Something different

Recently, I was approached by Stage Magazine Online to become one of their theatre reviewers. I gave my contact a link to this blog as well as a few reviews I've written in the past few years, and she signed me up right away. I'm excited now to be a professional writer and add to my ever-growing online profile. I'm also looking forward to the chance to expand my portfolio of writing projects, which I'd like to use to secure more work as a freelance writer. I'll be seeing my first show tomorrow night, and I will be sure to include a link to the review when it gets posted online. In the meantime, I'm scheduled to start the edit on "Changing Lane" tonight, and I am very excited by that idea. It's been way too long since we shot it, so I'm excited to go back to the footage and see (for the first time) what it all looks like. I saw a lot of Rob's setups, so I know generally what the film is going to look like, but I havent watched any of the actual takes of the scenes yet. It's going to be a good night, and I promise to post pictures and the official still photos from the film when I get them.

The Search for Superman

There is a small town in Illinois named Metropolis, and they are the Official Home of Superman. Every summer, the town holds a week-long Superman celebration, with film festivals, costume contests, special guests, and more. There is also an "official" town Superman, a man in the costume who makes public appearances, signs autographs, and embodies the Man of Steel for the Celebration. The town's current Superman has retired after seven years with the role, and they have just started a campaign to find the next Superman of the celebration. On the heels of my movie shoot of playing Clark Kent, I took some photos and put together an audition tape for the part of the official Superman. I post here on the blog, asking anyone who has not yet done so to follow these instructions and vote for me. The first part of the competition is determined by online voting, so I'm calling upon all my friends and readers to help me live out a dream.

Please take ten seconds and visit the following link:

http://searchforsuperman.com/search.html

Click on the Contestant Gallery/VOTE link on the page, scroll down to me (#11) and then click on VOTE and vote for me. It will only take a minute or so, and I would really appreciate your help in the pursuit of a dream of mine. Thank you so very much, and I will be sure to keep you updated on the status of this audition.

My last Paper Cuts ever

This morning, around 9:30am, I officially wrapped my time on the first (and so-far only) season of "Paper Cuts" with UArts. I filmed my last scene for the series finale today, and I was lucky that it was a large group scene that featured just about every actor in the show. The scene was a large and complicated one, featuring a lot of business happening and a whole lot of acting going on. So while it was frustrating to see the shoot going over schedule, it wasn't exactly surprising either. Basically we only had two hours to do the shoot, but our director spent an hour of the time on a blocking rehearsal and some run-throughs of the scene before we started filming the actual takes. A lot of time was then spent working actor by actor, running through all their different setups for the scene. Perhaps it would have been faster to separate the setups, and then film out of order but grouped by shot. It's the way the pros do it, and it makes for much shorter shoots, but it's also the kind of thoughts that can easily get mixed up when you're working quickly on your own at 7am. Without the proper storyboards and shot lists, I think it would be easy to forget important shots or provided too much coverage. One of the things that often strikes me about professional work is how calmly and cleanly they can move between different camera positions, acting moments, and sometimes even entire movies. But I'm also not the production manager for this TV show, and I learned long ago to sit back and relax as an actor. I had nowhere else to be this morning, so I had the time to devote to the shoot. I also have patience, and I don't mind waiting around to work on the sets. I'm never annoyed by honest hard work on a project that goes a little over schedule; my own shoot for "Changing Lane" went three hours over schedule, so I can't exactly point fingers. It feels nice to be done the show, but it's strange that I'm not going to have these shoots to look forward to. We still have a grand premiere coming up in a few weeks, so I'll get to see everyone and have a grand red carpet affair. The cast and crew still have another day of shooting tomorrow, and then that should finish out the production for the series. The student crew will still have post-production work to do, but the whole series should be complete soon. Episode Five is online now, and so is that CW-esque promo that we shot a few months ago. Episode Six should follow soon after, and then Thursday May 15th will mark the big screen premiere of Episode Seven. We will be screening the entire series on that night, and it is open admission. I'll post information about the screening, since it is open to the public and all are invited. And so we'll say goodbye to the on-set antics of "Paper Cuts," and we'll move on to the next project.

Finishing out the first weekend

Last night we had our third performance of "TMS," and it went very well. A garden club had bought out the entire house for a private event, so we performed to a single group of over a hundred people. The wine had clearly been flowing early in the day, and there was a small group of people who whispered to each other constantly through the show. I could hear them talking, often hear what they were saying. While it was a little strange now and then, I at least knew that they were talking about the show. While it was sometimes a little strange to hear whispers through tender and quiet onstage moments, it was nevertheless very gratifying to hear the crowd quiet completely when we came to one of those moments that wanted that sort of complete quiet. They may not have been the most responsive crowd from the beginning; it did take a while for them to start laughing at lines that are supposed to be funny. But they turned into one of our best audiences, and certainly one of the audiences so far that was the most "with" the show. We've got a few days off (thankfully) before we move onto the next weekend of our show, so that gives me enough mental focus to move onto other projects until our next meeting.

Like I said...

Okay, so today's performance was far from ordinary. While it went more or less very well, there were still several sections that got juggled. From small line flubs to dropped lines and awkward pauses, we even managed to cut a few pages off the end of the show due to a dropped line. I can completely understand the idea of getting tangled around a line or two if you are caught in the heat of the moment. But to be in the second night of performance and to literally go blank on several sections of the script does not carry echoes of professionalism no matter how much slack can be given. And when we talked about it after the show, she didn't realize that it had happened. So we briefly talked through the script to make sure that it won't happen tomorrow, and I hope the stage manager tells the director how the show went tonight. But even without that little glitch, it was a good show. Our light board operator enjoyed the show today, saying that it was "hot." He thought that something tonight was really singing along with the performance, so it was nice to hear from someone who has been watching our show for the last week or so. My aunt was in the audience tonight, and she saw me after the show and said that she really enjoyed the performance. It's a thing that's always nice to hear, and she seemed very moved by the show and the story. It's nice to know that we have such a good show.

Opening night!

Last night we opened "TMS" with great success. I felt really strong about the performance, and the people who were in the audience responded very well to the show. But in true keeping with a professional, I am much more excited by my own assessment of my performance than the reactions of the crowd. As I was finishing the show, I knew that I had risen to the challenge of Neil LaBute. Now that I've navigated this morass of a show, I have three more weekends to explore the character and play around in the world of the performance. I promise to keep readers up to date about anything that happens during the run of the show, but I doubt that multiple postings of "The show went well" will be very interesting. So I'll try to confine myself to the exciting things that happen, and might even start to spill my ideas out to start talking about my show for the summer - "The Taming of the Shrew" with Commonwealth Classic Theatre Company. It's free Shakespeare in the Park, it's family friendly, so I hope thay everyone will be able to make it. Check out their website at: http://www.commonwealthclassictheatre.org/

The next level

Last night at rehearsal, we hit a nice turning point for TMS. It was the first time we really ran the show from top to bottom, and the first time we were forced to do so without either calling for our forgotten lines or getting the line prompts from our stage manager. The result was a somewhat stuttering show as we hit rocky patchs for the lines, and we managed to cut about 9 1/2 pages from the script thanks to forgotten cues. There were also a couple times when I had to feed my costar her next line, because she gave me that blank look that meant she didn't know the line. Even with those skipped passages, however, it was fantastic to run the show as a whole. I also got very complimentary notes from the director, as I think I've finally managed to bring the dimensions to the character that she has been wanting and asking me for. I realize that she had been giving me notes that I found confusing and contradictory, so I refined my performance to basically take out all those notes she had given me. I've ended up with a performance that is delivering exactly what she wants, but I'm doing it with tools and skills that I know. It's perhaps not as much of a learning and growing experience as I may have hoped it would be, but the character and the show are at least turning out well.