"Uncle Vanya" Wrap Up

We're done with "Uncle Vanya". It's a happy-sad experience like any end of a show is. I think I'm getting too used to it. It getting to be too easy to say good-bye to a show and all of the actors I've been working with.

The show was very successful though! We had a wonderful experience doing and I learned a lot about directing and coaching. It was wonderful to try and help other actors discover how to approach Chekhov. We did such a wonderful job at discovering the humor in this play as well as finding a very natural and honest feeling. We got reviewed by the Utah Theatre Bloggers Association. It was an alright review. Disappointing in that the reviewer missed the point of what we were doing and didn't fully recognize the hard work we put into it. The owner of the company, my friend Anne Shakespeare, however loved the review. You can read her response and explanation here.

I'm not really sure what to say about this experience. I sure learned a lot. I know for a fact that I never want to act and direct in a show ever again. Especially if I just have the show thrust upon me in the middle of the rehearsal process. I learned a lot though. I realized even more than I already knew the importance of vocal strength and physical presence on stage. It makes such a huge difference! If you don't take control of the stage, it can get so boring. It sucks the energy out of the play, even if you are honestly connected and doing everything else you are supposed to be doing. That was probably the biggest issue we faced, just getting the actors to support their voice and not indulge in the emotions.

Along that line I learned a lot about the value of "not acting". Especially for Chekhov it is essential to just "be" in the moment. Never show, never indicate, never "act". Just experience it. Just honestly experience what the character is experiencing. I certainly enjoyed many moments of this during the performance and I know that my fellow actors also experienced it. I improved in my ability to recognize when people are "acting" and trying too hard, and when they are just responding and living.

For future acting I want to remember what I've learned about the importance of vocal power and physical presence. Also, I want to remember the importance of really doing your homework. I need to stop procrastinating memorization and character work. The sooner that gets done, the sooner I can really get to work. It's hard. It's not always fun. It's probably my least favorite part of acting, but it's essential to the work.

For future directing I want to be more bold. I want to have more confidence and let the actors see that. I also want more discipline. I want my actors to be focused and attentive in a way that is almost reverent when we are rehearsing. I'm excited that for next time I will actually be able to prepare myself instead of being thrust into the midst of the rehearsal process.

Speaking of next time, I will be directing "The Importance of Being Earnest" in January for Utah Shakespeare in the Park. Hooray! I'm very excited. It will be a lot of fun and I'm committed to making it a very fine piece of theatre. My focus will be on the actors. I want to continue the training of very able, very aware, very natural and open artists. This is my desire and goal in training actors and I hope this experience will continue to help me along that path.

Pressing Onward

I'm currently reading "Acting Professionally: Raw Facts About Careers in Acting" by Robert Cohen and James Calleri. It's a well needed kick in the butt. I love its direct and honest approach about an acting career. The book never tries to dissuade you from a career in acting but it lays out very clearly what the career entails and what you need to do to survive. It's very sobering.

These are some of my favorite quotes from tonight's reading:

"Work out regularly. ... If you are student reading this, hey, don't delay- do it now! Don't wait until you hit the big city casting offices. Get in shape, lose the weight, gain the muscle, just do it! Then you can hit the ground running, not plodding."

"The specifics of personal physical appearance are not individually critical. What is important is the effect that your person and your 'image' create-and the power of that effect, which should be enormous."

"Cultivate a distinctive appearance. ... Extravagance and propriety are not worth a dram in this business, but distinction in your own terms is. Find yourself, and find in yourself a unique appearance that will intrigue others."

"Every actor must have training and experience. ... Training is the foundation to your career. ... No one should think they are too good to train."

"Many theatre departments project a back-patting coziness that cal lull student actors into a false sense of security, preventing them from developing their craft in a disciplined manner and encouraging them to rest on ill-deserved laurels."

"Remember: Whatever your training, academic or professional, you'll learn as much or more from your fellow students as from your teachers, and you'll be in touch with them further down the road."

"College, acting classes, and the local community theatre can be very comfortable places. A lovely security envelops you. You are known, liked, respected, and well reviewed by the locals and by your teachers. But check your goals. If you want to move on, you better go when you are ready rather than hang around merely because it's safe. ... When you are ready to take the plunge, take it. Only you can decide on the proper time."

It's a tough industry! I've got to make sure I have solid goals and plans in place to achieve those goals. What do I want? What am I striving for? What am I willing to sacrifice to get what I want? What am I not willing to sacrifice? Why? Am I willing to do what it takes?

Sigh.

"The Foreigner" has been cast at the Hale and I have not been selected to be in the cast. Sigh. At least I'm becoming more and more familiar with this whole rejection thing. I've still got a long road of rejection ahead of me! Wahoo!

"Uncle Vanya"

"Macbeth"

Recently I also auditioned for the Utah Shakespeare Festival's school tour. Christopher Clark is directing it and it looked to be a wonderful experience. I would get paid and housed for from January to April while touring schools and communities in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. My audition felt really good. I did my monologue from "Twelfth Night" that I used for grad school auditions in February, and I did a monologue from "King Richard II" that I have used before. Both went really well. I had a wonderful conversation with the director, Chris, and with the producer/artistic director, Michael. Both seemed to really like me and the conversation flowed quite nicely. However, it doesn't look like I got the part. They are only casting 5 men and 2 women to play all the parts and I know of one of my good friends who has been cast as Lady Macbeth. She heard over a week ago, so that's a pretty good indicator that I didn't get that part. Oh, well. We keep trying. That's how it goes in this business.

"The Foreigner"

I auditioned for "The Foreigner" at the Hale Center Theatre in Orem. It's being directed by Laurie Harrop-Purser and promises to be a great opening show for the 2011 Season. And I want to be in it! I love the characters. They are perfect for me. For my audition I did a British-accent monologue from the film "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". And... I didn't do so well with it. I was pretty stiff (which kind of works if you are British) and I FORGOT SOME LINES! Ugh! That hasn't happened to me during an audition in a long time. I didn't miss a beat and kept going, but it really shook me up.

Fortunately, the next day I got called back! Hooray! After a very successful opening performance for "Uncle Vanya" (more on that later) I rushed up to Orem for call-backs. I was called for Charlie and Froggy and read mostly for Charlie. It went really, really well! I felt great! It was a very competitive call-back though and it will be tough. I heard that the director wants to single-cast the show which further decreases my chances of being cast. I'm still hopeful! I would love to do this show. I need the experience. I need the money. I need the networking and connections that would come from it. It would be an all-around awesome experience. I just hope I did all I could to get it. It's now out of my hands. And so I wait.

Teaching

This last Saturday I conducted an acting workshop at BYU. It was pretty successful. I had approached Barta Heiner, the head of the acting program at BYU, about doing a workshop to cover some of the things I learned while doing the Stanislavsky Summer School. She agreed and set up a time and booked a rehearsal room for me. I initially wanted to conduct it for the Teaching Assistants in the program and then focus on the exercises that Misha taught us, hoping that they would take them and use them with their students. I decided to open it up a bit more and invite anyone from Classical Acting and Auditions who would like to attend as well. It turned out to be a good thing as only 3 TAs came, one classical acting student, and actually two other students who just heard about it. So we had six, myself, and Barta.

I was nervous preparing for the workshop. I had three hours to try and give them a taste of what I had learned in five weeks. I decided to do a couple of exercises and then broke things down into a few different sections: action, events, given circumstances, imagination, and observation. I spent some time on each one talking about its importance and running a few exercises to reinforce the concept. All in all it went really well. I was pleased with the participation of the students and with how things moved along. I certainly learned a lot from this experience. There are many things I will do differently next time I teach a similar workshop.

Speaking of doing another workshop I'm hoping to start doing after school workshops at local high schools. Perhaps once a week. I want to do this for a number of reason. I love teaching for one. I love coaching and assisting young artists in understanding themselves and their art better. While at BYU I was a teaching assistant for three different acting classes and I loved it. I also got to teach two workshops at the Playmill Theatre's Summer Camp when I worked there two summers ago. I learned so much by helping others refine their craft and deepen their art. I realize that I have a gift for this and I really enjoy doing it (for example, I'm loving directing "Uncle Vanya" right now).

So, I got to thinking, why not make money doing this? I could hire myself out as a coach for young actors in the area. I particularly want to reach out to high school actors and help them out. I've created an ad on CraigsList, but haven't done much advertising yet because I'm still not sure where I'm going to be able to do this. I do have a friend who has a studio in the area and so I'm going to talk to him about possibly using his space to meet with clients/students. I'm in the beginning phase of this endeavor, but I really hope it goes somewhere. Wish me luck!

Let it Be

The last few months I've been thinking a lot about the next step in acting that I need to take. I've gained valuable technical skills and mastered them fairly well. I am now lacking the deep heart and soul to bring life to my work. Misha told me that I have the ability not only to make people laugh, but to make them cry. How does one go about being so real in their art that the viewers are literally drawn in and will laugh and cry at the same time because what they are seeing is truth?

It's a journey. You begin by trying to be in control. That first run of a scene, or the beginning of the rehearsal process, or your early career is a time of trying to be in control. Slowly your give up control. You stop trying so hard and you do nothing. You get to the point where you're not trying anymore. The lines are dull and flat and the movements are few and small. You've turned off the conscious control that tells you that you need to do something. At this moment magic occurs. Your subconscious takes over. You start to come back to life. The movements and inflections and tactic changes aren't motivated by an actor who feels like he needs to do something, rather they are driven from the inner soul of the artist. They are real. They are natural. They are truth. At this point the audience stops breathing. And leans in.

You have to trust your self to get to this point. You prepare and rehearse and research and memorize and work and work and work and work. Then when the time comes, you let it all go. You simply give yourself over to the piece and the power of your inner soul. You release control. You turn off the little voices in your head telling you that you're doing it wrong. You fight off the fear that you need to do something. You allow everything to happen to you and you respond naturally.

This is how Chekhov must be played. We've gone through the first phase with Uncle Vanya and we are passing through the second phase. Already I've begun to see the third phase emerging and it is beautiful. I know the play and I'm still sucked into those moments. They are vibrant. They are full of subtle and beautiful life. They are truth. When the actors finally stop trying and allow ourselves to be out of control, beauty happens on stage.

I leave you with these two quotes from great artists:

“To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self. If the artist is to be able to listen to the work, he must get out of the way; or more correctly … he must be willing to be got out of the way … in order to become the servant of the work.”
-Madeline L’Engle
(Walking on Water)

"When [the actor] reaches the region of the subconscious the eyes of his soul are opened and he is aware of everything, even minute details, and it all acquires an entirely new significance. He is conscious of new feelings, conceptions, visions, attitudes, both in his role and in himself. Beyond the threshold one’s inner life, of its own accord, takes on a simple, full form, because organic nature directs all the important centres of our creative apparatus."
-Konstantin Stanislavsky
(An Actor Prepares)

Uncle Vanya

Due to a turn of events I am now directing "Uncle Vanya" and I am still playing the role of Dr. Astrov in it. This is going to kick my trash. I'm very excited and I'm very nervous. I'm having such a wonderful time though working with these actors. They are very talented and full of excitement and wonder and a desire to great art. We are finding wonderful levels to their work and discovering ways to connect to humanity on and off of stage. Being in the play and directing in it is teaching me some very important lessons that I need to learn. It's easy when you are directing to tell your actors something they need to work on, realize you need to work on it too, and then put it away until the next time you work on a role (by which time you will have forgotten). It's very different when you tell them to do things, realize you need to do it too, and then realize that you need to be doing it in the very next scene that you will be working. I can't be a hypocrite and not practice what I'm preaching. I hope this experience will help me transition from needing a director so much, to being able to direct and coach myself on a role. It's also a great learning experience to be working on Chekhov, but that's going to have to be a post for another day.

NowCasting Profile

I've just signed up for and created a profile on NowCasting.com. Check it out! Let me know what you think, please!

Newest Project: Uncle Vanya

I have been cast as Astrov in Utah Shakespeare in the Park's upcoming production of "Uncle Vanya" by Anton Chekohv. I'm pretty darn excited for this. It's not a role I would typically get and so it will be a great opportunity to learn and grow. My very talented friend Anne Shakespeare is directing it. This will give me a great opportunity to put what I've just been learning into practice.

Stanislavsky Wrap-up: You have to invest your soul.

Receiving my certificate of completion from Alexandr Popov.

What an amazing experience. I really cannot even begin to describe how much I loved this opportunity. So many things fell into place and made it possible for me to study with the Moscow Art Theatre School this summer and I am infinitely grateful. I am particularly grateful to those who helped make it possible to attend this program. I learned a lot and I've thought about three main things I gained/learned and wanted to briefly share those.

First of all I learned a lot about my craft as an artist and as an actor. I was reminded of the importance of seeking truth in your work. The whole time we were working on our One-act comedies Misha kept reminded us to be real. To never play to the audience to get a laugh or anything of that manner. I have a bad habit for doing that (and I usually get away with it) and I was grateful for Misha's expert eye to catch me on that and require me to immerse myself in my character and go through his experience. Even though the play is comedic the story is tragic for the characters and the greatest comedy is able to come out when I believe 100% in what my character is doing and going through. Misha would constantly say, "You are laughing because it is true!" This is a principle I've known and used, but I understood it so much better after putting it into practice under Misha's direction. Anatoly Smeliansky, the dean of MXAT said, "You have to invest your soul into [Chekhov's] plays. If you don't, then the audience won't." I think this applies to any role you play.

Secondly, I met some amazing people. I was once afraid of moving to a big city like New York or Chicago, but now I know lots of people in those cities. I would feel much more comfortable moving there knowing that I have close friends trying to do the same thing that I am. I really hope I get to work with some of them again in the future, each one is a very special person and a very talent artist. I truly grew to love them during the time I was with them. I regret that I couldn't live in the dorms and spend more time with them, but finances just didn't allow that, and besides I got to spend a month with my wonderful family and that was totally worth it. In addition to the wonderful contacts and friends I've made in the US, I've also made some wonderful friends from Russia and various other countries around the world. I would love to travel to Russia and see them again and I hope that someday I will get to.


The third and final major thing I took from this experience is that it's okay to just be myself. I was quite terrified going to an advanced acting training program as the conservative religious guy. I wasn't sure how I would be received or treated. I was particularly nervous as a Mormon because of the many recent and unfortunate misunderstandings and contentions between Mormons and members of the guy and lesbian community, and of course the theatre world shares a close bond with the latter. I don't hate anyone and don't plan on ever doing so, but I still knew that there were prejudices about people like me and I didn't know how I would be received and treated. In short it was an ill-founded worry. As I already knew theatre folk are wonderfully loving and accepting and supportive of people who are different. Even when those people fall on the opposite spectrum of those who are generally considered "different". I found a very safe environment where I could be myself. And myself is a very open and loving person. I don't judge others by their life-style whatever it may be and I don't try to force my ideas on anyone. I just live my life in a manner that brings me peace and joy and I try to improve because I'll be the first to acknowledge that I'm imperfect and have a lot to work on, so who am I to judge another? People recognized that and several complimented me on my ability to live an honest life and said that they admired that a lot. After all, isn't that the point of everything? Life? Art? Live an honest life. Whatever that means to you.


So, I learned a lot and I'm profoundly grateful for it. Now it's time to make things happen in my life! I'm excited to take what I've learned in the Stanislavsky Summer School and in my BFA program at Brigham Young University and go forth and serve. The purpose of art, I believe, is to serve humanity by helping others live a more authentic life.

Voice Overs

Recently I subscribed to the podcast by the Voice Over Experts and I've really been enjoying it. I'm starting to look into how to do voice overs for commercials, animation, video games and such and I've found this podcast to be quite informative. One of my friends has also agreed to help me put together a demo reel, so now I just need to figure out which voices I would like to showcase and what I should read for each voice. I'm excited though. This should be a fun addition to my career as acting and will hopefully bring in some extra income.

Special Pleasure

I'm taking a movement class with Natasha and it is brutal. I've progressed a lot, but it's hard. The first week Natasha said, "The first week you will hurt. The second week you will really hurt. The third week you will go numb." I'm happy to report that I'm in week three and I have not gone numb. In fact it still hurts. The best part is that whenever we are in an intense stretching position twisted into some sort of human pretzel Natasha will ask, "Can you feel the special pleasure?" Apparently she likes calling pain "special pleasure". She's crazy.

Today I successfully went into a bridge pose from standing and then returned to a standing position. I then failed at flipping from a bridge to a downward-dog (though I succeeded in going from the dog to the bridge). My cartwheel is getting quite good on my right side and today we practiced doing it one-handed. It went pretty well.


Me, Natasha, and Matvei

Whew

The trouble with keeping an update of what's going on is that I'm getting home so late and have to get up so early that I'm just too tired to write anything. I've got a great post about Misha that I started writing, but I haven't been able to finish it. I wanted to keep updating, but couldn't find the time to finish that post. So, it will have to wait as I attempt to make small entries.

Today was Acting Exercises, Acting Seminar, and Scene Study. All went really well. I saw some wonderful portrayals of objects in Seminar and we started showing our animal observation exercises. I'll do mine on Saturday. I also need to re-read "Uncle Vanya" by then. Scene study went okay. I wasn't well enough memorized and so there was only so much we could do. David and I had to step out and work on our memorization. I sure hope it sticks for tomorrow. I'm really struggling memorizing right now and I'm not sure why. Perhaps I've been away from it for too long (it's only been a few months). Perhaps it's the fact that my character doesn't follow much of a logical progression of thought as he talks. I'll get it though. I'm not worried. I'm just disappointed that we couldn't do more work in class because we weren't as prepared as we should have been. I'm ready for tomorrow though.

Week 2: Misha

I just completed week two here at the Stanislavski Summer School and I'm still really enjoying myself. That's usually a good sign. While the first week was an introduction of sorts into the type of work we are going to be doing here, for the second week we just dove right into it. The 34 students have been divided into three groups to work on scenes from the works of Anton Chekhov, and each group is headed by a professor from the Moscow Art Theatre School. As I mentioned in my last post I have been assigned to Mikhail Lobanov's group, and we will be performing scenes from three of Chekhov's short one-act comedies (the "Vaudevilles"as they are called): "The Proposal", "The Boor", and "The Anniversary".

First let's talk about Misha. Misha is one of the top acting teachers and directors in Russia and is an all around great guy. He's incredibly friendly and easy going. I love him. I have him for my Acting Exercises class as well where we work a lot on becoming like a child. We play various games and do different exercises that are supposed to loosen us up and help us work on communication and concentration. It's funny whenever he explains a new game we have so much trouble with it and he says (with a thick Russian accent), "I teach this game to little kids and they have no trouble with it, but you big actors can't do it. Why is this?" He's always teasing us for being big, fancy American actors with big heads. It's very true though. If we could all be more like children not only our acting, but our entire lives would be better.

So, for Scene Study Misha as assigned me the role of Ivan Vassilich Lomov in "The Proposal" by Anton Chekhov. It's a great little one-act comedy about a guy who is very nervous coming to propose to the girl he loves, then just as he's about to pop the question a little argument starts between him and the girl and it erupts into a terrific fight and then her father gets involved and other such things happen. It's quite funny. This upcoming week we should really get to work a lot on it and I'm excited.


Photo from our showcase performance at the end of the program.

Week 1: Yuri Yeremin

Time for an update on the events of my first week at the Stanislavski Summer School. This first week has been an incredible experience. Already I've learned a lot and had a lot of what I've already learned re-enforced. I'm very excited for the next four weeks! It's going to be awesome! So, let me tell you a bit about the four different classes that I had last week. First reference this site to get a feel for the credits each of my teachers has.

I mentioned a little already my acting lectures with Yuri Yeremin. Yuri is one of the top directors and acting teachers in all of Russia and has international acclaim for his work. He doesn't always teach at the summer school so we're lucky to have him this year. I performed my observations of the lady eating the ice cream cone and it went well. The ice cream cone I bought for the scene melted a lot more than I thought it would and so I ended up with ice cream all over me, but I kept in character and it ended up going really well. I felt great about it. For our next assignment we were put into groups of three and we were to create a scenario based around a love triangle. I ended up playing the boyfriend who unknowingly slept with his girl-friend's best friend and then met her "for the first time" the next day. The scene we played out was the three of us getting together and the two us realizing what had happened while trying to keep the info from our mutual friend. It was an awkward situation and was very fun to play. It also went well. The two girls I was working with are quite talented and fun to work with. In fact, everyone here is very talented. I'm excited to work with them.

I needed a paragraph change. I'm still writing about Yuri's class though. I'll try to wrap it up. The main focus of his classes has been "given circumstances". Using action as the basis for everything that takes place on stage you then have to contextualize the action down to the smallest details. He broke this down into the "where", "when", "what", "who" and "why" of the scene. Remember you have to be specific. For "where" and "when" he said to start big and go small (i.e. United States -> Massachusetts -> Cambridge -> Lesley University -> Mellen St. -> Doble Bldg. -> Second floor classroom and so forth). The same holds for time. Start with the century or even millennium and work your way down to the exact time. Don't forget the weather either. The more details the better. Use the script for clues and fill in what you don't know. Also, make sure you write all of this down. The "what" is the events that occur to influence action. These are the most important part. You have to know what events have occurred to cause your character to act the way that he is acting. Something happens and your character responds to it in a given way. Events and action become the primary aspects of acting. Then you have "who", which is just understanding your character. Go deep and find everything said about your character in the script. Make a list of characteristics similar to yourself and different from yourself. Those are the ones that you as the actor will have to pay particular attention to become your character. The "why" then of course is "why am I doing the things I'm doing?" I thought he would spend more time on this talking about objectives, but he didn't. He just left it at that. I guess his discussion of action covered objectives. So, that about wraps up Yuri's class. We will continue having a group discussion about acting, but from now on it's going to be led by Oleg Topoliansky who just arrived from Moscow.

So, that's Yuri. He's a great guy. He's very strict and direct, but you can tell that he has a very compassionate heart. His eye for detail is incredible too. I'm amazed at how much he can notice in a performance, and how much he knows what a performance needs. Sadly, I won't get to work with him as much anymore since we've been divided into different groups and I'm in Mikhail Lobanov's group. As disappointed as I am to not get to work with Yuri too much anymore, I am very excited to work with Misha.

Day 1

I don't guarantee an entry every day while I attend the Stanislavsky Summer School, but I figure the first day warrants a little something.

Today was the first day. My dad drove me down to campus and even took a picture of me on my first day of class. What a best dad. There are 34 other students attending the program. Most of them are from the US, but about ten are from abroad: India, London, Paris, Russia, Korea, the Netherlands. I think that's it. We had our orientation meeting where we met with the professors. Three of them were there. Two more are flying in from Moscow tonight, and one more is coming later in the week. It was so cool listening to them speak in Russian and understanding most of it. Fortunately there was a translator so I could pick up words I didn't understand. Hopefully by the end of this I'll be back up to my game with Russian. We'll see.

First Yuri Yeremin led a discussion about what is "acting". A few people ventured ideas and he shot them all down. It became clear that he was looking for something specific that differentiated acting from everything else, something simple and clear. I decided it was pointless to try and guess what he was thinking so I sat there and listened to everyone debate the issue until he finally just told us what was on his mind. "Acting" is exactly what the word implies: action. Staged action. This makes sense. Acting isn't just about living truthfully onstage or even about telling a story to the audience (though these are important elements). It's about depicting people striving for something. People want something and they will do what it takes to achieve what they want. If they want it badly enough and the circumstances force them they will do just about anything to achieve it. That makes great drama. Or comedy.

Next we fulfilled our assignment: tell a story from your life. Didn't matter what it was. We had three minutes. I told the story of when my Grandpa passed away this year just before I went to Chicago for grad-school auditions and then Saint George for ACTF and talked about the crazy emotions I felt those three weeks and the things I realized about myself and my art. That exercise took up the remaining time and a few people didn't get to go. He then gave us our assignment for tomorrow: go and observe someone who doesn't know that you are observing him or her, then tomorrow in class we will have three minutes to depict what we saw. On my way home I watched a woman who looked like she was disabled and homeless eating an ice cream cone. It was quite fascinating. This little old woman, whom no one else seemed to notice, was by far the most interesting person on that street. She was so absorbed in her little world and didn't care what others thought. I had a hard time not staring at her because she was so interesting to watch, but I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. Please understand that I wasn't treating her like something in a zoo. I was very aware of her humanity in that moment. I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow. I just need to find some ice cream beforehand...

Short Horror follow-up

Just to let you all know that our little film project won the audience choice award for our group. Hooray! Truth be told if we had gotten it turned in on-time I think we would have won some of the other awards as well. Oh, well. Maybe next year.

Stanislavsky Summer School

For the next five weeks I will be participating in a professional actor training program called the Stanislavsky Summer School in Cambridge, MA. It is run by the Moscow Art Theatre School and faculty are actually Russians from the MXAT. How awesome is that! The focus of the program is how theatre is done in Russia today and how the works of such greats as Stanislavsky, Chekhov (both Anton and Michael), Meyerhold, and others have influenced Russian theatre and world theatre. The summer school also shares faculty with the American Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. This is an MFA program I applied for this February and hopefully attendance at their summer program will help me get into the MFA program. In was, in fact, based off of my audition for them that they invited me to participate in this summer program. Over the next few weeks I will keep you all updated on how things are going and what I am learning. Wish me luck!

Short Horror

Tonight we picked-up a few shots for a film I was in for the 48 Hour Film Project. A week an a half ago we stayed up for 22 hours of straight filming and produced this little gem. It was so much fun to work on, even though we were all exhausted by the end. This is the same crew I'll be working with for "Paranormals" so it was great to get to know everyone better. Then last Wednesday we went up to Salt Lake for the screening and it was a huge hit. Sadly we were late getting our film in, but it was still a great success. It was, in my humble opinion, the best film in our group by far. The audience just loved it and so many people came up to us and told us how much they loved it. A lot of people were trying to hook up with our director and cinematographer to work with them in the future. It was a great feeling. So, after the great success at the screening my director and the DP decided that they wanted to fix some stuff up. Tonight we re-shot a couple of scenes and added some stuff to tighten it up and clarify some parts. I'm really excited to see the final project. I'm also really excited to shoot "Paranormals" now. It's going to look amazing.

Zip Snip!

Jeff Blake asked me to do a short spot in a commercial for the Zip Snip that he had been commissioned to make. Apparently they really liked it and are going to put it on TV! So, if you're watching TV at about 4 am you might see me in an infomercial for the Zip Snip. Let me know if you do!

P.S. The ad they have on their site right now is not the one I was in. The new one is much more awesome.

P.P.S. Here's a link to a terrible version of it that someone put on YouTube. You get the idea.

Scheduling

This week we were supposed to be filming the pilot episode of "Paranormals", but the lead actor decided to up and go get his appendix taken out on the spur of the moment. Rather silly if you ask me. He should have planned on that ahead of time. Now the whole project has been pushed back until the end of August. In his credit David (I don't remember his last name) was a great trooper about it. He had surgery the day before we were supposed to start filming and called the director and said he felt up for it still! Jeff told him to just take it easy and recover. The extra time would be useful in pulling things together.

Well, this change in plans created a problem since I am leaving in two weeks to fly back home to Boston to attend the Stanislavsky Summer School at Lesley University. This five week program won't conflict with the new filming schedule, but I will be on the other side of the country. Well, it turns out that Jeff is willing to fly me out for the week of the shoot and then fly me back when we're done! How cool is that! I sure feel all fancy.

Also, check out the poll I put up under my picture on the right.

Commercial for BYU

This post is a bit late in coming, but two Fridays ago I filmed a commercial for BYU's Spring and Summer Continuing Student program. It was a fun little piece to encourage students to attend classes spring and summer. It was just me and my friend Adrienne Eror and a small film crew of two plus the producer. The commercial consisted of us at different locations doing fun things and talking about how awesome it is to come for spring and summer. We got to race around a go-cart track, and go bike riding, and lay in the grass, and Adi got to go down a water slide. It was a very fun project and a long and exhausting day. I can't wait to see the final product. I guess they'll probably use it mostly next year since spring term is ending. The biggest thing I learned about acting from this project is how hard it can be to keep producing a high energy response for the camera after a very long and hot day, and after you've already done about 20 takes of the same shot. It's quite demanding. But fun.

Paranormals

I have just been cast in a webseries called "Paranormals". It's being produced by a small, upstart production company here in Provo called Lost Lake Studios. The quality of their stuff is really good and they are making quite a name for themselves here in the Valley. I'm excited to get to work with them, especially with Jeff Blake who co-starred in "The Book of Jer3miah" with me. He's a really great guy and talented and full of ambition.

The series is about a group of college-aged kids who live in a very haunted town and start up their own little ghost hunting/investigating group. I will be playing Leslie. He's one of the lead parts and he's the brainy, analytical one in the group. He's very passionate about hunting ghosts, but he goes about it in a very logical and methodical manner. It looks like it's going to be a great project. The plan is to then pitch the pilot to get funding to film the whole season. I really hope that works out! I would be great to get paid and to have something like this on my resume and reel. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes!

Auditon: "Hamlet" and "Dracula"

Last Thursday I auditioned for the productions of Hamlet and Dracula at the Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake. Both plays will be directed by Charles Morey, Artistic Director at PTC. This was my first audition for an Equity theatre and I was pretty excited and pretty nervous. I prepared a monologue from Measure for Measure for the audition and was also ready to read sides from Dracula. I went up to Salt Lake with three other really good friends. They all had to go on the waiting list, but I had an audition slot at 3pm thanks to my friend Gary Reimer who had gone up to Salt Lake the week before and signed us both up. We arrived early and they all got on the list. We even ran into some good friends up there that I hadn't seen for a long time. It was really fun to see them all. Eventually all of my friends got to go in ahead of me. That was funny that the only guy who had signed up ended up going last. They had things moving along very nicely.

Eventually my turn came. I guess to get to the point of this post, my audition was terrible. I am honestly embarrassed by the work I did with the Measure for Measure monologue. I was nervous. I admit that, but that's no excuse for what I did. First of all, I hadn't given my monologue a shape. I had done a lot of emotional work with it, and it's a piece I've done twice before as a scene in classwork and for a competition, so I felt comfortable with it, but I hadn't given it a solid shape as a monologue. As a result I started just making choices in the moment. Now, I'm all for making choices in the moment. Some of the very best work comes from acting in the moment. However, if those choices are made safely and out of fear then it will stink. And that's what happened to me. My body was stiff and full of tension. My thoughts were in my head the whole time. I didn't go nearly deep enough for what the scene required. My emotions were pushed. My voice was okay. In essence it was an okay piece of acting, but it was a terrible piece of a human soul. I didn't bare any of my soul in the piece and it's no wonder that I didn't make call backs.

On a lighter note, I felt great about my cold reading for Dracula. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to salvage the damage already done by my awful monologue. Well, I got out of there and wrote down what I did wrong and what I did well. Then we went out for pizza. It was delicious. So, I'm embarrassed for the performance that I gave, but I learned a lot. I've got to push myself and go all the way. There's no such thing as playing it safe if you want to succeed in this art form and in this business.

Acting

I'm pretty passionate about the art of acting. I suppose I'm not the first one, and I certainly hope I'm not the last. It's a wonderful art form. I've spent roughly the last 10 years studying and training and have learned a thing or two. I want to share my feelings on the subject here, as well as offer advice and tips. I'm not an expert, rather I'm just a fellow wanderer on the path. The things I mention are only my humble opinion. You may take them or leave them or suggest wisdom of your own.