And now, presenting the Fourth Annual Stuey Awards…

BEST THEATER FESTIVAL
“Pint Sized IV” (San Francisco Theater Pub)
Pint Sized Plays gets better each year, and it’s honestly one of two things I actually miss about working at the Cafe Royale (the other is the uniqueness of doing Shakespeare there, which for some reason works in a completely magical way I wish it worked more often on traditional stages). This year the festival was put together by Neil Higgins, who did an amazing job, and I think we had some of the best material yet. The evening as a whole felt incredibly cohesive, with a theme of forgiveness and letting go, archly reflective of our decision to leave the Cafe Royale, and I think incredibly relevant to a lot of our audience. We knew Pint Sized could be very funny, and very socially pointed, but I’m not sure we had ever conceived of it as moving and this year it was, thanks in no small part to our writers (Megan Cohen, Peter Hsieh, Sang S. Kim, Carl Lucania, Daniel Ng, Kirk Shimano and Christian Simonsen), directors (Jonathan Carpenter, Colin Johnson, Tracy Held Potter, Neil Higgins, Charles Lewis III, Meghan O’Connor, Adam L. Sussman) and actors (Annika Bergman, Jessica Chisum, Andrew Chung, AJ Davenport, Eli Diamond, Caitlin Evenson, Lara Gold, Matt Gunnison, Melissa Keith, Charles Lewis III, Brian Quakenbush, Rob Ready, Casey Robbins, Paul Rodrigues, Jessica Rudholm). The evening would start off with a magical performance by the Blue Diamond Bellydancers, whose combination of skill and spectacle got our audiences excited for what was to come. As we moved through the pieces, each by turns funny and poignant, each in some way or another about finding something, losing it, letting it go, and then coming back stronger, you could feel the audience grow warmer and closer each night. By the time Rob Ready gave the closing monologue, fixing each audience member in turn with a smile, you could feel everyone really listening and you could hear a pin drop in the room, and that’s saying something for the noisy by nature Cafe Royale. I think a lot of love went into the festival this year, and not just because it might be the last, and the product of that love was real magic and like the best theater- you had to be there. And if you weren’t, you really missed out.

BEST SHOW
“The Motherf**ker With The Hat” (San Francisco Playhouse)
I saw a lot of decent, solid, well done theater this year but I had a hard time connecting to a lot of it, which was rarely a flaw with the show and probably had more to do with where I was/am as a person (lots of change this year). Then again, something about really good theater is that it can get you out of your own head and into some other world, for a while. Towards the end of the year, I saw three shows I really really liked: “Crumble, or Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake” at Bigger Than A Bread Box Theater Company, “Peter/Wendy” at Custom Made Theater Company, and “First” at Stage Werx, produced by Altair Productions/The Aluminous Collective and Playground. Still, San Francisco Playhouse’s production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s “The Motherf**ker With The Hat”, directed by Bill English, was probably my favorite show of the year. Who knows why it has an edge on the others? Maybe because as someone who spent most of their childhood weekends in New York it seemed oddly familiar, or maybe it was the deft handling by the universally excellent cast (Carl Lumbly, Gabriel Marin, Rudy Guerrero, Margo Hall, Isabelle Ortega) of the complex relationships and dialogue that Guirgis does so well, or maybe it was just refreshing to see such a simple, honest play in what, for me, was a year characterized by a lot of stylistically interesting but emotionally cold theater. There is something very passionate, scathing, bombastic and yet also humble and forgiving about Guirgis’ work that I think makes him such an important voice in modern American drama and English’s production brought all that out with an easy grace. The show really worked, and got me out of my head, and when I went back to my life I felt much better for the journey. What more can you ask of a theater experience?

BEST READING
“Paris/Hector” (San Francisco Olympians Festival)
I attend a lot of readings every year, and run a reading festival myself, so I’ve come to greatly value a really well done reading. This year, the award goes to director Katja Rivera and writers Kirk Shimano and Bridgette Dutta Portman, whose pair of one acts about the pair of Trojan princes Paris and Hector made for one of the best nights of this past year’s San Francisco Olympians Festival. Part of what I loved about it was that in one evening we saw the amazing variety the festival can offer: Kirk’s play was a comedy with a poignant moment or two, while Bridgette’s was a faux-classical drama- written in verse no less. Though the writers are the center of attention at the festival, credit really has to be given to Katja Rivera, who as the director of both pieces, made many simple but effective choices to highlight the best elements of both works and utilize the talents of her excellent cast: Yael Aranoff, Molly Benson, Jeremy Cole, Mackenszie Drae, Allison Fenner, Dana Goldberg, John Lennon Harrison, Michelle Talgarow, Alaric Toy. With the combined excellent story-telling of the performers (including beautiful and surprising singing from Yael, Molly and Dana), the thoughtfulness of the scripts, and the cohesiveness of the whole, this night of the festival stood out best in what was a consistently strong year at the Olympians.

BEST SHORT PLAY
“My Year” by Megan Cohen (Bay One Acts Festival)
Megan Cohen’s “My Year” is the kind of thing I wish more short plays would be: dynamic, personal, and complete. In a sea of short plays that are really fragments, or meet-cute plays, it’s always lovely to see something with a beginning, a middle, and end, and full-formed characters having actual interactions and not just feeling like Girl A and Guy B, thrown together by the whimsy of the playwright to make a point (though of course, the right playwright can pull that off- which is why so many people try to ape it). A friend of mine described “My Year” as “A fun little 90s indie film on stage” and my reaction when watching it was “Oh, Dear God, convince Meg to let me write a companion piece to this!” because let’s face it: at least a third of what I write is a 90s film on stage. My own vanity aside, what I loved about this play (directed by Siobhan Doherty, starring Emma Rose Shelton, Theresa Miller, Nkechi Live, Allene Hebert, Jaime Lee Currier, and Luna Malbroux) was that it felt constantly on the move, while still being mostly composed of intimate moments between a group of women at a birthday party. Like a lot of the theater that I really loved this year, it also just struck a personal chord, watching this young woman (Emma Rose Shelton) trying to enjoy the party her friends have thrown for her (though she doesn’t like surprise parties) despite there being no food and a random stranger (Theresa Miller) who worms her way in only to turn out to be the troublemaker she’s originally pegged for. Megan’s writing had its usual combination of smart and sentimental, but whereas a lot of her other work heads into absurdity and/or extreme quirkiness (not that this is bad), “My Year” stayed very grounded and found its meaning in that effort to stay grounded, making what might be a quiet little play in anyone else’s oeuvre, a nice change of pace in Cohen’s. The final moment, where the characters howl at the moon because what else are you going to do after a shitty birthday, felt like a communal sigh even the audience was in on, probably because we could all relate to Shelton’s character, and while having always loved and admired Meg’s work, this is probably the first time I related to it so wholeheartedly.

The Peter O’Toole Award For General Awesomeness
Linda Huang (Stage Manager, Tech, Box Office, Everything)
You know how the Oscars and Tonys give out Lifetime Achievement Awards for people whose contribution is so massive that it would kind of be criminal to pick one work or contribution so instead they just get an award for basically being themselves? You know, like how Peter O’Toole got that award because at some point somebody realized that he was pervasively brilliant and always in fashion and therefore easily forgotten because things like “Oh, well, he’ll win next year” often times factors in to who we recognize, meaning things like reliability and consistency do not? Well, for the first time ever in the history of the SEBATAs, I’m creating The Peter O’Toole Award for General Awesomeness and giving it to Linda Huang, without whom, in all seriousness, I believe that small theater in San Francisco would probably grind to a halt. Earlier this year, I got recognized by the Weekly as a “Ringmaster” of the theater scene, but frankly I (and people like me) could not do what we do without having Linda (and people like her) constantly coming to our aid despite being paid a fraction of what they’re worth and half the time being forgotten because what they do isn’t in the immediate eye of the audience. Linda is a total gem of the theater scene. She wears many hats, though she’s probably best known for running light boards, and one of my favorite things when attending the theater is running into her, usually working in some capacity I previously was unaware she was qualified to do (note: Linda is qualified to do everything). What I love best about Linda (aside from her cutting sense of humor and tell-it-like-it-is demeanor) is her incredible generosity: she does so much for local theater and rarely gets paid, and even when she does get paid she often says, “Pay me last.” A true team player, and one we don’t thank enough, especially as she’s the only person who seems to know how to get the air conditioning in the Exit Theatre to work.

BEST BREAK THROUGH
Atticus Rex, Open Mic Night In Support of the Lemonade Fund (SF Theater Pub/Theater Bay Area Individual Services Committee)
I never expected to include a note about someone who performed at an open mic/variety show, but I wanted to shout out to Atticus Rex, a young performer who literally made his performance debut at the San Francisco Theater Pub/ISC fundraiser for the Lemonade Fund this year. A last minute replacement, Atticus and a friend performed some original hip-hop for our audience of mostly performance professionals and their friends, and despite the formidable crowd and the first time nerves, he basically killed it. Even when he made a mistake it worked: he’d call himself out, apologize, and start again, somehow without ever missing a beat. His lyrics are very tight and poetic, and the contrast between the power in his words and his humbleness at approaching and leaving the stage works so well you’d almost think it was an act- except he later confessed he’d never performed live before, and it couldn’t have been more sincere. With genuine hope he never loses his sincerity, while also continuing to grow his confidence and experience, I wanted to take a moment to say congratulations once again, and thank you for reminding us all what it looks like to really take a risk onstage.

BEST CHEMISTRY
Genie Cartier and Audrey Spinazola (Genie and Audrey’s Dream Show, SF Fringe Festival)
What’s potentially cuter than “Clyde the Cyclops?” Very little, but these two ladies and their breathless, funny, and surreal little clown show come dangerously close to giving Clyde a run for his money, and it’s the only show I saw at the Fringe this year that I wished my boyfriend had also seen. Bravely straddling the bridge between performance artists and acrobats, this collage of monologues, poems, jokes, mime, clowning, puppetry, stunts, music, and children’s games, is like watching two hyper-articulate kids on pixie sticks go nuts in a club house, but only if those kids had an incredible sense of timing and arch senses of humor (not to mention very flexible bodies). I’ve never been a huge fan of circus stuff (I like it as an accent, sometimes, but as entertainment on its own it doesn’t tend to hold my interest long), but I think I’d be a fan of anything that had these two women in it. Their ability to play off each other is the key to making their show work, and when you watch it you have that sense of being let into the private make-believe world of people who have found kindred spirits in one another. It’s an utterly magic combination and from what I know of other people who saw it, it basically charmed the pants off everyone. Or at least, everyone who has a soul.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR
Ben Calabrese (Apartment in “Crumble, or Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake”)
I saw a lot of great performances by men this year (Sam Bertken in “Peter/Wendy”, Tim Green and Gregory Knotts in “First”, Paul Rodrigues “Pint Sized Plays IV”, Will Hand “Dark Play”, Casey Robbins “Oh Best Beloved!”), but this one really took my breath away (though since Sam Bertken actually got me to sincerely clap for fairies in Peter/Wendy, he gets a second shout out). Ben’s role, which is to literally embody the voice of a neglected apartment, is the kind of role that could either be the best thing about the show, or the worst. Luckily for Bigger Than A Breadbox’s production of “Crumble, or Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake (written by Sheila Callaghan), Ben rocked it. Bouncing around the stage, dive bombing the furniture, all the while spouting, eloquently, Callaghan’s beautiful and complex monologues, Ben was so utterly watchable it was impossible not to buy the conceit of the role, and so moments when he has an orgasm from having the radiator turned on, or turns his fingers into loose electrical wires, don’t seem ridiculous, but made immediate and total sense. It’s usually not a compliment to tell an actor they did a tremendous job being an inanimate object, but what Ben did so well was illustrate that a home, while not “alive”, does indeed have a life to it. And if that life occasionally fixes the audience with Ben’s particular brand of “scary actor stare” why… all the better.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Brandice Marie Thompson (Georgia Potts in “First”)
Oh, this was a tough one. As usual, the actresses of the Bay Area are kicking ass and taking names no matter what their role, and my decision to pick Brandice above the rest is because I think she best exemplified that thing which so many actresses have to do, which is take a relatively underwritten role in a play about men and turn it into a rich, believable character who somehow manages to steal the show. Evelyn Jean Pine, who wrote “First”, is a fantastic writer and she writes women and men equitably well, and due credit must go to her for the creation and inclusion of this character in a story mostly about male egos, but in a lesser capable actresses hands, this role could have been annoying, or forgettable, or purely comical, and Brandice avoided all of these traps while making the character utterly charming at the same time. The truth is, her arc became much more interesting to me than that of the main character, and I think a strong argument could be made that “First” was just as much about Georgia as it was about Bill Gates. Director Michael French no doubt had a hand in this too, but in the end it’s a performer who makes or breaks a role and Brandice’s ability to combine mousy with spunky with unexpected and yet thoroughly authentic character turns was deeply satisfying to watch. Georgia kicked ass and took names, because Brandice does. Runners up: Melissa Carter (“Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake”, Bigger Than A Breadbox), Allison Jean White (“Abigail’s Party”, SF Playhouse), Sam Jackson (“Oh Best Beloved!”, SF Fringe Festival), Courtney Merril (“Into the Woods”, Ray of Light), Elissa Beth Stebbins (“Peter/Wendy”, Custom Made Theatre Company).

BEST FUSION THEATER PIECE
“Nightingale” (Davis Shakespeare Ensemble/SF Fringe Festival)
This little gem at this year’s fringe festival was adapted from the myth of Philomel by Gia Battista, with music by Richard Chowenhill, directed by Rob Sals (with Battista), and staring Gabby Battista, April Fritz and Tracy Hazas as three remarkably similar looking women who each take a turn playing the heroine of a bizarre fairy tale (all the other characters in the story are played by them as well). Dance, pantomime, narration, song and traditional theater techniques all came together in a way that was astonishingly clean and charming in its simplicity. The black and white aesthetic used to unify the look of the show and performers gave the whole thing a quality both modern and timeless, and in its gentle, dreamy tone the sharp elements of social commentary and satire often seemed more brutal and impactful. Of everything I saw at the Fringe this past year, which included a number of excellent works, this piece has stayed with me the longest.

BEST SOLO SHOW
“Steve Seabrook: Better Than You” by Kurt Bodden (The Marsh)
I saw a lot more solo performance than usual this year (including works by Annette Roman, Laura Austin Wiley, Alexa Fitzpatrick, Jenny Newbry Waters, Rene Pena), and realizing how good it can be is, in and of itself, kind of a miracle because I used to say things like, “Theater begins with two people” and “If Aeschylus had wanted to write sermons he wouldn’t have added Electra”. Kurt’s show was not created this past year, it has a long history, but I only saw it in its most recent Marsh incarnation and I’m hoping he’s been able to find ways to keep it going (his Facebook feeds indicate this is so). A satire of motivational speakers and the cult of self-improvement, “Steve Seabrook” manages to be so much more by combining satirical fiction with moments of the kind of personal monologue (still fiction) that permeates solo shows. The result is a sense of development, of a story (Steve’s) unfolding in real time while another story, (Steve’s Seminar) plays itself out over the course of a weekend. Playing off the convention of a backstage comedy (we see the seminar, then we see Steve when he’s not “on”), Kurt’s brilliance as a performer is evident in the seamless transition from one to the other, again and again, carrying a throughline that shows us not only why Steve buys into his mantras, but why any of us buy into anything we’ve come up with (or adopted from someone else) to keep us moving through life’s ups and downs. At once very funny and cutting, while also moving and real (and yes, fuck it, kind of inspirational), Kurt’s show also gets a nod for its fantastic takeaway schwag: a keychain light with Steve’s name on it, with which every audience member is encouraged to shine their light in a dark world.

BEST DIRECTOR
Rebecca Longworth and Joan Howard, “Oh Best Beloved” (SF Fringe Festival)
“Oh Best Beloved” got a lot of attention and deservedly so- well acted, well designed, it was a genuinely fun piece of theater. Perhaps most deserving of being singled out in the project, however, are director Rebecca Longworth and partner Joan Howard, who share credit for conceptualizing the show (in which Joan also played a part and had, in my opinion, the single best moment in the show), and who lead the rest of the company in adapting the material from Ruyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories”. Anyone who saw the show could easily see that it had about a million moving parts, and Longworth and Howard’s ability to keep all those plates spinning on a small budget and under the strict conditions of the San Francisco Fringe Festival (they literally put up and pulled down a full set with each performance) is worthy of award in and of itself, but the level of commitment and craft they were able to pull from their design team and performers was equally as impressive. Everything about the show, even the parts that didn’t work as well as others, felt thought through and done with panache, making this ambitious and unique experience a delightful jewel in the SF Fringe Festival’s crown.

BEST DESIGNER
Bill English, “Abigail’s Party” (SF Playhouse)
Scenery in general doesn’t do much for me. I enjoy good scenery, but the best scenery should kind of vanish into the background, in my opinion, and be something you barely pay attention to. As a result, I’m often just as happy with a blank stage, or really well thought out minimal set, as I am with a full one, so long as the play I’m watching is good. That said, every now and then I will see a set I just adore, and this year it was Bill English’s set for SF Playhouse’s “Abigail’s Party”, by Mike Leigh, directed by Amy Glazer. Basically a living room/dining room/kitchenet combo, this fully realized “home” was very well crafted as a place, but more importantly, it really worked as a place where people lived. The 70s style was at once present without being overwhelming, evoking the time period without looking like it was a homage to the time period, or a museum dedicated to 70s kitch. I mean, it honestly reminded me of numerous homes I’d played in as a child (I was born in 1978) and all the wallpaper looked like wallpaper in my parents’ home before my mother completely re-did the house in 1990 because “we can admit this is ugly… now”. The amazing thing about English’s set is that it didn’t seem ugly, in spite of being made up entirely of patterns and colors we now find appalling. He made it all work together, the way people once did, and the final result was simultaneously comfortable and dazzling. I remember thinking, waiting for the play to begin, “I could live here.”

And last, but not least, every year I pick…

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE EXPERIENCE TO WORK ON
“The Age of Beauty” (No Nude Men Productions/The Exit Theatre)
I had taken a break from directing my own work, but with this nine performance workshop I allowed myself to re-discover that, as much as I like directing plays by others, there is nothing quite as satisfying as feeling like I’m telling a very personal story of my own and having the final say on how that happens. Of course, such experiences are only rewarding when you get to work with great actors, and I was lucky to have four amazing women (Megan Briggs, Emma Rose Shelton, Allison Page, Sylvia Hathaway) who were willing to go on this adventure with me, always keeping stride as I made cuts and changed lines, memorizing a mountain of material in Emma and Sylvia’s case, and crafting subtle characters who had to be both different from each other and relatively interchangeable at the same time. When I had a hard time articulating what I was going for, they would nod and smile and then show me what I meant by doing it better than I could describe it. When the show opened by the skin of its teeth it had one of those minor miracle opening nights, where even though you’re just a tiny bit unprepared (all my fault, I kept changing the script), it somehow all comes together and really works. Over the course of the show, as their performances grew and refined (our final two nights were simply perfect), I was able to see what flaws still remained in the script (two pages, middle of scene of scene two were cut the day after we closed), and any writer of new work will tell you that’s the best experience you can hope for on a first production. Shout outs to my awesome design team Cody Rishell, Jim Lively and Wil Turner IV! “The Age of Beauty” helped restore some of my lagging faith in the theater process, and made me commit to doing more of my own work in the coming year.

Stuart Bousel runs the San Francisco Theater Pub blog, and is a Founding Artistic Director of the San Francisco Theater Pub. You can find out more about his work at http://www.horrorunspeakable.com.

The Next Generation Emerges: An Interview With Eli Diamond

There’s a certain tragic poetry to Eli Diamond, the youngest person to ever be involved with Theater Pub, making his onstage Pub debut with Pint Sized IV, our last production at the Cafe Royale. Giving the uniqueness of him amongst the more seasoned cast, we thought we’d take a moment to find out what it’s like to be the guy who shows up just in time for the end of an era.

Who are you, in a hundred words or less?

I am Elijah Diamond, a 19 year old actor who used to write “Theater Conservatory Confidential” for this site but is currently in his first SF Theater Pub. I am a born and raised local who recently spent a year at NYU majoring in Acting at the Atlantic Acting School.

Eli Diamond: Shimmering With Youth

And this is your first time being in a Theater Pub show. How did you get cast?

I had been asked before to do a Theater Pub show, and had been incredibly interested, but, the timing hadn’t worked. Funny enough, the current offer came as a complete shock to me. I was just on the computer minding my own business, when suddenly WHAM! Charles Lewis III sends me a message saying basically “Wanna be in my show for Theater Pub?” And I couldn’t type yes fast enough.

So, you are the youngest person to ever be in a show at Theater Pub, let alone be in Pint-Sized. How is that? Does anyone treat you like a kid?

As “the youngest person to ever be in a Theater Pub”, I was kinda worried that it would be like that, with everyone treating me just as a kid, but I quickly found out that wasn’t the case. I chill with people backstage and around the bar, though of course I don’t and can’t order anything, and I’ve found everyone to be incredibly accepting and loving. It’s interesting, as this is actually the first theater production I’ve been in where I don’t feel like everyone’s treating me like a kid. It’s an amazingly refreshing experience.

Has anyone recognized you as a former columnist for the website?

Sadly no, but I’m partially glad. I feel like if someone did, their first reaction would be “Why aren’t you in an institution right now?

Your column ended with you dropping out of Theater School and moving back to the Bay to pursue other avenues. What have you been up to all summer, and what does the future hold for you?

Recently I’ve been just doing my own thing. I got an internship doing lighting design for concerts, and I’ve been finding myself acting a lot more than I first expected. It’s been nice to reconnect with old friends as well. My future right now is incredibly up in the air, I’m going to see if I can transfer this upcoming year from CCSF, finish my GEs, and just figure out exactly what it is I want to do.

Any dream roles you’re hoping to play? People you are just dying to work with now that you’re back on the West Coast?

There are tons of people who I’m dying to work with. Basically everyone from Pint-sized this year who I wasn’t in a show with. I’d love to work with Paul Rodrigues, Andrew Chung, Annika Bergman, and pretty much everyone. In terms of directors, I’m dying to work with Claire Rice and Meg O’Connor. But I’m pretty open. In terms of dream roles, I used to be really crazy about those, but more recently, I’ve found myself incredibly open in what I get cast as. I find that keeps me from feeling like I’m type casting myself.

On some level, it probably feels like you just got here, and it’s all changing. Any thoughts on that?

That’s exactly how I’m feeling. I’m just like “Awesome, whens the next Theater Pub?” And everyone just throws their hands in the air like “No idea.” It’s a bit disheartening, but I’m definitely going to participate whenever I can.

You’re a young person, and if you didn’t know, the whole theater world right now is dying to get more young people to come to the theater. As a young person who makes theater, and goes to theater, what are your thoughts on how to reach younger audiences?

Honestly, just make it more known that you need and want young people. I just one day went “I’m going to try auditioning for something”, and surprise! Here I am. Young people just think that this is too far of a step away from them, when in reality all they have to do is raise their hands and get involved. Young people making theater tends to make for younger audiences too. We travel in packs.

Any shows you’re looking forward to seeing in the next six months?

I’m incredibly interested in Custom Made’s whole line up this year, most notably The Crucible. I managed to get some tickets to The Book of Mormon, and I’m hoping that doesn’t disappoint. Most of all, I’m just on the lookout for something new to take me by surprise. I like surprises.

You can see Eli and the rest of the Pint Sized cast two more times: tonight, at 8 PM, and tomorrow, July 30th, at 8 PM, only at the Cafe Royale! The event is free, but get there early as we expect to be packed!

Opening Tonight!

Pint Sized Plays returns for a fourth fabulous engagement this July!

Produced by the one and only Neil Higgins, this year’s line up of beer-themed short plays features the return of some of our favorite long-time collaborators (some of whom will be wearing new hats for the first time) as well as some fresh faces! In no particular order, the plays are:

Multitasking by Christian Simonsen, directed by Jonathan Carpenter

The Apotheosis of Grandma Shimkin by Sang Kim, directed by Charles Lewis III

200-Proof Robot by Kirk Shimano, directed by Neil Higgins

Tree by Peter Hsieh, directed by Colin Johnson

All Our Fathers by Carl Lucania, directed by Meghan O’Connor

The Last Beer in the World by Megan Cohen, directed by Tracy Held Potter

Mark +/- by Dan Ng, directed by Adam Sussman

Llama IV by Stuart Bousel, directed by Colin Johnson

Starring the acting talents of Annika Bergman, Jessica Chisum, Andrew Chung, AJ Davenport, Eli Diamond, Caitlin Evenson, Lara Gold, Matt Gunnison, Charles Lewis III, Melissa Keith, Brian Quakenbush, Rob Ready, Casey Robbins, Paul Rodrigues, and Jessica Rudholm.

The show plays five times: July 15th, 16th, 22nd, 29th, 30th, always at 8 PM, but get there early, because we will be packed to the gills every night! As usual, the show is free with a $5.00 suggested donation at the door.

Theater Conservatory Confidential: Hurricane Buddies & Summer Lovin’

Eli Diamond delivers his last blog… for now. 

So this is the end of my journey through New York University’s fantastic theatre program at the Atlantic Acting School. Though I did not manage to spend the two years I should have, I have been able to completely redefine what it means for me to act. In my opinion, through application of the technique, I have become a far superior actor than when I started. Line readings no longer burden me, and I feel a lot freer on stage. I’ve been told that the second and third years of Atlantic Acting School are spent mostly on applying the technique, and though I won’t be able to do that in a classroom setting, I hope to get that same application experience where it matters: out in the real world. I have spent the majority of the first two weeks of this summer auditioning, and have gotten a number of promising offers I plan on following up on. Most of my summer though, will be spent working over at LD Alliance over in South San Francisco. I’ll be working on lights with this company and making some money, which should provide some wonderful technical experience wherever it’s needed. The rest of my summer will be spent in class, making some GE credits for next year.

So recently I’ve been wondering what exactly it is I learned about myself from NYU. I guess I can start with the positives. I’ve learned that I have the capability to live on my own. I’ve learned that I’m not as weak as I sometimes can make myself out to be. I’ve learned that even if a hurricane is threatening the entire city, I can make friendships which I’m sure will last the rest of my life. On the negative side, I’ve learned that I can get incredibly bitter and cynical if left to my own devices for too long. I’ve learned that my mind needs constant stimulation in order to keep myself motivated, and if I don’t get that, I start to go stir-crazy. I’ve learned that I am a much more practical person than I give myself credit for, and have strayed away from the wild ambition that I used to pride myself so much on.

I used to be a wild, proud boy who would do anything to get what he wanted. I would not think of the failures, I would just bolt forward without a care in the world. New York made me see the other side of the coin, and that I can’t just do that or when I hit a wall, I’ll hit it too hard. I need to keep the practical side in my head and in my heart or else I’ll tear myself apart from madness. New York is a cold, passionate, powerful place, and I’m glad to have received everything its offered me. And I hope to bring all my new knowledge to San Francisco, to Olympians IV or Theatre Pub or whatever stage I happen to find myself on. It’s been a blast, and I thank each and every one of you for following me on this journey.

Theater Conservatory Confidential: So long, And Thanks For All The Rehearsal!

Eli Diamond prepares to sign off.

So it’s finally over. My last scene of the year, and my last scene with Atlantic Acting School, went up today to a wonderful response, and I am incredibly glad that Dog Sees God is the note I will be leaving here on. It’s been a rough year, full of breakdowns and stress-cries, but in the end, I think it was what I needed. It was a wake-up call; a chance for me to begin to see my life from a different perspective. Instead of being down in the dumps all the time, I needed to start thinking a bit more positively, and I have. Slowly but surely, I have become more comfortable in my own skin, as an actor and as a person, and this summer, I hope I will have a chance to show some of that off.

My plans for the summer mostly involve an internship and a trip to Cape Cod, but I hope to be doing a couple of shows. This freedom that the summer, and next year, offers me is wonderful. I’m excited to use what I learned at Atlantic to push myself into directions I never expected. I cannot wait to begin working with people, and applying the technique to actual plays rather than just class-work. My relationships with my friends back home will be revisited and hopefully expanded upon. This to me, felt like one giant rehearsal for my life.

That’s not to say that I don’t hope to stay in contact with everyone here. There are many wonderful people who I am incredibly glad I got to meet. I’m just sad because I realize that odds of me staying in contact with 85% of them is incredibly slim. I never fit in the way I wanted to, but that’s okay, because that taught me a lot about myself, and ways I could work on being the me who I want to be. I am happier now, because I feel like, for once, I am confident and calm just being myself.

I’m Elijah Diamond, and I’m pretty damn weird, but I love that. I love video games and theatre, and all sorts of random shit. Staying at home next year will be a little bit of a drag, but I hope to rent an apartment or something within the course of the year, but until then, I’ve just gotta wait for my registration for City College courses. That is, if they aren’t already full.

Theater Conservatory Confidential: And Your Prize Is Work

Seeing as it’s been a while since I last wrote about the work, I decided to do a brief summary of my largest projects right here. The work-load has most definitely increased this semester to astronomical proportions, with all of us doing at least 7 scenes this semester, alongside all of our papers and other homework. My scenes have all went pretty well, with a few rough edges here and there, but nothing I can’t really polish off with the knowledge I’ve been given.

The first scene we did was a scene dealing with a character’s temperament. Using our knowledge of the play, we’d analyze the character’s temperament to make a better choice in action for the scene. For this scene, a friend and I made a decision to do Rabbit Hole, and, although we ended up rehearsing the scene for upwards of 40 hours, we constantly had it rejected by our teacher, up until the final run-through, which our teacher said was astounding. It was interesting using temperament work to study the character, because, I feel like at first it made me act more of a basic archetypical character, rather than an actual person.

The next scene we had to do was a scene with an external. An external, through Practical Aesthetics, is any accent, disability, or thing that needs to be added on top of all the work. For this, I did Dublin Carol, using the externals of drunkenness and Irish-ness (in other words, just being Irish, my teacher joked). This scene was quickly rehearsed and finished, and we had it run-through and fixed in record time.

Not as fast as our multiple-person scene though, which is exactly what the name describes it as. For this, we learned how to do scenes with more than two people, using other people as tools to get our objective from the person our test was in. It was rough, but the scene from Children’s Hour proved to be strong material for us to use, and after about 30 minutes in class, we never had to do that scene again.

In my Script Analysis class, I have been working on a ten minute scene from Shining City, which has quickly become the bane of my existence. We have brought it into class 4 times now, and been shut down each and every time. I need to discover a truer form of guilt in myself in order for the scene to work, and not just spout defensiveness, which the scene can quickly devolve to if not done well.

In Repetition, we had to find a historical figure we loved, write a monologue as them, dress ourselves, act out the monologue, and improvise a question and answer session afterwards. I chose Emperor Norton (homeless guy in San Francisco thought he was Emperor, city played along with him, fun stuff) and my class seemed to love it. Every moment I performed that was gleeful and exciting.

The other scenes I’m working on and will be putting up before the end of the year are excerpts from Breakfast Club, American Psycho, Clue, and Dog Sees God. I’m really excited for all of these and these have all held strong places in my heart. Almost makes me regret leaving. Almost. On the other hand though, the last time I was really inspired at NYU was in a Meisner and Strasberg class, so who knows? Maybe I’ll find something else somewhere.