This is one of those theatre stories that makes being an actor worthwhile. One of the things that Valhalla Shakespeare Project takes great pride in is allowing the audience to “see the strings” (to borrow from Julie Taymor). Rarely have I seen such a committed and emotionally invested audience.

As you read this little anecdote, remember that this production was staged to be completely bare bones. We did not include any lighting or sound effects (except for those that we actors could make on our own or as an ensemble). It was staged to be an outdoor (okay…in a quonset hut), daylight production with minimal props. Our performance space was very sparse (albeit very impressive); there was only enough electricity to power some ceiling fans which were suspended from the (majestical) roof and a couple of outlets for powering small appliances and that’s all. Even the heating unit which is used during the winter is wood-burning and takes a day to heat up. There was not even an option for lighting in our space.

Last night during our “final” performance of Hamlet, we had to hold the house because we had a fairy sizable showing. The good thing is that the audience got to choose their own seats (they came in, popped open their lawn chairs or spread their blankets, and waited for the show to begin - some even brought picnic dinners). The show was supposed to start at 3pm, but we didn’t actually get underway until nearly 3:30p. Then, during intermission, we had to hold longer than normal because of the number of people trying to get into the one Port-o-let we had at our…um…disposal.

Then there was the whole problem of the time change which occured between Saturday and Sunday this weekend. So, when we “fell forward” in time over night, it made nightfall happen an hour earlier for us out on the farm. Add to that the fact that we were even further behind schedule because of the size of our audience and you make for some very interesting theatre indeed.

As the second half of our production got underway, it was painfully obvious to everyone present that Act V of Shakespeare’s show was going to be performed in complete darkness. Unfortunately, that’s also the part where characters are slinging swords at one another and dying all over the place. By the time the graveyard scene came around, I could not see Hamlet’s (Brian Webb Russell) face across the 20 foot circle that was our stage. The change from Brian’s Hamlet to Mark Cabus’ Hamlet involved a dagger toss across the circle. Thankfully, Brian opted instead for a walk across the circle for a handoff. It was obvious that the audience (who also knew that the swordfight was coming) were becoming concerned about the darkness, too. One audience member tried to help out by shining a light onto the stage as the fight was about to begin, but it was unfortunately it was right in Mark’s eyes making for a much more dangerous situation than pure darkeness (to which our eyes were somewhat adjusting). Mark broke our 20′ “Circle of Concentration” to thank the anonymous audience member but that it was more of a hinderance than a help.

About that time, one audience member pulled his Jeep Grand Cherokee into the performance space and turned on his headlights. Mark and Jesse (Laertes) made some slight adjustments to the staging of the fight so the lights were not directly in their eyes and continued the fight.

Gertrude died.

Claudius died.

Laertes died.

Hamlet died.

Fortinbras entered and the play ended.

All in the headlights of a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

By my count (and my wife’s verification) only a handful of people left. The rest of the audience stayed and “watched” the show in the darkness. They felt completely invested in the show.

I have never had a stronger compliment from an audience in all of my time in the theatre. It would have been so easy just to get up and leave when the lighting started to fade, but they stayed with us. To everyone who happened to be in the audience last night: THANK YOU!

Hamlet as a verb drives John nuts.

John and I have been so busy with the podcast and the other projects we’ve been doing, we have been remiss in getting some actual blog posting done. Here is my attempt to rectify that.

Well, the show is up. It was a very fast and furious rehearsal period, but the first of two initial audiences have seen this adaptation (incarnation?) of Hamlet and I am honored to have been a part of it. I was offered the role less than a month ago and we only rehearsed three times a week and we’ve got the show in front of an audience - not bad! It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in a situation like that, but I have to say it was very refreshing. When I first took the role, there was a bit of anxiety about it seeing as how I hadn’t been on stage in over two years (my last show was a production of Company at WaterTower Theatre in Dallas).

I have made some very good friends in this production and I hope to have the chance to work with all of them again very soon.  Mark has been a very gracious director and collaborator and I’m happy to have crossed paths with him.  I was floored to find out he had been reading this blog well before our work together on this project!  He and I are already talking about future projects (stay tuned for more information)!  Brian, Richard, Wesley, Claire, Kyle and Jesse have all been great to work with.  Everyone is so present and committed to not only their roles, but to the entire production.  It’s been fun and exciting to be on stage with each of them (even if we didn’t mention them by name in the podcast).
So, what did I learn?

Well, first of all, if at all possible don’t take so long of a time off between shows. Granted, I’ve been working, but mostly camera work and it’s a completely different type of acting. I’ve missed being on the stage and I do feel that I was a bit rusty at first and had to have a few rehearsals to shake the cobwebs off before I could really get down to getting the work done.

Secondly, it’s always tough breaking into the “network” of theatre in a new town (especially if you really don’t live immediately in the new town). And, since I live about 30 minutes outside of Nashville, I’m not deep in the heart of the work that’s going on and so it’s been harder to make the auditions and be seen by potential directors and producers.

Third: Since this was my first Equity contract, I have to say that I’m glad I’m union. That having been said, I do suggest that actors who have not yet joined the union to weigh the decision very carefully before doing so, especially if they are not moving immediately to New York or L.A. Being union in any Right-To-Work state makes it a bit harder to get the work until you’ve made somewhat of a name for yourself. Still, I’ve worked very hard to become a member of the union and I’m proud of it.

So what’s next? Well, I’ve got one more performance of Hamlet this afternoon and two performances of our Freshperson’s Showcase early next week at MTSU and then I’m into the final rehearsals for Oklahoma! which will go up on the 9th of November. After a brief trip to Washington D.C. and the holidays with my family, I’m not really sure what’s going to be on tap on the performance front! There are a couple of possibilities on the horizon, but nothing I want to announce just yet.

On the education front, I am chomping at the bit to get into the Spring Semester at MTSU. I’m going to be offering a Shakespeare in Performance class and I can’t wait to get into it. There is a lot of buzz amongst the theatre students about it. There’s never been a class like this one offered at MTSU! I’m putting the finishing touches on the curriculum for the class between now and the holidays.

Oh, and John and I will keep plugging along with The Inexplicable Dumb Show (merchandise available now). We are starting to pick up more and more subscribers which means that people are actually listening to us ramble about the state of theatre in the Southeast.

So, it’s off to a lunch with the producers (and investors) of the show, then the final performance of Hamlet.

At least for now…

Okay, I normally don’t do this, but I posted a little something about the shoot of the Tennessee Lottery spot over on my other site.  Check it out!

Remember that comment about the Tennessee Lottery commercial I was called back for?  Well, I booked it!  Not only that, but in a rare turn, they actually cast the guy I was reading with in the callback!  We shoot on Aug 2. 

Sorry about not posting in a while, but this week has been one of the busiest all summer.  After an early drought from work around here, my agent has called me out for something every day this week!  Here’s the rundown (so far):

Monday: 

I had gotten a call setting up a time to record a radio version of the Bristol Motor Speedway ad that I shot back in April.  So, without much notice at all, I found myself in a recording studio laying down my part of a 60 second radio ad that will run concurrently with my TV spot!  The producer of the spot was teleconferenced in.  Special thanks to Nick Paladino at NPall Studios and Charlie Andrews with the Tombras Group for bringing me back in for this “spinoff” gig!

Oh yeah, I got to see the rough cut of the TV spot.  It looks great.  I can’t wait to get a copy of it!

Tuesday:

Next up was a callback for Jimmy Kup Casting.  This time it was for a spot for St. Thomas Hospital.  It’s nice to be called to callbacks without ever having been to the audition!!

Wednesday:

I was off to the agency office for an audition for a spot for the Tennessee Powerball Lottery.  This audition was a lot of fun.  It was one of those rare opportunities to read off of someone that you actually have a bit of chemistry with. 

Thursday:

Later on today, I’ll be going back to see Regina Moore at Moore Casting for an audition for a music video.  This will be my first music video audition in Nashville and I’m looking forward to it.  Based on the info my agent gave me, this should be a fun day!

Friday:

Who knows?  Hopefully I can shoot for five in a row!

 So, that’s all for now.  I’ll keep you posted about any possible outcomes!  Send good vibes!!

So I feel like the first thing I need to do is apologize for being absent for so long from the site. I’m not pullin’ my own weight here, and it’s something I intend to change in the near future, especially as I gear up for my next project or two. But I’ve got a couple of things to reflect on at the moment, and I thought this would be a good place to put it all down and see what I’ve learned, if anything, from it all. I guess what I’m talking about are surprises.

So I’m playing Macbeth this summer in the park in Nashville, and it’s one of the coolest things I’ve had happen to me yet. Not only is it probably my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, it’s a role I’ve wanted to play for a good ten years or so, and I honestly never thought I’d get a chance. Couple reasons for this, the first of which being my age. I’m 32, and for some reason, the heavy hitter roles in Shakespeare’s plays often go to older actors, presumably because it is assumed that they have the maturity and experience to handle it better. I don’t know, but it always seems to be the case. Well, I had to pass up a chance to play Macduff last fall due to a conflict, and I figured my chances of even being involved in the play weren’t gonna be good for a while (at the time, I had no idea the Shakespeare Festival here in town would do the show). Plus, the guy who was cast as Macbeth in that production is a good friend of mine who is a good ten years older than me. And here’s my problem with that, and it’s actually one of the reasons I got cast in the part in the upcoming production: it has never made sense to me that Macbeth should always be an older man. First, he is childless, and while the play never flat out tells you why, you can draw from alllusions in the text that either he or his wife have possibly had children before and lost them, either through miscarriage, stillbirth, or just plain bad luck of any kind. The whole “I have given suck…” speech by Lady M. seems to imply that she has had and lost a child, so it does put them at a certain age, but nowhere does it seem to imply (unless I’m missing something huge, but I’m no Shakes scholar) that it would be impossible for them to have children in the future, so it makes sense to me that they’re young enough to try again. Add in the fact that Macbeth is pretty nakedly ambitious, and he seems to be given a very youthful energy that makes him seem a lot closer to twenty-five or thirty than forty. But it’s open to debate. Suffice to say, my personal opinion is that he is a young man with his entire life and career ahead of him, and what makes it so tragic is that he throws this all away by making the first of many poor decisions, the moral ramifications of which he seems to be very consciously aware. He knows from the beginning that it’s the wrong thing to do, but he decides to pursue it anyway, and hell follows thereafter. Seeing someone with potential ruin himself seems much more interesting and tragic to me than someone who is just simply evil and jaded, like Richard III. Furthermore, he realizes before it’s all over just how badly he has screwed himself, and since there is no recourse or way to save himself, he commits even more fully to his course of action and does what he does best - he kills whomever gets in his way. It’s extremely interesting that there is this existential thread in Macbeth - he realizes his world is falling apart, and even though he could simply give up and aloow himself to be taken prisoner, he fights to hold onto it as long as he can. I’ve never read any of Beckett’s thoughts on Shakespeare, but one would have to be blind not to notice the connection between this particular play and the bleak yet somehow persevering world of Didi and Gogo. Unfortunately for Macbeth, at the end of his story he has no friend to comfort him through the unbearable truth, and so he must persevere alone. At least Didi had Gogo to wait with him.

Anyway, to my pleasant surprise, the director of the upcoming production feels much the same way as I do. Thus, I am cast, and it’s a golden opportunity for me. It has given me the opportunity to step back and look at myself in a role which I haven’t before - the leading man. Self-awareness is something an actor can always stand to have, and while I have always dreamed of playing some of these great roles, I guess I have never really considered myself the leading man type. Comes mostly from past insecurities about myself - growing up as a fat kid, not much interest from girls early in life - some of the very reasons that I believe I became an actor are now the reasons that I seem to have a hard time actually imagining myself playing some of these great roles.

As a side note, but no less important: I’m going to be teaching drama camps this summer at the Nashville Children’s Theatre, and one of the camps is a three-week intensive conservatory program designed for older kids who really want to be challenged and get as close to a professional experience as they can. Julee Baber, the Director of Education at NCT, is going to direct The Crucible for this conservatory, and I will be playing John Proctor along with Nashville actress Jenny Littleton as Elizabeth. The kids in the program will make up the rest of the cast, and it’s a chance for them to work with professionals and hopefully to learn from them. So this summer I’m going to get the chance to play two of the greatest roles in the English language, and to be honest, I’m still trying to come to terms with that. Not in terms of the workload, because I will be working on both shows at once, and I have no fear of that, but just in terms of the fact that I’m going to be the lead in both shows. It’s not earth-shattering, just a new phase in my life and my career, and I’m very happy about it. I guess I should just shut up, be glad that it’s happening, and see where it takes me after this.

Anyway, back to Macbeth. I’ll write more on the process I go through as the summer proceeds. Once again, this is one of my favorite of Willy’s plays, and it’s once Ive spent a lot of time on in the past ten years anyway, so I’ve got some pretty strong ideas about it. I’d love to hear what anyone else has to say about it - if you agree or disagree with my take on it, etc. Here’s something to stew on: I personally feel that Macbeth is a man of action. While not an idiot, he is intelligent and blessed/cursed with an abundance of imagination, which allows him to conceive of the murder of Duncan, and he is definitely a killer of men, he is not a murderer at the beginning of the play. He becomes one as soon as he decides to act on his imagination and kill the king. Once he starts doing so, he isn’t smart enough to figure out a way to keep himself safe, and he responds to any threat to his position the way he would on a battlefield - he kills whomever gets in his way. Even when he’s aware that it’s the wrong thing to do, he does it anyway, mainly because he can’t see any other way to accomplish his goal. Iago and Richard are manipulators; they make others do much of the work for them. Macbeth doesn’t know how to do that. He only knows how to kill, and even when he knows there should be a better way, it is all he knows how to do.

Any thoughts?

One of the strongests lessons that I took away from my time at SMU is that acting lessons will jump out and surprise you from the most unlikely places.

I’m 32 years old and yesterday I got on the back of a horse, at least by myself, for the first time in my life. My wife’s uncle Mike has a farm here in Middle Tennessee where he keeps two horses, Hershey and Fancy. I had the honor of sharing some time with Hershey. Mike gave me a few pointers, put the reigns in my hand and let me walk him around the property. I was warned the Hershey hadn’t really been ridden in several months, so there was the possibility that he would be a bit stubborn. He also hadn’t been away from Fancy in quite some time. Yet another addition to the possibility of stubborness.

Here’s where the acting lesson comes in. When it comes to horses, you don’t steer them as much as you come to a consensus with them as to where you’re going to go. That means that there is a communication that goes on between horse and rider. At the same time I was getting accustomed to being on horseback, Hershey was getting use to having someone on his back again and learning what I meant when I gave him commands with the reigns. I became almost instantly aware of this communication that was going on. Early in the ride, there were times when I was trying to get Hershey to slow down a little and he would come to a halt almost immediately. Likewise, there were some times when I would pull a little too hard trying to get him to go to the right or left and he would come to a halt. What was amazing was that we both learned each other’s tendencies at almost the exact same time and it just clicked.

I quickly realized that in order for the ride to be a successful one, I had to listen to Hershey as much as he was listening to me. I’m hoping you see the analogy here. In order for your scene or the entire play to be successful, you have to listen to your fellow actors and scene partners as much as they (hopefully) are listening to you.

Acting is reacting. If you are not listening to your fellow actors–and not just with your ears–there is no way you can react realistically in the moment.

I’m no horseman, but I certainly will spend a bit more time on the farm with Hershey. It’s impossible to ride a horse and not be totally open and listening to him!

This Friday past, I was on location for the shoot of a regional TV spot. The shoot was for Stray Dog Productions with David Jellison directing. I arrived on set, got into wardrobe and makeup and we caravaned to our first location. After shooting for about an hour, we wrapped at that location and headed back to the second location.

The premise of the commeical is this: my character has won a “Pimp My Ride” style contest whereby this crew of mechanics is going to take my car and turn it into a stock-car. After a brief scene at my house, the crew takes the car and heads off to the garage to start the transformation. Then, the car is revealed to me, the crew stuffs me into the car and hilarity ensues.

It’s been nearly two years since I had been on a set and I had a great time. I had forgotten the amount of “hurry up and wait” time, but luckily, I brought a little bit of work along so it wasn’t completely wasted. I was able to get limited internet access at the location. The folks at Stray Dog were fantastic. The crew was professional, but it was clear that they were dead set on having a good time doing their jobs. Even though it waslate in the evening, I was a little sad to be leaving the set and heading home. Many thanks to Gaye for her positive attitude and professionalism!

In other news, the casting has occured for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s production of Macbeth and I was unfortunately not cast. I am pleased to announce, however, that our very own Ross Brooks will be playing none other than The Scottish King himself!! Many kudos to Ross! I can not wait to see the show. If you are in the Nashville area, make sure to make this part of your summer plans.

So, in keeping with the only true way to survive in this business, I have already begun the process of lining up auditions with the Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Nashville Children’s Theatre and the People’s Branch Theatre. In addition to that, my agent is keeping me plenty busy with film and video auditions in the Nashville area as well.

I BOOKED IT! I’ll be shooting a commericial with Stray Dog Productions this Friday! I got the call this morning and I went for a wardrobe fitting this evening!

Thanks, Josh!

Okay! Things are starting to get back in gear around here. I’ve finally gotten a callback for a commercial! Tomorrow night, I’ll be in Nashville again trying to land this role in a commercial that shoots on Friday.

Here’s the lesson folks: If you are in (or are thinking about getting into) this profession, don’t plan on taking any time off! I know that life happens (that’s what happened in my case), but if you have been out of the loop for awhile (in my case it was nearly 2 years), it will take you a while to get your feet back under you!!

Let me be clear, I don’t regret my time off. I have two beautiful children to show for it, but it’s taken me a while to get comfortable in front of a camera again.

Okay, that’s my little tidbit from this weekend past. Carry on…