Chekhov and Trivia!

Hey Friends and Colleagues,

I've been super exhausted and stressed lately, but in the way that stems from being creatively busy. I'm directing half of play. and rehearsing The Tempest, while shooting a PSA for a non-profit based in Cambridge. Life is a little nuts, but I wanted to take some time away from my social exile to show off my friend and collaborator Scott Fielding's new website.

Check it out! He's offering more classes in the fall and the website itself is really informative. I recommend a gander if you're even the least bit interested in Chekhov or Meisner.

And on a theatre history nerd note: He refers to "Stanislavski's system" in the correct lowercase spelling, just as Stan himself intended. Do knowledgeable readers know why Stanislavski intended his system to be spelt with a lowercase "s" ?

K

More Space

Good morning and Happy Friday!

This information was sent to us today and got us VERY excited at the prospect of expanding the possibilities for performance space in Boston. Getting and affording space is the hardest thing for small companies to do and expanding the pool and inviting friendly competition among venues will be good for everyone! Take some time to read this over - we're sending letters of support, and hope you will too!

The Task Force for the South Boston Arts and Cultural Center is submitting a proposal to South Boston to convert the vacant District 6 Police Station into a community arts space! Among many ideas for SOBACC, the task force envisions a 150-200 seat theatre and a 75-99 seat black box space.

Here's where you come in. We hope that you will write a letter in support of this project. Letters from as many individuals and companies as possible, on individual letterhead where available, will really help strengthen this effort. The proposal is due in just a few weeks, so the more letters they can acquire the better our chances of gaining a new venue for the community!

Please consider taking the time to write a letter and send it to:
Dan McCole
SoBACC Task Force
P.O. Box E44
South Boston, MA 02127

For more information check the website and brochure and join the Facebook group for updates!

Erika's Path To "Viewpoints"

Good morning, people of the world! Let me set the scene for you before you read this post. My scene. I'm in my pajamas, sitting on pale green sheets, listening to maintenance men do work to the exterior of my building through my open window. I have a small fan on my dresser, which projects a small yet effective breeze throughout the whole room. Freelance Whales plays on my pandora. (You're welcome, men outside, for the soundtrack. I don't thank you for the creepy noises I woke up to this morning.) A hot, freshly brewed cup of Trader Joe's coffee sits on my bedside table and its sweet, caffeinated aroma permeates my system with each turn of my fan.

Have a mental picture of my morning yet? I believe in the five senses of the theatre. Take an audience by the hand and help them understand the tastes and smells of your world while allowing them to hear the touches and listen to the sounds, and they will buy into your world. This is what we are trying to accomplish in our ensemble-built piece as part of play. For those of you who don't know, I am "directing" seven actors in a quest to create a new piece based on the theme of "Growing Up." How are we doing this?

The first step was to start working with our instincts instead of our brains. To do this, I introduced Viewpoints into the rehearsal room. Viewpoints is a method developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau that teaches actors to react instead of act in the rehearsal room in hopes that in performance, the actors will always be discovering, always be reacting. It keeps your mind and your scene always open, always fresh. It also is my new favorite way to get people to starting moving and reacting as an ensemble - a cohesive group. Viewpoints was first introduced to me while I was studying at Brandeis University where I was studying with a professor (and local actress - catch her as Emilia in CSC's Othello in the park this summer!) named Adrianne Krstansky. I'm a big thinker and this particular training method helped me to stop thinking and start doing. Although I took this class during the fall of my senior year of college, it was one of the first times I had truly felt alive while performing and this was a feeling I had been missing. And now, I'm passing it along to my ensemble!

It was scary to start teaching Viewpoints for the first time because there are so many components and I wanted them to make sense and actually be useful for my actors. So far, they've taken my direction and gone above and beyond what I've expected of them to this point in the process. (It is, after all, a collaborative process!) It's definitely been a learning experience - I know when I teach this the next time around that I'll approach different activities from different angles, and I truly understand why some activities are so important now. We start moving from training to actual construction of our piece at our next rehearsal, and I can't wait. This has so far been a very rewarding experience and I know that the end product is going to be an amazing thing to experience - with all five of your senses!

Production Info:

play. - A Night of Original Theatre

ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!

Tuesday, August 24th at 8 pm at The Factory Theatre!

SEE YOU THERE!

Check our website for more info: http://www.colabtheatre.org/upcoming-shows.html

An Edict

Two things very near and dear to our hearts here at The CoLab:

1. Supporting local fringe theatre and small companies
2. Staying educated and up to date on American theatre in general

Which sums up in the great words Tadashi Suzuki "There are two impulses in theatre: to be frivolous or to make rules"

Ok so we're generally better at the former but we strive and aspire to be better at the latter. On that note, two things to look into as you plan your theatre quests.

1.) Support 11:11 Theatre Company this coming Monday July 19, 2010 by heading over to The Burren in Davis Square from 8:00p - 10:00p. They'll be presenting "A Knight of Peerless Peril - An Interactive Play of Possibilites". An adventure we definitely don't want to miss. Come one, come all and enjoy good beer and good theatre at the same time.

2.) Keep up with the latest in national theatre as well as actors, actresses, directors, casting directors, and the like by checking in on The American Theatre Wing (you know, the people who give out the Tony awards) blog - The Wing Blog and listening to their podcast Downstage Center. Stories big and small and always relevant coming from some of the most influencial artists and administrators currently working in theatre.

The Inferiority Complex

Am I doing enough? My boobs are too small. Am I good enough? Am I doing it right? My teeth are too big. Do I want it badly enough? What can I do to be better? I'm too tall. What can I do to be successful? Do I need to go to grad school? I'm not tall enough. What should I be focusing on?.......

I spent the weekend in New York.

I love to visit New York. See family and friends, maybe a show, and the shopping is the best. Plus where else can you get brunch with three Screwdrivers at 5:30pm for $20? It's an amazing city. But after a few days there my inevitable actor inferiority complex begins to set in. The philosophy of "New York is the only city in this country where you can be a successful artist" has, whether I like it or not, been trained in to me. And even though at my worst I resent it, and at my best I have dreams of changing it, it is more or less true. When I'm not surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city, it's easier to put out of my mind. To appreciate the successes I've had in Boston and how much I've grown here. And realistically, I'm not cut out for the starving artist lifestyle...I've made it 24 years without waiting tables and I'm not really interested in starting now (not because there's something wrong with waiting tables, but mostly because other people's food kinda grosses me out.) I like schedules and routines, so the come-what-may life you need to lead to act in New York would be excruciatingly hard for me. But it is the place where people make it. And it's glamorous. And risky. And big. And Pinkberry delivers. It's alive in a way that's different from everywhere else. And that draw brings out in me the girl who dreamed of making it big...or at least making it for real.

My goals have changed since then. And so have I. My insecurities as an actor and a person are different. My strengths and confidences are too, for that matter. And I want to believe that Boston, and other cities around the country can, with some hard-work and mindset changes, harbor good art and good artists who can survive doing what they love. And I'm dedicated to being part of that change. But sometimes those insecurities are hard to ignore. And so is the draw of the big city lights. And so it leaves me wondering how to plan for the future and how to prioritize my goals.

But I find that mostly I'm glad to be home. In a city I love. Leaving the struggling, insecure actress a 4 hour, $13 bus ride away.

In Someone Else's Skin

"I've been such a mess this week it was nice just to be someone else for three hours."

- Erika Geller

...even if that someone else is a pill-popping, heroin-snorting, boyfriend-stealing sixteen-year-old girl. Life is hard. If you've read this blog (or simply BEEN A PERSON EVER) then you get it. Things aren't easy. People have jobs. People have have computers that suddenly break down. People have personal lives that blow up and sometimes, it's nice to have an escape from all of the stress of family, friends, and relationships to just live in someone else's skin and deal with someone else's problems. Becca's life sucks. (This is my character's name FYI) But still, this week, it was nice to deal with her sucky life within the confines of the rehearsal room for three brief, yet wondrous hours instead of my own. (Don't worry, Mom, things aren't catastrophic. I'm just 23 and things are hard.)

Maybe I should thank Jessica Goldberg, the playwright, for giving me Becca's words. Words that I can take out my own frustration on while always having the same outcome. No matter how many different things I feel, I'm going to say the same lines, and the play is going to end the same way. In my world, every word I say or don't say effects how I feel. And if actions speak louder than words, the steps I take towards my future effect how my "personal play" ends up. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between "Erika: The Actress" and Erika, the actress/waitress/hot mess, but during those rehearsal hours, I am the former and the latter gets to take a break and enjoy her chosen career. In Becca's world all of the characters are looking for Refuge from their disastrously sad lives and somehow Becca's world has become my refuge from the real world. Now, I'm definitely better off in my world but Becca's world is almost okay for a few hours. You know, until all hell breaks loose. But you'll just have to see the show to find out more.

Check us here for AWESOME PRESS: http://www.theatermania.com/boston/news/07-2010/steve-martin-jessica-goldberg-plays-to-be-presente_28651.html

And here for TICKET INFORMATION:

General Admission: $16 (7/30, 7/31, 8/6, and 8/7 at 8 p.m., 8/1 at 3 p.m., and 8/7 at 4 p.m.)
Pay What You Can: $5 (7/29 and 8/5 at 8 p.m.)
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/116701

The American Dream

The 3 bedroom house. The white picket-fence. A stable income, 2.5 kids, a dog, a cat, a car, a television. Maybe a vacation every year. That's what everyone dreams of right? That's what it means to be successful? To be happy?

How about a studio apartment, a guinea-pig, an endless slew of rehearsals and auditions, dinner at 11pm, 2 "survival" jobs, a charlie card, free ABC streaming on a pirated wireless connection, and maybe a summerstock gig that pays, if you're lucky? Any takers?

Most people would consider this second scenario stupid or hellish or both. The life of an actor is so often seen as a sadistic and demented dream of someone with no realistic goals who is paying their dues and will eventually burn out or give up. Hell, sometimes I think that. What kind of life is it to be continually broke, insanely busy, and continually unsure of what comes next?

For me it is surely a life of uncertainty, it's hard to justify to people, and it can be disheartening that my choices and goals are deemed unrealistic. Or worse, of no consequential value in the world. Lately I've been at a loss. With almost 6 months of unsuccessful auditions and a growing disconnectedness to acting I have been wondering why I do this. I mean, I like my "survival" job, it keeps me busy and affords me some sense of a more normal life. If I was doing something that made me want to gouge my eyes out I'd really be up the creek. So why bother with the constant up and down of theatre?

And then I remember it's because my actor life is full of passion and humor. It's a place to exercise my dedication, independence, and love. And I can't think of any one who doesn't want those things in their life.

So that's my American Dream. To do something I care about and speaks to a part of me that doesn't connect to anything else. I want that life to be stable, to be financially sound, to not be looked at like some sort of crazy person when I tell people what I do. I want the life I lead to be valued and appreciated. And there is certainly a long way to go in that respect. But I can keep working toward it. Take the good with the bad. And pursue my life, liberty, and happiness that doesn't include a white-picket fence.