She's Just My Type

When I hear the phrase "typecast" I often think of it negatively. I associate it with an actor or actress who plays the same role over and over again, i.e. Michael Cera in the geeky, meek(y) high school would-be hero role. Now, there are different challenges involved when it comes to typecasting, for me I think it is the following: HOW do you make each role different? Just because you ARE typecast in a role doesn't mean that you have to play each role exactly the same.

This week, however, I've discovered a new appreciation for typecasting and a new challenge involved with approaching such a role. And this is a positive thing. On Monday, I started rehearsals for 11:11 Theatre Company's December show, Her Red Umbrella. If I were to type myself, I think that Cara is my "typecast" role. She's a 21 year old college student, intelligent, driven, likeable, with a girl next door thing about her. (I say type myself, because I haven't really played a role like this since I was in You Can't Take It With You in high school.) At rehearsal on Tuesday night my director asked me a few questions about Cara that made me realize that I was not differentiating between Cara and Erika saying the lines. Granted, it was the first time we had read the scene on our feet, but it still made me realize the importance of creating a character. When I originally accepted the role, I didn't know the challenge I was accepting and in the past week I am pleasantly surprised at this new segment of my acting career. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think this show would be easy (I'm done with accepting roles that won't advance me skill-wise), but after tackling Refuge this summer, I saw this in a very different category.

So this is my new challenge: how do you create a believable character from a character that shares so many of your interests and ideals? I'm ready to tackle this and excited as well. First step? Write her history. Second step? Create a new physicality for Cara. Third step? Unsure. I think things will naturally fall into place once I memorize my lines (I guess that's a step in there somewhere!) but chalk this one up to experience: every role is challenge, just not in the same way. And I'm excited about it. Stay tuned, there's more process to come.

Post-Show Glow or Audi-drenaline Part II

FIVE DAYS LEFT UNTIL PLAY.

8 PM - FACTORY THEATRE

791 TREMONT STREET

TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE!! BE THERE OR BE HAVING WAY LESS FUN THAN THE COLAB!!

...while I'm still working on directing play, I've recently finished my stint as a 16 year old heroin addict. AND THAT WAS A FABULOUS EXPERIENCE. We had two very different weekends of shows. Our first weekend was a very intense experience and the audiences reacted as such. They were with us every heartbreaking step of the way and it was easy to use their energy to propel ourselves to the next scene. The second weekend was very different. The audience... and get ready for it... they laughed. I mean, they really found the funny/comic reliefs lines FUNNY and that was something. All weekend we had audiences that weren't afraid to laugh at the funny, be silent and watch the sad, and cringe at the scary. They moved in and out of these emotions over the course and the show and it gave us a different sort of audi-drenaline. Because they were able to recover from the intense bits and laugh, it gave us the freedom to make our performances even bigger and forced us to stay in the moment - keeping our composure when there was laugher, holding for laugh lines, surging forward when things got scary. And it was refreshing. And it was fun. And I learned from this experience, which after all is what this is all about isn't it? I love to act because I love that I have the ability to make people feel something. But I forgot that I love to watch live theatre because I like to feel. And I made people. Whether people enjoyed the show or not (and I hope you did), they reacted. And THAT'S what it's all about.

I thank all of your who came out the show and supported my cast mates and me and this endeavor. This is a project that I won't be forgetting any time soon.

Audi-drenaline

Audi-drenaline (n) - a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands of actors, esp. in conditions of high excitement in association with the addition of an audience to a performance situation

For example, Erika could not get over how much her audi-drenaline enhanced her performance last weekend.

Okay, enough with the fake vocab lesson. We opened Refuge last weekend and I guess I forgot how having audience changes the caliber of my performance but MAN did I experience it in full force during the run. It all started on Wednesday night at final dress when the cast of WASP sat down to watch us. I could already feel "the buzz" backstage during the opening scene but when I made my first entrance, I was hit with the current and I became Becca. To quote Kaufman and Ferber's Stage Door, "But in the theatre, when you hear that lovely sound out there, then you know you're right. It's as though they'd turned on an electric current that hit you here. And that's how you learn to act." I mean that's it. Right there. An audience creates electricity. It's almost as if you're just backstage, minding your own business, running a few lines in your head when all of a sudden, you get a tingling feeling in the bottom of your stomach. The tingling starts to spread through your veins into your arms, your legs, your toes, your fingers, your lips, your eyes until BAM you make your entrance onto the stage, into the world of the play and your energy combines with the energy of the audience and all of a sudden, I'm not Erika, I'm Becca, and I'm here to take you on a journey for the next 60 minutes. Let's roll.

I'm looking forward to experiencing this again this weekend as we begin our second and final weekend of the show. The first weekend was amazing. I felt that I gave three solid performances and one decent one. After tech week and a four show weekend, however, I definitely needed a few days off and it got me thinking - what goes into keeping a performance fresh? We have an eight show run, but what happens when you have an extended run of a show? When I studied in London, I saw David Mamet's Speed the Plow with Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum and they were in the middle of a several week run. As you can imagine, there was a packed house (which actually included Chita Rivera - pretty cool). The thing that stands out most to me, however, is the difference in the performances. Jeff Goldblum was "acting" and Kevin Spacey was "performing" in a world all his own. His energy was coming from the audience while Goldblum was just up there, to do what he had to do. I remember on that day that all I wanted was to be able to use the audience and give a fabulous performance even if the conditions aren't just right. I mean, you can try and get 8 hours of sleep and eat a protein rich meal, and drink plenty of water, but sometimes your costume is itchy or the other actors aren't quite giving you what you need or you're tired or you're just having a bad day. I guess that's what makes a great actor, truly great, the ability to recreate a performance night after night for the audience, with the audience.

FORTUNATELY for me, my cast mates are fantastic. They're energetic and talented and always on their game. And we're a family and we support each other through the show. All I'm saying is, thanks audience for helping us through when we're a little sluggish. And with that, I'm ready to do four more shows this weekend.

We're SOLD OUT for Thursday night but we have tickets left for Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 4 pm and 8 pm. Check out: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/116701 for tickets!

(L to R - Refuge Cast) Terry Torres, Krista D'Agostino, Nick Miller, Erika Geller

We hope to see you this weekend!!

Done Taking Refuge, Ready to Take the Stage

I'm still on a post-rehearsal high. Tonight was a good rehearsal. I mean really freaking solid and I'm pretty stoked about it. Tonight was the night where all of the puzzle pieces fall into place and, in the words of one of my co-stars it became clear that, "This is doable." We've been in rehearsal three nights a week for the past two months and things have been going well, but tonight was the night where we all said, "I can be this person for an hour and guide them through their journey. I can be a character that an audience wants to watch." And I'm so excited to show you all. I'm positively giddy! We've still got work to do - one more rehearsal, tech week, and then eight shows but WE'RE FREAKING READY. As long as we keep our heads in the game, this is going to be a really fabulous run.

Buy your tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/116701

The performance schedule is as follows:

7/29*, 7/30, (7/31), 8/5*, 8/6, and 8/7 at 8pm
8/1 at 3pm
8/7 at 4pm

* = Pay What You Can ($5 minimum)

(7/31) = Meet my fabulous parents and brother after the show!

Cause When You're Sixteen.. or Just Acting Like It

As many of you know, I have recently embarked on a journey of regression... to teenhood. Some of you may say, "Wow, Erika, you act like you're five quite often." While this is true, this is not what I mean. I am playing a 16 year old, drug addict in Happy Medium's Refuge at the end of July. I've been researching a number of things for this role - the effects of heroin on the body, how to dance at rave (it's not easy let me tell you!), how exactly to fake snort drugs on stage - but it didn't occur to me until Wednesday night's rehearsal that I needed to learn how to think like a 16 year old. While I feel like I have a pretty solid grasp on who my character is, a lonely young girl who lacks a solid familial structure and turns to drugs as an escape from her desolate life, it wasn't until my director said, "Now you're thinking like a teenager - that's exactly how a teenager would view this situation," that I realized I need to connect with how Becca THINKS. It was one of those, "oh yeah" moments where you realize that you have to stop "playing" the character and let the character seep into you, even if it's just for those three hours you spend at rehearsal. I anticipated that it would be a challenge to act like I'm on drugs but I didn't anticipate this. At 16, your world revolves around you. Emotions don't always have concrete reasons because they are reactions to words and actions and lack of actions. At 16, everything is a huge deal because you DO "sweat the small stuff," especially in a world like Refuge where the characters live in their own bubble of disorder. I learned this in a few short moments on Wednesday and I'm excited to try my "new mindset" out at our next rehearsal. That's all I've got - a simple realization on a Thursday night. Because that's why we have rehearsal, to play and to grow and to discover. Stay tuned. I'm sure there's more of this journey to come.