Working with the Blueprints

Kippy Goldfarb, Jen Alison Lewis, and Adrianne Krstansky.

In the first days of rehearsal for Legally Dead, director Steven Bogart remarked on how unusual it was to be able to rehearse in the same space we will perform in, and asked the actors to “forget about the audience that will be there.” Funnily enough, I don’t equate this space with performances, since I’ve spent so many days over the last ten years acting in this back theatre for a reading or a class. The wonderful part about BPT is that the goal is still the same- explore together to create the most powerful, robust play. And funny.  Oh my, is it funny.

Midwesterners

Adrianne Krstansky, Christopher James Webb, Jen Alison Lewis, and Kippy Goldfarb.

I've been trying to figure out what to write for this blog, what kind of insight I could bring to my process of playing a con artist, Midwestern guy, who grew up in the public eye...and then lots of stuff came up, we went into tech week, and Nemo hit us straight in the face. 

And there went our opening weekend. 

All in the Family

Adrianne Krstansky, Kippy Goldfarb, and Jen Alison Lewis.

I’m thinking about family.
‘Cuz that’s what Legally Dead is all about.
Family gone wild.
No holds barred.

As I’ve gotten into the world of Dan Hunter’s play over the past couple of weeks. I’ve found that, as wild and crazy as any part of the play is, I find roots of the interactions of these “wacko” characters in what I thought was a reasonably happy family life of my own. Take some subtle, innocent seeming interaction in a family, blow it way out of proportion, and we’re in the world of Dan’s play.

New Play Haiku

Director Steven Bogart

It’s a blessing, and maybe a little bit of a curse to rehearse in the theater space in which the play will perform. There is something about being in a rehearsal space with windows and light that allows for the actors to engage their imagination without the audience seats talking back at them. But I'm not complaining. At our first rehearsal, I was happy to see all the chairs stacked in the back of  the theater and lighting instruments taking up much of the audience space.

The blessing is, of course, to work for this fabulous theater and to collaborate with a terrific cast, creative team, technical staff, and playwright. I feel lucky, and I love arriving each day for rehearsal to find a new design element appearing for us to use.

When I was thinking about how to describe the process of working on Dan Hunter's new play, I thought of the following haiku:

old pond
frog jumps in
and hits his head

Alumni news, in brief:

Jaclyn Villano’s Unanswered, We Ride is at Seattle Rep tonight – part of the monthly reading series presented by the Northwest Playwrights Alliance…

Read this nice feature about Dan Hunter’s Legally Dead in The Boston Globe…

Check out John Greiner-Ferris’ recap of Hovey Players’ 24-Hour Play Festival…

The Last Taboo

In a society saturated with sex, it’s surprising that people don’t talk more about elbows. 

Other body joints are openly lascivious, bending right into the sexicon: skirts ride above the knees, he has an eye for a well-turned ankle, hoochie-coochie girls are hip-shaking mamas, and lovers neck. 

But, will no one come right out and address elbow eroticism?  Is this the last taboo?

That’s why Legally Dead is cutting edge theater—blasting staid, middle-class conventions; rewriting the rules; liberating us from the bonds of the forbidden.  Never again can playwrights pretend that elbows are not part of the human body and are not central to the arms that long to hold you.

Yes, this is the play that dares to shatter convention.

Alumni news, in brief:

Plays by Walt McGough (Paper City Phoenix) and Masha Obolensky (Marvelous Fruit) are finalists for this summer’s Source Festival in Washington, D.C….

John Kuntz was voted Broadway World Boston's Best Actor (Medium Theatre) for Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of The Hotel Nepenthe (which he also wrote)…