U/RTAs in Chicago II

It's a beautiful day in Chicago! I have no auditions today, so I've been out exploring and waiting for my travel buddy and fellow actor in training, David Harrel, to get here! I walked along lake Michigan this morning. It's frozen over. I'm used to seeing lake Michigan from the Michigan side, and when it's warm enough to swim in. Then I spent the duration of the morning in The Fields Museum. That was totally fascinating. Their animal exhibits are incredible! Who knew there were so many crazy looking creatures, especially in Africa, wow. That was definitely my favorite, but I also really like the exhibit on our "evolving planet" where you begin by looking at small plant and primitive animal life under the ocean and end up walking through the dinosaurs, and then mammals, seeing all kinds of really cool stuff like fossils and early hominids.

U/RTAs in Chicago I

I have tons of grad school auditions in Chicago this week! I flew all day to be here!
It was ten degrees when we landed, and I think I'm in for a cold night!! I'm so excited! Keep checking and I'll keep posting!

The Comedy of Errors at Bag & Baggage

I've lived in Portland for four years, and I had a reason to visit downtown Hillsboro until last night when I went to support a friend (Sharon Beirmann as Luciana) in Bag & Baggage Productions' adaptation of The Comedy of Errors. This was the only play from Washington County to be included in the Fertile Ground Festival.
The show is being looked at by a couple different animation magazines who are interested in experimentation between live performance and animation. It's true that in many ways this production was like watching an old cartoon. Not only was this apparent by the brightly colored costumes, make-up and set, but also through the stylistic acting choices in the show. The backgrounds were gorgeous. They were designed by Frederick Gardner and painted by Scott Fassett in true Looney Toons style.
It was obvious right from the beginning of the show that Bag & Baggage is very involved in and proud to be part of the Hillsboro community, and that the Hillsboro community is in turn proud of having a resident theatre company. It warmed my heart to see a theatre suceed in reaching out and strengthening its local community.

Apollo at PCS

Tonight I was at the armory, finally getting to see Portland Center Stage's Apollo (the world premier of all three parts of the play together). I was not entirely sure what to expect, and so the multimedia, Avant-garde ballet speckled with seemingly hundreds of historical figures from Hitler to Mickey Mouse that I got came as a kind of wonderful shock.
Apollo was highly educational and I feel like it will take a while to really digest all the information that was presented to me in the show. It was sobering. There were times throughout the play (whether I was learning about the connection between our space program and the Nazis, or I was facing up to the deep injustices of segregation during the Space Race era) that I found myself backing away emotionally as though I could not or did not want to believe that this was the same United States of America I'd grown up in. Yes, it was very sobering.
There's no doubt it was a well done show. I enjoyed it, not only as a production, but also as a catalyst to a new way of looking at some of the historical events that have shaped our nation. Theatre that makes you think, one of my favorite things on the planet.
Apollo is part of the Fertile Ground Festival as it is a new work written and directed by Nancy Keystone, and it's coming to the end of its run, so definitely go see it!

The Orchard

I went to another Fertile Ground reading tonight. I can't stress enough how great I think this festival is. Really, way to go Portland for supporting new works in such a bold way.
I attended The Orchard by Althea Hukari (directed by Olga Sanchez) which was produced by the PlayGroup and Portland Center Stage (PCS). It was a sort of Chekhov in Oregon show. Like Chekhov's play, The Cherry Orchard, The Orchard dealt with a large family clinging to their past existence as represented through their rural home and collected physical life. Also, like Chekhov, this show seemed to hang between comedy and tragedy. There's no doubt that it was heart-breakingly sad, but there was also a sort of hopefulness in seeing a family take the first steps in moving beyond their loss into their future. The Orchard also seemed to allude to other Chekhov plays. I saw hints of The Three Sisters in the way the three surviving sisters of the family in The Orchard interacted following the death of the family patriarch. When I mentioned this observation to Mead Hunter, the literary director at PCS, he laughed and said that throughout the process those who worked on the play had equated the character Nikki from The Orchard with Chekhov's character Natasha.
There were a few elements that really made me love this show. One was the theme of letting go of "stuff," and strengthening the ties between family and friends that really matter. Along with this was a sense that the play was almost giving the characters permission to let go of those who had passed away. I loved how the life of the play seemed to physically lighten when the spirits of the dead past on from the farmhouse. Really beautiful.
Congratulations to David Harrel who played Brian. He and I are in the same theatre program and have worked together and supported each other through all our years there. Now that we are finally seniors, it was wonderful to see him onstage last night and remember the two of us as excited eighteen-year-olds starting college. Good job, buddy. Congrats, also, to Phil Stockton who played Sonny. I've worked with Phil in the past at Readers Theatre Repertory.
It was a very interesting new work. Good job to all those involved!

The Next Smith

OK, can I just say, The Fertile Ground Festival--awesome idea! It is so fantastic that the whole of the Portland theatre community have pooled together to support new work. Tonight I was at The Next Smith by Andrew Wardenaar. Although it was a reading, it was highly entertaining, and I was impressed with how fleshed out it was for a play only about a year in the making. It was a very creepy little show that's complicated plot hinted at the violent consequences of corporate power. The very, very violent consequences. This is such a great festival, and there is so much going on! If you're around Portland, check it out!

Biloxi Blues at Profile

On Thursday night I was at Theatre! Theatre! watching Profile Theatre's production of Biloxi Blues. It was a very enjoyable experience. I was only slightly familiar with the play coming into the production, so I was surprised and elated by the plot. It really is a charming play. It's so funny, yet undoubtedly raw in parts.
I went specifically because Jonah Weston was playing the role of Roy Selridge. Jonah and I have worked together at Readers Theatre Repertory (RTR) in the past, and he was kind enough to make it to my capstone production of Eleemosynary. I have enjoyed seeing his work in the past, and he certainly did not disappoint on Thursday. As tough a character as Roy Selridge is, he brought something very endeering to the role. I was also impressed with the other members of the cast. I particularly enjoyed Alec Wilson as Eugene Morris Jerome. Alec may not remember me, but he's a friend of a friend, and I remember watching him all the way back when he was The Chairman at WOU's production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I also found Matthew Sa's performance as Arnold Epstein awfully enjoyable. I most enjoyed his scene when he had to deal with his drunken Sergeant, (Todd Hermanson). The two of them worked very nicely together at that point in the play. Matthew, by the way, was one of the apprentice actors at Actor's Theatre of Louisville. Way to go!
So, it was a great night at the theatre. Thank you, and congratulations to the cast, crew, director Pat Patton, and Profile Theatre. This play is part of Profile's Neil Simon season, please check out the shows coming up!

Marsha and Romulus

January's Readers Theatre Repertory was really well received. Thank you to everyone who came! I had a blast working with Mindi Logan as well as the rest of the cast! A thank you to Cheryl Nelson, Rollin Carlson, and Mark Franklin. You were all really fun to work with!

Romulus Linney, Marsha Norman Redux at RTR

I'm in the Readers Theatre Repertory (RTR) show this weekend! I'm double cast in Marsha Norman's Third and Oak; The Laudromat, and Romulus Linney's F.M. Both of which are fascinating shows. Both a little haunting. My co-star in Laundromat and fellow actor in F.M., Mindi Logan, is actually my acting coach at the University of Portland, it's been somewhat strange, but really cool to work with her. Come see the show this Friday and Saturday!

In the End

Working with Vyacheslav Dolgachev was a brilliant experience. Simply brilliant. I learned so much. Thank you, Slava!

Drunken Sailor: The Seafarer at ART

A couple nights ago I was at the dress rehearsal for The Seafarer at Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) which opens officially tonight and plays through March 8th. This dark Irish comedy by Conor McPherson was more than I'd bargained for. Having known little about the show going in except for the simple fact that it was Irish and took place in North Dublin, I was pleasantly surprised by the startling plot I recieved. McPherson's play is very interesting, and strangly lovely. Its dankness and despair somehow easily lends itself to laughter, and the characters sour and sad as they my be are intriguingly likeable. Director Allan Nause and his four person cast (Bill Geisslinger, Tobias Andersen, Todd Van Vorris, Leif Norby, and Denis Arnd) have obviously put a lot of work into this piece.
Anyone with a sense of irony, a taste for the unexpected, a love of theatre, and a strong stomach for alchohal should see this raucus Irish show. It's well done.

Slava

I just began my second time training with Vyacheslav Dolgachev at the University of Portland. Vyacheslav, or Slava as we American students call him, directed Chekhov's The Seagull off Broadway at The Classic Stage Company in New York last March. In addition to being a successful director, Slava is a professor of acting who has instructed many students in Moscow and New York.
His workshops at the University of Portland consist of several days of exercises which build in intensity with each class period, and a look at how Chekhov's work is produced on stage through working on some of Chekhov's short stories.
This is my second workshop with Vyacheslav, and I am so happy to have the opportunity to train with such an experienced theatre artist. I am so grateful to have the chance to grow as an actor.