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Richard does Richard

Rehearsal for Richard II has been amazing, and has been a hugemongous period of growth for me as an actor and as a Shakespeare enthusiast. I am somewhat new in performing Shakespeare’s plays. I have read several of them, and have acted in a few of them, but until this incredible opportunity, I have not had the chance to truly dive into the world of Shakespeare’s language, characters, and plot.  Through such tangible rehearsal methods, as succinctly explained in Shu-nan’s blog below, and which I will summarize as being practical, exercise-based and actor-driven/ director-“sifted,” I have been faced with challenging myself in approaching acting intellectually to an extent I have never done before. I was immersed in a troupe of actors who relished Shakespeare more than I have ever witnessed any group of people doing, and who seemed to with one mind lead his words towards a brilliant vision. I would not be in the midst of such a unique chance to further grow and appreciate theatre if it had been a more contemporary play, and if it had not been one of Shakespeare’s histories. I actually have never successfully read one his history plays until now, but now know that they are an amazing blend of his mastery of genres, plots, characters, and allusions to everything ever.  I vow to remember what I have learned, been reminded of, and had reinforced here and to never second-guess the playwright’s brilliant intentions or my own instinctual choices, opinions, and feelings.  From hence forth, my acting shall be helmed by ceaselessly striving to understand and appreciate the tools I am given, namely the text and the people. I am ecstatic to have been given the nourishment and encouragement of Empty Chair, and will know now that no matter how daunting words can be or how mysterious cohorts may appear, they are the essential tools to create truly super theatre!

Very psyched,

George

Playing A Man

Elena put together a lovely video blog about her experiences during Richard rehearsal. Check it out HERE!

New Perspectives

The Richard II experience thus far has been one of conflict, confusion, and growth.  I came on board expecting to fill the role of Assistant Director. However, due to circumstances, I was thrown the role of Northumberland, which I was eager to try out.  So now I am in the situation of being directed, while being delegated some of the directing authority. It has been difficult to draw the line between actor and assistant director.  I don’t want to appear that I am the actor trying to make everyone act like I think they should, but I don’t want to abandon the role of assistant director.  Fortunately, Natasha has been very open about my input.  When I think something should be done, I can always run it by her.  All in all, I am glad that I didn’t give up the Assistant Director role, because it is in that position that I have had the most growth.

Assistant Directing is a new experience for me. I have never been on this side of the table, I have always been onstage.  However, doing this has not only helped me grow as an AD but also as an actor.  I see habits in other actors that I know exist in me, and watching it as an AD gives me a different perspective in approaching these habits.  The most growth has happened in my desire to help an actor improve on an idea that he/she wants to play with.  I am developing an eye, or trying to, for certain impulses in an actor that I can draw from. Today was especially eye opening however. A certain actress was playing a piece of text and I was trying to figure out how to help her improve and move to a more active place.  After a few suggestions we had progressed, but the REAL progress came out of her.  She went up on a line and was searching for the line with her breath.  I realized from that spot that the key is to connect with breath.  I am eager to work more with her and the rest of the actors to find more discoveries like that. Discoveries that come from the actor while trying to work more specifically.

As an actor in the show, I am eager to try lots of new ideas.  The great thing about working with Natasha in the Empty Chair summer season, is that she is really dedicating herself letting the actors find the show while she serves as the final sifter.  I have never worked in a a show where so many exercises were used (successfully) to create a shape for the show.  I have learned a lot about how to experiment in an effective way so there is more TRIAL than ERROR.

That is all.

Shu-nan

Elephant Gun: Music from Midsummer

A video of the cast rehearsing Beirut’s “Elephant Gun” – which will be performed during Midsummer – can be found HERE courtesy of Matt Provance!

Alternative Blogging: Quill

Today in effort to rehearse,
we paraphrased text from the verse.
We ran the first scene,
it went very clean,
for the words that we spoke were quite terse.

Statuesque viewpoints:
a kinesthetic response,
two-Heisman standoff.

Rehearsing
Is
Cool;
Hurt
Ankle
Real
Drag.

QNM

Three Ladies

Monday we started rehearsals for Richard II. I truly enjoy working with Natasha Solomon. Since I am one of three ladies playing all three of the female roles, it is very difficult to block the scenes that we are in. However, Natasha wants us to all have different characters and blocking.

Today we worked on a fight that involves one of our duchesses. Julia Sears, our fight choreographer, altered the fight for each girl to work better for the character we have created. I am so excited to see how the rest of the show turns out. It will be a very show every night and the audience is in for a lot of surprises.

Mariah

Richard Update

It has been quite the journey thus far, and said journey is only just getting started! Today’s
work for many of us was tackling two hulking middle-ish scenes in Richard. Our work
as an ensemble is such a force to be reckoned with! The individual work we have done
is really starting to come together- with awesome guidance, of course- in forming truly
dynamic and engaging scene work. I look forward to continuing to incorporating view
points work into the development of interactions and relationships onstage! I’ve been
continually challenged and had tons of fun working with the other actors in meshing
our interpretations of scenes and characters. As the process continues, the different
levels of the family drama and regal hierarchy are innately developing and becoming
such rich pieces of the show. The intimate space we’re using is really making for an
awesome incorporation of the audience so far as subjects and elements of the Richard
world. I can’t wait to see how the orchestrating of the giant court scenes continue to
grow and the jumble of characters continue to deepen while we grow closer as a cast.

George Dippold (playing Richard)

Midsummer Update

Today during A Midsummer Night’s Dream rehearsal we took some quality time getting acquainted with our new space.  We are finally about to do all of the fun, but challenging, movement that we have been working toward.  The four lovers spent quite a lot of time chasing each other around, while bringing all of the scene work that has happened in the past week into the new space.  Amalia, playing Puck, has already climbed over most of the surfaces of the new space, in an attempt to find interesting angles and positions, but I’m sure she will discover many more places to explore.  Those of us not running around the space were able to spend time doing one on one scene work with the Assistant Director Joan or other actors.  It was a very good rehearsal, leaving many actors exhausted.  Even after rehearsing two plays today however, many people stayed even longer in order to do set work and get the space ready for two weeks from now.

-Mark Tucker

Doubling!

This is Empty Chair vet Matthew Minnicino checking in with everyone in blog-reading world, here to extol the virtues of doubling briefly.

There is nothing like being in a small-cast production of a Shakespeare play to make an actor appreciate the joys, woes, and effort required to “double.” Doubling, in case anyone is unfamiliar, is the practice of having on actor play many different parts in a single play, often many small roles. The practice was the norm in Shakespeare’s day, but fell out of favor in the 19th Century when plays generally had spectacularly large casts. Empty Chair, mainly in the interests of fostering the intimacy of Shakespeare, practices doubling pretty heavily. Personally, I’ve had to double a few times (I played 2 roles in last year’s Empty Chair production of Measure for Measure, and 3 roles in its 2008 Taming of the Shrew), but never until this year had to double so intensely. In Richard, I play Bagot (one of the king’s “bad influences”), the Earl of Salisbury (one of the king’s generals), a Groom, and the Gardener (a one-off character with a single juicy allegorical scene). In Midsummer, I’m playing three characters.

One of the things I’ve always loved about Empty Chair is its eagerness to give actors opportunities to explore many characters who can be more memorable in a few moments than a single character that talks for half an hour. As an example of the flexibility of Empty Chair casts I always point to my current Midsummer castmate Mark Tucker and his role in Richard III in 2008, in which he played King Edward, the Duke of Clarence, the Bishop of Ely, and James Tyrell, as well as a few other characters along the way. He was able to imbue each role, most of which only exist for one or two scenes, with unique gait, voice, physicality, and presence–something I’ve strived very much for this year differentiating my characters in Richard II. In Midsummer, one of my characters–simply “The Fairy”–exists mainly through physical work, with few lines but a lot of featured movement, as the Fairy is frequently the manipulator of “Puck’s Puppet,” an avatar-esque giant mask made by Daniel Dobrosielski that appears whenever Puck is onstage, and moves with the same limber, playful, and frenetic quality that Puck does. Playing the Fairy, a small character in the text, has been an immense workout but a huge joy for me. I’ve also been wedged into the “Mechanicals” scenes in which Bottom and the Rude Mechanicals rehearse “Pyramus and Thisbe.” I don’t play one of the characters named in the play, but I’ll leave the details of his interpolation a surprise for those of you who come to see the fun.

–Matt