A Midsummer Night's Play Fest!!!



Me!  Fuzzy in the background!  Yay!



Had a pick-up rehearsal last night at the Bay Street Theatre for "The Boys Next Door" (buy tickets here). God, it was a lot of fun.  It was insane.  Sped through it, played around with the scenes and just haven't laughed that hard in so long over a play.  We shifted from being silly and goofy to trying to get through the lines as fast as possible.  Awesome.  It's a great show with some top-notch actors.  If you didn't get a chance to see the show last weekend, you should definitely try to come out this time around.  Worth it!


Yesterday, I got the approval from JinHi of Muse Arts Warehouse  that her space was available on June 10th and 11th.  That is the weekend of the Midsummer Night's Play Festival!  In 24 hours, six ten minute plays will be written, staged and performed for the genearl public!  Put it out as an event on Facebook (it must be official now, right?)  In the same vein, there's going to be a Kickstarter campaign that will begin at the end of the weekend.  The requested amount of funds is going to be pretty small (relatively speaking?) but me at Peter Griffin are working on the details. 

Do spread the word about the Play Fest.  It's going to be a lot of fun and it would be astoundingly awesome if people from every different theatre company in Savannah were to come out and participate.  There will be space in the program to advertise for your upcoming events and whatnot.  Plus, you'll be cool. And isn't that what it's all about?

So, keep watching this space if you want to know more about the event.  And you'll be sick of me shaking the internet collection plate for fundraising BUT if you participate in the event, you'll get lunch taken care of for you.  That's right.  Lunch. 

The day of the event... not, you know... tomorrow.

"Last word" has to go to the Bay Street Theatre and the production of "The Boys Next Door" running tonight, Friday and Saturday.  This is your last chance to see a wonderful story told!  Don't miss it!

Directors Say The Darndest Things!

Directors tend to be a particular bunch.  One of my favorite jokes has been:

Q:  How many directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A:  Well.... does it have to be a light bulb?

Not all director chairs have an Hitchcock-Psycho background to it.

90% of the directing game is communicating with the actors about the images and moments that you want to create on-stage.  It's not just knowing what you want; It's about relating the idea so that everyone can understand.  One of the worst things that I've heard a director say, to an exasperated and frustrated cast, after weeks and weeks of rehearsal was "If you could only see what I could see."

Now, like most people, directors can have a little trouble getting across a particular point.  Everyone goes through the struggle to find words.

The most memorable experience I have with this was back in high school.  Senior Year, I was in a school edition production of Les Miserables.  There I was, dead on the barricade, the student revolution failing on cue.  I can't remember how many students there were, maybe ten?  I was among the oldest, with the age spread going from maybe 12 to 18.  Kids can be fidgety and we had rehearsed getting shot in slow-motion for the millionth time because, well... kids can be fidgety.

Not our production, but pretty close...

Our director shouted out from the darkness, with all the power and force that she could muster:

"DEAD PEOPLE ARE NOT ALIVE!!!"
Naturally, this just made things worse.  We all started to laugh, insanely so.  And it's still funny about ten years later.

I remember asking the question several months ago on Facebook:  What's the most ridiculous thing that you've ever had a director say to you?  I still have some of the responses.  I try to put them in as much context as I know.

I was in a production of A Christmas Story at Muse Arts Warehouse (albeit too briefly).  JinHi, one of my favorite people ever said a mildly silly comment:

"So, the way that this department store is set-up... in... this... living room..."

Another production, this one I wasn't involved in:

"C'mon!  This is theatre!  Do what you would do in real life!"

This was a famous one at my alma mater, University of West Georgia:

"Bold choice!  Cut it..."

This last one I have comes from an acting class that a friend of mine was in:

"Okay, you're both Muslims and there's one piece of bean pie left... GO!"

So, if you have a story about something crazy a director has said during a rehearsal (or ever), leave a comment and do share!

AWOL - A Brief Overview

It was a extremely difficult decision to move from California back to Georgia.  I was going to be leaving my young daughter behind and I wasn't sure when I would see her again.  I was going to a familiar place but that didn't mean that I knew all the same people and that those same people were the same from when I knew them. I was going through a difficult phase in my life and it was hard to find courage to do hard things that I knew, ultimately, would be better for me.



It took courage to respond to the ad AWOL put in the paper.  I didn't know anyone in the organization, which was weird for me and Savannah.  I sent Kesha my headshot and resume and, for some reason, why surprised when she called me in for an interview.  To say that I was uncomfortable at first would be a fair assessment.  I was the only white guy there.  The show that I was aiming at working with wasn't going to pay a lot (To quote Kesha from the interview "We can't pay what you're worth." with a sincere smile), and it was going to have a lot of hip-hop. I like the music and I'm familiar with the style but the most that I can boast is a Jay-Z station on my Pandora.  But I wanted to do it.  I wanted to be there.  I wanted to work with the kids, all of whom are blessings.  I think, with all of the students, it brought me a little closer to Scotland.  Corny though that may sound.

That's something nothing like art can provide.  Brought me a little closer to Scotland even though she was 3,000 miles away.

What's more, who I was and where I came from didn't matter so much.  It was more important what I was going to do with the kids.  I was greeted with nothing but love and respect from Tony Jordan, DaVena Jordan and Lakesha Green.  I was welcomed into a family without an audition or painful consideration.  Its one of the great honors of my life.

The rehearsal process was different.  No, it was bizarre.  It was going to go on for six months before any of the hard technical elements were going to be added.  The kids worked hard.  Harder than most adults I know and certainly harder than most kids their age.

"Situations" was such a beautiful experience.  We had worked on the project for so long that it was a surreal experience walking into the Trustees Theatre on Broughton Street to start pulling everything together.



One student stood out to me.  In the shortest period of time, she had the entire show memorized.  The whole thing.  And as actors dropped out for one reason or another, she moved up in the ranks.  She was brave, braver than most of the other kids.  She went from having no lines in the show, no significant role, to having the most crucial part in the entirety of the project.  In the first show, in the first moments of the show when she started to speaking, I had to fight back tears.  I was so proud of her.  I was so happy for her.

All of the children were impressive at one point or another.  I don't have the space to talk about all of them, but probably will talk about them as time wears on in other posts.

AWOL, Inc. is a phenomenal organization that changes the lives of all those involved.  It reaches out to at-risk youth and engages them creatively, stimulates them with positive energy and encourages them to take responsibility and empowers them with their own artistry.  If you have the time, visit their website at www.awolinc.org to learn more and find out how you can support them!

Theatre of the Poor and a New Intensity

For those of you that don't know, this is Jerzy Grotowski.  Ask me to spell it but don't ask me to pronounce it.  I'd have a very hard time with it.  He was a Polish theatre director in the 1960's that did something called Theatre of the Poor.  I'm going to be reading more about it, but conceptually, I'm intrigued and I want to do something with it.  Focus on text and acting, not so much about visual design, little set and props.  In some cases, the actors would use their bodies as an extension of props.  And given the economic conditions, it seems to have a practical element as well.

I was never one for big, huge fancy sets.  I remember writing a play in high school and deliberately writing that the costumes should look cheap.  There wasn't supposed to be a pretension as to the way that the story was being told.  I remember being called out on it, asked "Why did you make that choice?" and not being able to answer.  Grotowski would have had my back...

So, the idea of taking ancient scripts and plays and re-working them in true 1960's counter-culture fashion has a lot of appeal at present.  Also want to workshop a play at present but that would have to wait until AWOL is over with.  Just need to find the right body of work to play around with.  Don't really want to mess with the Bible or The Odyssey since I'm already working with that.  I'll keep positing on it.

In other news, "Situations" is in great shape and I can't begin to talk about how excited I am for the kids and for the show!  I'm really looking forward to spending that much time in a theatre.  There's something about being exhausted in a theatre and spending entirely too much time in one that feels at home.  Comfortable.  Right.

I got some writing to do.  Feels good to say that.

Wherein My Intentions Are Announced

The title of this blog comes from an email address that I have (truthissoap@yahoo.com).  The phrase "truth is soap" came to me when I was a freshman in college and I was trying to be profound and insightful.  The philosophy behind it was plain: truth was like soap.  When activated (lathered) it can be difficult to hold onto.  And when one squeezes for a tighter grip, the harder it becomes to contain.  But, whether one holds on to it or not, it has the capacity of making one smell clean and refreshed.  The main purpose wasn't whether or not you held onto the soap or not.  The idea was that you tried, that you attempted.

This blog is meant to be a collection of my thoughts and experiences with writing and with theatre.  It's not meant to be something profound or insightful.  It's not meant to say what is right or wrong with others.  It's meant to get a sharper idea of what is and is not about myself.  The only thing that I can really say about what I see is that it's in my perspective and in my opinion.

I plan on focusing more on art than day to day life.  Maybe that would be best reserved for another blog, but I don't believe that would be necessary.  So, I will get started when the first thought enters my head...