stop a moment, take it in

Wow - I've already exceeded the posts I had on the Smoke and MVP blog.

PARADE is up and running. There was some drama on opening weekend when we had the Blizzard of 2010, or at least Georgia's version of a blizzard. Because of ice/snow/road conditions, the director cancelled our Friday night preview and called a last-minute mandatory rehearsal on the afternoon of the opening day. I was supposed to have the first BABY rehearsal of the new year that day, but I had to get out of it. Fortunately, the director (Sarah) was uber-understanding about it, and everybody welcomed me with open arms at the second rehearsal of the new year.

PARADE has been great. Audience response has been very very positive, and we all are glued to our local theater reviewing websites. [Well, I always am. theaterreview.com has been a guilty pleasure of mine since 2002.] Jason is incredible in this role. I think he's a little disappointed there are no MAT Awards involved in this production - as if he needs another one. Since this show is based on a real-life event, I'm not spoiling anything by saying his character gets hanged at the end. The first time we tried hanging Jason we ran into the problem of him spinning around in circles like a wound-up yo-yo. To solve this, one of the members of the lynch mob has to hold his foot to keep him in place.

In a trend I'm trying not to think is due to me, I sometimes find I'm in a show where the director announces at a rehearsal that he/she is about to blow up for the first time in a while/years/so many shows/etc. In 2004, when I did a concert version of TITANIC, the director said one night "this is the first time I'm having to become an asshole director in 20 years." Now, our PARADE director said "I am about to lose it for the first time in 4 shows" - and then proceeded to go off on the cast about how they were not looking sad enough in the funeral scene. They took the "direction" well - too well. They ran it again, and this time around it was like a Greek tragedy, with melodramatic wailing and gnashing of teeth, and some sobbing that was so loud it was drowning out dialogue/singing. To his credit, he praised them and said it was nothing short of brilliant. A few run-throughs later, he toned them down and said the emotion is great, but not so loud. He put it best when he said they went from mourning a death of a 13-year-old girl to mourning 9/11. He seems to have a sense of humor about it. He was preparing to do a radio interview, and I said I hope somebody calls in and asks how he got the cast to look so sad in the funeral scene. And in my TITANIC director's defense, I don't remember exactly what his tirade was about, but we moved on from it, had some fun, and put on a damn fine show.

Yesterday's BABY rehearsal was long and very productive. We covered so much ground. It went in phases - I felt like I had aged 20 years that afternoon and should be playing the guy in the old couple. First, we took pictures with the professional photographer. They always do individual headshots for the wall, and a cast picture. We did the headshots, then one with the 6 main characters. I wanted this well-documented, so at the risk of the cast wanting to kill me, I kept suggesting things. "Let's do some with each couple. Let's do some with just the women. Let's do some with just the men. Now let's do some with just the 6 of us doing such-and-such." Those pics will be up on the guy's website any day now (or any minute now), and rest assured I will be sharing them here, there, and everywhere. It ended with us running the scene from hell. I have 5 pages of dialogue with the Lizzie character followed by my least favorite song in the show. We did the scene and blocked the song. The last part of the song - once all the singing solos are over with - is actually pretty fun. We were taken into a big room with our choreographer, who we had never met before and didn't know from Eve (at least I didn't). She was mainly just working with the ensemble, and Lizzie and I came up with our own stuff which everyone seemed to like.

We didn't have any BABY rehearsals from December 19 until January 9th. Since my Lizzie is married to the director of PARADE, we got to meet up a few times and run lines. The other night when we did the scene from hell, we were both a little shaky on lines, but I noticed that the parts we knew the best were the lines about sex, masturbation, and whether womens' chests stay as big as they are after the baby is born. Overall, we had a lot of laughs doing the pictures and doing the song we hate.

Is it okay with you if I do the occasional mini-movie review? I know this blog is supposed to be about skits, but movies are filmed skits, right?

I bit off more than I could chew once we got our DVR. I went a bit crazy with recording movies, and now, I'm forcing myself to not record any more for a while since I just got a bunch of new DVD/Blu Rays for Christmas. So I'm finishing up the stuff that's already recorded, then I'm getting started with what I got as a present. I loved Lakeview Terrace. Samuel L. Jackson creates a character like Robin Williams in One Hour Photo, Tim Robbins in Arlington Road, or Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights. The kind of character that gets under our skin. I give the film an A- or an A. Enjoyed it so much, I bought the Blu-Ray with some of my gift money. The ending is perfect. More or less, exactly what I wanted to happen happened, and just enough was revealed that I wanted more, but was still satisfied with what I got. Broadway/national tour vet Patrick Wilson starred opposite Jackson. To think I saw him in the tour of CAROUSEL in 1997 - and now he's starring in movies opposite Samuel L. Jackson. I then saw the remake of Cape Fear with De Niro and Nick Nolte. Saw the original with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum already. Very enjoyable. Scorcese took some plot liberties with the main character and the way things end, and it's very interesting to watch. It's either a B or a B+. Tonight or tomorrow I'm hoping to finish The Good Son, or as I think of it, the R-rated Macauley Culkin movie. He did this film right after the first Home Alone. The reviews said that kids would inevitably want to see it because it had their hero Culkin, but they should not under any circumstances see it, no matter how many guardians come with them. So far, I haven't seen anything to warrant an R rating - maybe a PG-13. Roger Ebert didn't like the movie at all - he said that kids shouldn't be put into situations where they say and do the unspeakable things the characters do in this film, and never has he disliked a film's ending more.

My breath is bated.

I got chills - they're multiplyin'

Haven't really thought about GREASE in a while, since I've had my plate pretty full, but just got an e-mail from the Stage Manager with a complete cast list. Most of it I already knew about, but there were a few new nice surprises. These names will probably go over the heads of the out-of-towners reading this, but we've got Andy Meeks, Bethany Irby, Tracy Moore, Eugene Russell, Jimi Kocina, Robert Egizio, and Patty Mosely, to name a few.

Should be awesome. Can't wait for the summer of love to begin.

These people make me tense.

I haven't really talked about PARADE yet.

I am music-directing. Most of the first month of rehearsals was music stuff, led by me. I can listen to make sure harmonies are right and plunk out parts 'til I'm blue in the face, but I'm not much of a sightreader when it comes to Jason Robert Brown. For most of November and December I was jumping back and forth between this and BABY rehearsals, as well as dealing with some time-and-emotion-consuming personal business, that rehearsals were a little disjointed. I heard that one night I wasn't there, there was a mini-come to Jesus meeting with the director about how shaky these music-rehearsals are going, or as it was described to me, a "bash you fest." I was assured that there were no personal resentment or hard-feelings - scrictly on a professional level. The consensus was that I know my stuff and I've got a good ear, but I have ZERO authority skills or control of the group.

Pretty much true. That's fine - I can take that. I successfully kept it from making me sad and thinking "poor me, nobody in the show likes me, I suck," and instead let it drive me to do better. Soon after that, I was leading a rehearsal and at the end of the night before sending everyone home, I made a speech to them apologizing for the disjointedness of the rehearsal and saying that if there's anything I can do to make this process better, let me know. I said that I've music-directed before, but most of those have been for kid's shows where they were singing along to a track. The lack of live accompaniment takes a HUGE burden off the MD's shoulders. I said I was not the original music-director for this show, that I was a last-minute replacement and I agreed to do it to be a nice guy and because I'd always wanted to work with [director] Rob [Hardie]. I said you all are doing great and it's an honor to work with all of you, and I think Rob thought of me for this project because I have such a good ear and can hear musical mistakes that usually slip through the cracks.

My little speech got applause and what appeared to be general appreciation. I had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown with everything going on, but giving them this little talk instantly got rid of 75% of my stress. Amazing what just being open, honest, and communicative can do. I even had a young girl in the cast come up to me the next night and say "I felt bad after what you said last night, because I think you're doing a great job."

Another good thing happened shortly after that. Rob hired an assistant MD. She's in the cast, is an experienced accompanist/MD, and whipped everyone into shape vocally while I had to be away for BABY rehearsals and whatnot. Also, we had an accompaniment CD made for rehearsals.

So now the new year is here not a moment too soon, and we're in tech week. Some wonderful things are happening in this show. So many cast members who had shaky or unmemorable auditions have really stepped up to the plate. Auditioning sucks and it's hard to encapsulate all your experience and ability into a 16-measure song clip. It's an interesting trend I've been seeing, in the recent shows where I've sat in on the auditions. People give mediocre or just-okay auditions, but once cast, they really come to life in rehearsals. I feel like I'm the opposite. I think I audition really well, and once the show opens, I perform it really well, but I always think I suck in rehearsals and I'm the worst person in the cast.

I love seeing the scenes between Jason and Michelle, who play our two leads, Leo and Lucille. Their chemistry is awesome, and their voices bend beautifully together. Jason is quite the experienced chef as well, and is one of the founders and owners of The Red Hen Cafe, where I have the pleasure of working 5 days a week. Jason and I go way back, and his wife and I go even further back, but that's a story for another post where my computer is behaving better.

So many wonderful performances are in this show - too many highlights to mention them all, but a couple more I'll mention now are Leslie who has a hypnotically beautiful voice and stage presence, and Don Goodner, who has one of the best high tenor voices I've heard recently. We open this Saturday, so I'll be talking more about it as things keep progressing.

Screw it

Tuesday night this past week was BABY rehearsal. For the next 2 weeks, we'll be rehearsing at Mount Paran Christian Church in Marietta in one of 2 classrooms on the 3rd floor. Room 321 is our "Monday and Tuesday" room, and 310 is our "Saturday" room. We won't rehearse at the actual theater until after the new year. You can see the sanctuary through a window as you walk up the stairs to the 3rd floor. You get the view from the balcony. I finally saw it today. It's tremendous. Why can't we do the show there instead?

Tuesday was just a Danny and Lizzie night. We went through some solos and duets. We had quite a discussion about a "screw it" which appears in a song. Our British director and Australian stage manager were planning on cutting it and changing it to "knew it." Apparently, in Britain and Australia, "screw it" is considered much more profane. Saying it to them is just as bad as saying the other word that means screw. We Americans take that phrase pretty lightly. I hear people say it all the time. The Americans in the room were saying that since we're keeping the "shit" that's in the script and the G-Damn, then we can certainly say screw it. The director said she was just concerned about when the sponsors from Chick Fil-A come to see it; they're Baptist. I said that if they get offended, screw 'em.

After getting my Danny and Lizzie songs fix on Tuesday night, today we rehearsed with the rest of the cast. We did two full company songs (We Start Today and Two People In Love), then whittled it down to the 6 leads. We did a sing-through of as much of Act One as we could do. I recorded some stuff on my phone. It'll be good to listen to to see what I did and didn't do well, and overall what it sounds like from outside ears. It's coming along. Our accompanist is sometimes tentative with the tempos, and I'm chomping at the bit to do these at "show speed," but I'm sure that'll come. I loved doing the Danny/Nick duet (though I want to see a voice teacher and work on getting a couple of high notes to sound clean). Our Nick has literally 1 1/2 years of any acting experience. He's tall, fit, well-put-together, one of the most beautiful men you'll ever see, and a professional masseuse with his own studio, or salon, or whatever you call it. In early 2008, he thought what the hell, why not give acting a try. Auditioned for a show at Act1 in Alpharetta, and he's got a resume of 7 or 8 shows under his belt already. Usually the lead. He even did a few months of A SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT LOEMANN'S at the Ansley Park Playhouse, written by the guys who wrote PEACHTREE BATTLE. LOEMANN'S is another one of those open-ended-run deals. He'll really go places if he sticks with it. He seems impressed and a little intimidated by my experience, and said he'd love it if I had any vocal suggestions or notes for him along the way. I will probably take him up on that, but the whole actor-giving-notes-to-a-fellow-actor thing is a very fine line. That's a can of worms I'll talk about in another post one day, I'm sure.

Food is ready. I'm never late for soup. If there's anything else interesting I think of, you'll hear about it.

With an F and an R and an E and a D

Yesterday, I attended the closing performance of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS. I music-directed this production, and this was the last production I'll be involved with this year, and this decade. Quite a significant event. So I went back and compiled a list of theatrical statistics for myself from 2000-2009.

I was involved with 45 productions.
I acted in 38.
I understudied in 3, 2 of which I got to go on.
I directed 2. (Hopefully that number will be larger next decade.)
I music-directed 6 (in various capacities).
I did a particular show more than once 8 times.
I played the same role more than once 6 times.
The most number of productions I was involved with in a year is 7 (in 2007, 2008, and 2009).
The least number of productions I was involved with in a year (if you don't count the year 2001, which was zero) was in 2000, with just one.
I did at least 520 performances this decade. (It's significantly more than that - I was being conservative when I estimated.)
I performed with 17 different theater companies, 16 of which I hadn't performed with before, and 4 of which are Equity.

That's everything that was of interest to me that I can bore you with.

This past weekend, I went to see ARSENIC AND OLD LACE at Georgia Ensemble. Not bad - I'd give it a 3.75 out of 5. That show is frequently a community theatre cash cow, which made me so glad to see an Equity house doing it. It was definitely the most efficient Arsenic I've seen. Bob Farley, the show's director, cut quite a few lines here and there just to keep it moving, and also placed the intermission in a different spot. In the middle of a scene, actually. He also got rid of a scene break in Act 2, and just made it one big scene. I never understood why there was a scene break there anyway when the dialogue just picked up where it left off. My two favorite performances came from Rob Hardie as Teddy (GREAT energy, and let's face it, this is an easy role for him) and the always-reliable Charles Green as Dr. Einstein, who is Jonathan's (Robert Egizio) sidekick. Charles held his own with Mr. Egizio and even managed to upstage him sometimes.

A couple of performances I wasn't so keen on dragged my rating down a bit. The two old ladies were fine, but they didn't differentiate the roles. That's one of the faults of the script. It's so easy for Abby and Martha to be interchangeable, and that's exactly how they were in this production. There are subtle differences in the women, and if a director chooses to delve into that, they can be brought out more. I don't think Bob really did that. Just my opinion.

I wasn't a big fan of the performance from the actress who played Elaine. She seemed a bit phoney and "acty" - I couldn't really care for her that much. The guy who played Lieutenant Rooney was too nice, and not the hardass the character needed to be. John Ammerman as Mortimer probably would have made an excellent Mortimer 20-30 years ago, but here was kind of a sore thumb because of his age. I could tell he was a gifted actor, and it wasn't a bad performance per se, just a wrong performance (once again, in my opinion). He spent the whole show not walking, but doing this strange child-like skip, and it was the kind of corny over-the-top performance that the theatre-critic character he was playing would have panned. I also didn't see any differentiation between the calm Mortimer who has just made Elaine his fiance and is blissfully ignorant of his aunts' murderous tendencies, and the frantic Mortimer who is abruptly made aware of his aunts' secret. He seemed to be Frantic Mortimer the whole time. Ammerman is married to Kathleen McManus, a superb Atlanta actress/singer who would have fit right in as either Abby or Martha, and maybe would have given the role more texture than the script gives us. I wonder if she wasn't available, or wasn't interested.

All in all I'm glad I went. I don't get out to see skits at the skit-doin'-house these days as much as I'd like, and it's always nice to see a professional interpretation of an old chestnut like AaoL, even if I might disagree with some director/actor choices. No hard feelings meant to anyone who happens to read this. When I write my review for the theater reviewing website, I'll edit it to make it "nicer."

the quest for Danny

For the next few months, a large part of this blog will be talking about BABY. While nothing new has happened theater-wise since the last post, I'll tell you about the long and winding road it's been to landing my dream role.

In a way, it's a truly romantic story.

I was doing GODSPELL at the Kudzu Playhouse in the fall of 2002, directed by Andy Meeks. In reading Andy's bio, I saw that he had played Danny in BABY, as well as some other roles whose soundtracks I wanted to check out. I was at Media Play one day, and decided to pick up the soundtrack to BABY. (In the "creepy coincidence" department, I remember being torn between getting BABY or BIG RIVER. I later ended up being in two productions of BIG RIVER, one of which just won the Suzi for Best Musical.)

I listened to BABY and instantly fell in love with it. "What Could Be Better" is not only my favorite song in the show, but one of my favorites in all of musical theater. It's not a perfect show (in my top ten favorite musicals list, it's only #6), but the role of Danny has really resonated with me ever since. A young, idealistic musician with perfect pitch. That, and he gets to sing all the best songs in the show.

Ever since that, I started bugging several theaters in town to do the show. It was done only once in the Metro Atlanta area (in 2001), and that production was the Southeastern Premeire apparently. After years of several parties (who know who they are) leading me on and saying "yeah, we'll do it, we'll do it" and then not doing it, the Legacy Theatre in Tyrone scheduled it for April 2010 at the last minute. Trouble is, I really wanted to do GREASE at Georgia Ensemble Theatre, so I was afraid I'd have to make a Sophie's choice between the two. I did two shows with the Legacy earlier this year. I'm quite fond of the artistic director and his wife - they let me literally live with them for 6 weeks (actor housing since I lived so far away). The AD told me that he couldn't really picture me as Danny, but I was welcome to come give it a shot. I appreciated his honesty, but it made me wonder what it was that made him not see the Danny potential in me. I auditioned, and didn't make callbacks. Shortly after that, I got offered GREASE, so I went ahead and took that.

It was around this time that I saw that Centerstage North in Marietta was doing the show in February, and they are submitting the show to the M.A.T. Awards, which is the awards organization for the theatres that aren't qualified to be considered for the Suzis. Plus, Centerstage North holds their own awards at the end of the year (or at least they did, not sure if they still do), so whoever was in their BABY had the potential to be up for two awards. Not that I'm awards-hungry or anything, but it's nice to be in a show that's being considered since the last time I won an award for acting was in 1996. I auditioned last Saturday. Sang "Shiksa Goddess" from THE LAST 5 YEARS. They had me read for Danny and Nick, and had me sing "I Chose Right" (a Danny song). They said they would be letting people know either later that day or the next, since plans for callbacks were cancelled. I got out of there at 3:30. They were seeing people from 2 to 6. At 6:01, the director called me and offered me the role of Danny.

After years of empty promises and discouragement along the way, I finally got my dream, AND I get to do GREASE as well, which is how I wanted it in the first place. The read-through is Monday, and what a thrill it will be to say those lines, sing those songs, and create this character. Finally. And for only the second time on a metro-Atlanta stage.

And the best part is, the story goes on.

Two footnotes:

Certain things I say above are meant to be read as sarcasm or mock anger. I hold no true hard feelings toward anyone.

Baby is not higher on my top ten list because I think its biggest flaw is that it's top-heavy. All the best songs in the show are scrunched together in Act 1. Most of the stuff in Act 2 is nice, but pales in comparison. That's why I like to listen to it on shuffle.

what a journey, what a ride

Hello, this is my first post, but my second blogspot blog. I have another one (www.smokeandmvp.blogspot.com), but kinda painted myself into a corner with it because the title and purpose of the blog was way too specific. I will be using this one to document my experience in this crazy profession we call being an actor. Here, I will be talking about what I'm up to in all areas of theater, be it performing, being a pit musician, or a director/MD, etc.

My name is Mark, and I have done theater every year since 1991, except for 2001. I average 5 shows a year. You can currently see my work as a Music Director in ONCE UPON A MATTRESS at Roswell's Rosewater Theater (www.rosewatertheatre.com). I am currently music-directing PARADE at the Blackwell Playhouse. Following that, I get to play Danny in BABY (my dream role!) at Centerstage North. That runs in February 2010. After that, I'm playing Eugene in GREASE and then reprising my role in the remount of BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, both with Georgia Ensemble Theatre (www.get.org), though the latter will be performing downtown at the 14th Street Playhouse.

That's about all I have the energy to talk about right now. Just wanted to get this blog up and running, and introduce myself. Stay tuned for many stories, thoughts, and other things related to my theater career.