"Broadway" comes to town. And there was much rejoicing.

Hallelujah! The Legitimate The-ay-ter has finally come to town. The Lion King is on tour and we poor benighted souls in Central Virginia can finally get some culture. It's "Broadway in Richmond" at the Landmark Theater, and now we can spend a fortune on it just like real big-city folk. All it takes is $80 for each ticket and $15 for parking and you, yes, you can have a real honest-to-goodness theatrical experience!

(Sheldon Cooper alert: The above paragraph was, indeed, sarcasm.)

Every time one of these big shows comes to town I get the same slow, cynical burn of anger. Whether it be not one but two productions of Wicked in an 18-month span or the current tour of The Lion King, the local media behaves as if heavenly choirs have descended from the clouds, singing the praises of the Angel of Theatre, finally come to save us all from our regional culturelessness. "Praise Thespis!" cries the local media, beckoning families to spend Christmaslike sums of money on "Broadway in Richmond."

To put my frustration into perspective: The Times-Dispatch has no fewer than five links to Lion King articles or video on their website right now. But local theatre reviews are often relegated to inner pages of the paper facing obituaries. No wonder we theatre folk feel like our art is dying.

It's so frustrating that I find it difficult to even determine who or what I'm mad at. The fact is, I love The Lion King. I saw it on Broadway in 1998 and wept like a child when the elephant appeared in the aisle. Julie Taymor's direction and design were not only gorgeous and moving, they were something the like of which I had never seen. Then Timon and Pumbaa appeared and engaged my cynicism circuit with their entirely commercial duplication of the movie's character designs, voices, and even line readings. I started the show transported, and then Di$ney callously added the dis- to my enchantment. I certainly enjoyed the show, but was left with a very clear impression of what the production's priorities were, and insane profit was at the very top of the list. In the end, Taymor is a master of spectacle, of mime and mask, but the show is far more flagrantly commercial than we tend to think it is.

We all love spectacle. It's why the awful Star Wars prequels and Transformers movies are among the top-selling films of all time. But you know what's more impressive to me than the multimillion-dollar spectacle of a production with the financial might of Disney behind it? The bear in Richmond Shakespeare / Henley Street's The Winter's Tale. The spiral staircase from Theatre IV / Barksdale's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The running water and incredible bravery of Richmond Triangle Players' Take Me Out. The gripping contradictions of This Beautiful City. The hysterical fearlessness of the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The entire worlds created by Jill Bari Steinberg in The Syringa Tree and Scott Wichmann in This Wonderful Life. The lively urgency of Cadence's Kimberly Akimbo and the unapologetic boldness of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. The Firehouse's consistent commitment to craft. Did you notice when I stopped being impressed by technical aspects and shifted into the ineffable wonders of theatre that no amount of budget can buy? That's because those wonders are, in the end, all that theatre is. What's more, they are the things local theatre does that no other art form can approach.

By all means, go to the Landmosque and see The Lion King. Next to 1988's The Phantom of the Opera in London it's the best spectacle I've ever seen on stage. It's certainly the best thing Disney and Taymor can throw millions of dollars at while requiring their actors to impersonate the voice inflections of a 20-year-old movie cribbed from Hamlet and made for children. (Sarcasm: yes.) But please take this admonition for what it's worth: If you can afford to see The Lion King, you can afford to see many many shows by local arts organizations this year. And the money you spend on local companies is better than money spent on touring shows in a multitude of ways. Here are just a few:

1. Money spent on touring shows goes largely to out-of-state megacorporations who frankly don't need it. Your $80 ticket is a drop in a drop in a bucket.
2. Money spent on local arts organizations goes straight into the local economy. Damn near every penny of it. The companies benefit, and their actors, directors, designers, technicians, administrators, and sponsors all benefit. Your $120 season subscription buys an actor's entire wardrobe for a show, or enough gas for a sexual abuse prevention play to drive to Roanoke and back, or a new headset microphone that will be used for the next five years.
3. Touring Broadway musicals are re-creations of productions that were originally designed to make as much money as possible in New York City for audiences primarily composed of tourists. Irony, that: the show was made in New York for non-New Yorkers, and touring shows are made to seem as much like New York theatre as they can. The result is quite literally the most generic theatre experience possible.
4. Local theatre is created by local artists for local audiences. That means your neighbors are creating their art for you specifically. The issues on your mind are on their minds, and their work is informed by it. The artistic directors, as well, select their seasons for you and for your community. Local theatre is designed for you, to make you think and feel as much as possible. That shared context is something no big tour can approach.
5. Touring shows are here and gone. You will likely never see the artists or technicians again.
6. Local shows feature local talent with deep ties to the community. You can easily end up sitting in an audience with an actor or director or designer whose work you like, and get a chance to talk about it with them. Better still, you get to see artists progress, learn whose work you like and make it an event to always see their shows. Is your favorite actress growing as she works? Is a director you like challenging himself, and you, with his choices? Are that designer's costumes as beautiful as the ones she produced last year?

So The Lion King has come to Richmond. So what? It's a great show, there's no denying it. But if you like The Lion King, if you like "Broadway in Richmond," if you like theatre, I guarantee you're going to absolutely love what your local theatre company has to offer.

Support your local artist!

Style Weekly: "This Beautiful City" is "what good theater should be."

Pious Peak


“This Beautiful City” takes on the gay marriage debate.
by Rich Griset

In 2006 Colorado found itself the ground zero of the national debate on gay marriage. Long a Christian stronghold, Colorado Springs was home to a series of megachurches, including the followers of evangelical firebrand the Rev. Ted Haggard. As in Virginia that year, an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriage was on the ballot and passed.

A theater group from New York City called the Civilians descended upon the city before the vote, conducting dozens of interviews with residents. A play that chronicles the lead-up to and aftermath of the amendment (as well as the downfall of Haggard after allegations arose of drug abuse and a gay affair), “This Beautiful City” attempts to give a glimpse at the forces behind the gay marriage debate.

Borrowing an idea from the playbook of “The Laramie Project,” the script was culled from the interviews that the group made while in what is sometimes called the evangelical Vatican. Every word spoken in the play came from the mouth of a real-life person.

Richmond Triangle Players’ staging of this unusual production gives audience members the feel of being one of the interviewers, jumping from New Life Church’s Christian rock services to voodoo-esque visions in Manitou Springs, a nearby town. Triangle’s talented six-person ensemble brings to life dozens of characters. Whether it’s Tarneé Kendell Hudson’s three Baptist church members, Andrew Hamm’s militant Mikey Weinstein or Layana Burnette’s moving portrayals of a transsexual person and a former drug addict, the cast imbues even the smallest roles with dignity and warmth. The portraits are well-crafted, giving voice to both camps. John Knapp’s direction emphasizes the docu-drama tone. The audience never feels as though it’s watching caricatures — these are real people with real opinions.

Triangle’s bare-bones production focuses more on the tale of Colorado Amendment 43 than glitzy stage values. Sometimes a backdrop and PowerPoint slides are all you need to tell an engaging story. Accompanied by piano, drums and guitar, Kim Fox’s musical direction highlights the beautiful voices of her cast. Philip Milone’s multitiered set is functional, but offers little else, and K. Jenna Ferree’s lighting design is as basic as possible.

“This Beautiful City” obviously has an agenda, but presents its viewpoints in an attractive and often humorous way. This is what good theater should be — something that engages the audience in a conversation about issues that remain quite relevant.

“This Beautiful City” shows through Feb. 5 at Richmond Triangle Players, 1300 Altamont Ave. Tickets are $20-$25. Call 346-8113 or visit rtriangle.org for information.

LINK

Raves for "This Beautiful City"!

Wow. It's REALLY wonderful to read criticism that appreciates your work, but it's much better when the critics UNDERSTAND it and express it in cogent language.

I said months ago that I thought This Beautiful City is the most important work I've ever done as a theatre artist. We knew we were working on a special project, and we quickly grew to realize that it was a special company of artists putting it together. While I always tell my actors when I direct that "We don't do shows for critics and we don't take notes from them," I have to acknowledge that it is gratifying to have your work understood and appreciated. All three reviewers thus far have really grokked what we are doing. That's really special.

Come out and see the show, y'all. I guarantee that it will make you think long and hard about a lot of your foundational philosophies, but not in a painful or judgmental way. What may surprise you is that this is also one of the funnniest darn shows I've ever been involved with.

This Beautiful City runs through February 5. Adam Mincks will be playing my roles for the final weekend. You should come see me, then come back to see Adam.

Editorial note: I've taken to copying-and-pasting full reviews into my blog because you never know when a publication is going to change their web server and erase years' worth of archives (*cough cough* Style Weekly and the Richmond Times-Dispatch *cough cough*). I hope no one is offended at the pseudo-copyright-infringement, and I have of course linked to each referenced article.

Dave Timberline: "This Beautiful City" is "reflective and thought-provoking, not to mention very entertaining."

From Dave T's blog:

City Story


I’ve been trying to avoid the phrase “Laramie Project Lite” to describe “This Beautiful City” because it sounds diminutive and not altogether laudatory. But I don’t mean it that way. Compared to the monumental, ambitious, sometimes harrowing “Laramie,” just about anything seems more lightweight. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, “This Beautiful City” is also light as in funny. Sometimes very funny. And that suits the subject given that the true story of Ted Haggard is sort of tragicomic – with big doses of Schadenfreude mixed in – versus the outright tragedy of Matthew Shepard.

Ultimately, I don’t think you can avoid invoking “Laramie” when talking about TBC because of a very good reason: both shows do an exceptional job of developing a sense of place, of presenting the story of a whole community, not just of a handful of characters in a specific setting. That broad-based sociological perspective is one of the things that make TBC a fascinating piece of theater. While essentially a documentary, the show enhances the dialogue lifted directly from interviews by wrapping some of it in song – spare, simply melodic songs by Michael Friedman – that are delivered exceedingly well by the cast in RTP’s production.

Some of the most riveting scenes involve juxtapositions of different viewpoints where the political is rendered dramatically personal. Each cast member plays multiple roles and, among the many exceptional portrayals by Andrew Hamm, the most bracing is of Mikey Weinstein whose stunning rebuke of the “churchification” of the military plays out next to a group of Air Force cadets earnestly declaring their faith as expressed in on-base prayer groups. And while I expect there is a field-day of parody that could be had in the explication of Ted Haggard’s hypocrisy and whack-job denial of his sexuality, TBC is ultimately more effective and intriguing by focusing on people’s reactions, from confusion to anger to glee.

However (did you sense there was a however coming?), the “research project” perspective also contributes to some of the shows problems. While a remarkable majority of the scenes present full-bodied, well-rounded characters, a couple still ended up presenting caricatures. And while that may be unavoidable, it left me feeling like the authors were trying to have their cake and eat it to, at least a little bit. We are clearly meant to empathize with the empowered trans girl (a flawless portrayal by Lanaya Burnette) but laugh at the Revolution House of Prayer zealots. There is reverence and respect in songs like “Freedom” and “Urban Planning” while a teenage girl’s confusion is wrapped up in the joke of a song, “Whatever.” It’s seems like if you are going to present these characters with dignity, don’t they all deserve respect?

But even as I write that, I realize I’m overthinking this a bit, which is also ultimately a good indictor of the value of this show, at least in my opinion. This is a show that could have been largely a joke at Ted Haggard’s expense or an over-obvious put-down of hypocrisy and, instead, ends up being reflective and thought-provoking, not to mention very entertaining.

I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight each member of the cast, since each has at least one moment – usually many moments – where they do great work. I loved the brittleness Christy Mullins gave to the Colorado Springs Economic Development Woman. Scott Melton’s Associate Pastor at Haggard’s church seems genuinely lost when Haggard’s “indiscretions” are exposed. Tarnee Kendell Hudson has many delightful moments but none so powerful as her turn as a New Pastor at the Emmanuel Church. And, in a scene both deceptively simple and insightfully complex, Jason Campbell renders Haggard’s son Marcus with refreshing regular-guy straightforwardness.

As far as its technical aspects, this is not a production I would place among RTP’s best. The set (by Philip Milone) is simply functional with pianist Kim Fox (who does a fine job as musical director) and a percussionist placed neatly in two islands. But having video and slides projected on a loose sheet evokes community theater, as does the somewhat flat and spotty lighting. The costumes (by Ashley Davis) were also fine, though I thought some, like the Emmanuel Choir Member outfit, were a bit cartoonish.

I hadn’t been planning to see TBC and was lucky that last night opened up so I could. If I were you, I wouldn’t count on luck; make plans to see it now or it’ll be gone before you know it.

LINK

Richmond Times-Dispatch: "This Beautiful City" is "a disarmingly fresh and thought-provoking theatrical experience."

'This Beautiful City' examines faith and values

By SUSAN HAUBENSTOCK

Published: January 15, 2011

I'll predict right now which will be the most interesting Acts of Faith Festival discussions: the ones about "This Beautiful City," Richmond Triangle Players' contribution to the series.

The festival's website says that Acts of Faith fosters "discussion about how faith and values shape our public and private life," and "This Beautiful City" examines just that. Created by The Civilians, a New York-based theater company whose process involves interviews by company members shaped into theater pieces, the play focuses on Colorado Springs, Colo., home to many evangelical Christian organizations.

"The company completed its investigative phase in 2006," according to the website of The Civilians, "compiling hundreds of hours of interviews.… Every leading church in the area participated in the project, as did numerous civic organizations, progressive activists and individuals from all walks of life."

The work Steven Cosson and Jim Lewis fashioned from the interview material, with songs by Michael Friedman, premiered at the Louisville, Ky., Humana Festival in 2008, and it makes for a disarmingly fresh and thought-provoking theatrical experience. It's simply and straightforwardly presented, with six singer-actors portraying a gallery of characters — some individual people, some composites of various Coloradans. And director John Knapp uses the same unadorned style, with able assistance from Kim Fox as musical director, effectively showcasing a multitude of viewpoints with a minimum of cynicism and snark.

The result is fascinating, from Christy Mullins' cheery economic development pro explaining how so many Christian nonprofits came to be in town, to Jason Campbell's energetic youth minister, to Andrew Hamm's angry alternative-newspaper writer. Scott Melton is particularly affecting as Ted Haggard's associate pastor (he plays Haggard, too), and Tarneé Kendall Harrison is especially funny as a teenager singing about Christian youth events. Lanaya Burnette is equally convincing as a former drug user.

Philip Milone provides the stripped-down platform set backed by simple projections, and Ashley Davis the ordinary but precisely right costumes, while K. Jenna Ferree's excellent lighting design handles the changes of scene and mood.

Those post-play discussions will follow the 4 p.m. Sunday matinees on Jan. 23 and Jan. 30.

LINK

Building "This Beautiful City"

Last night, I had the immense honor of performing in the opening performance of the Richmond Triangle Players' This Beautiful City. A few months ago I wrote about the script, its origins and its incredible importance. Now, with the show on its feet for audiences (through February 5), I want to touch on the experience of putting it up.

One of the key pieces of context for me in this show is that it marks my return to the stage as an actor after two years of teaching and directing. That's been very exciting, but also quite nerve-wracking. I forgot, for example, just how much the addition of new technical elements can mess with my muscle-memory; the first day we rehearsed on the assembled set I blew dozens of lines I had known cold two weeks earlier. I even made an entrance from the wrong side of the stage. Lights and costumes were less of an issue. I'm very much a foot actor; it's my connection to the ground that you can't mess with. Change my footing or adjust my blocking at a late date and I can guarantee trouble will ensue.

It's nice to be back in a multiple-character role, a genre I grew to specialize in during my years with Richmond Shakespeare. (In fact, RS devotees may even recognize the appearance of Moped Man during the second act.) It's an interesting and unique set of challenges for us to be playing real people rather than fictional characters. Two of my roles, military religious freedom activist Michael Weinstein and journalist Noel Black, are published authors, and several of us play people who can be easily found on YouTube and CNN. That said, I have to admit here that I refrained from looking up my characters. It's a bit snooty, but I'm not a fan of impersonation as a foundational acting technique, unless one is playing an exceptionally famous person. Scott Melton, for example, is playing Pastor Ted Haggard, and many of his lines are culled from national television footage; in his case, impersonation was necessary. By eschewing that requirement, I was freed up to create characters using more traditional actor tools.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention here that my Revolution House of Prayer leader has a little bit of Stephen A. Smith in him--mainly because I can't stand Stephen A. Smith.)

It's a fascinating challenge to be speaking the words of real people, people who are still around and who could conceivably show up to see your performance, as Ted Haggard himself did in New York last year. (You've gotta give the man huge respect for that.) Even more interesting is the contrast between Weinstein and an unnamed Catholic priest I play, each of whom has completely opposite perspectives on the issue of separation of church and state. As an actor, you must naturally always find something to love about each character you play, and you must certainly believe in the right of what they believe in. I've certainly played enough villains to have learned that. Playing a real person and speaking their exact words is a whole other level of responsibility. We must have complete respect for each role we play or the integrity of the show is completely lost.

Because the thing about This Beautiful City that makes it unique is its genre. It's a documentary, pure and simple, something almost never seen on stage. Yes, it's full of music (a musical documentary??), it's often moving, frequently hilarious, and occasionally somewhat terrifying. But it's non-fiction from start to finish, and we have to approach the show with a documentarian's eye. It's one thing to pursue the artistic or emotional truth of a script, to honor a playwright's intention and a director's vision. Honoring the personal truth of a city full of real, vital, dynamic, diverse people is an entirely different challenge, and it is one we took very seriously. Complete respect was our responsibility.

This Beautiful City is unlike any other play you will see in Richmond this season. It may be unlike any other play you have ever seen, or that you will ever see. I really hope you come out to see it. It approaches issues of faith and identity in a way that is more frank, more real, and more necessary than any piece of fictional theatre can do. It will make you laugh and it may make you cry. It will make you think and it may make you angry. I am immensely proud to be working with this cast and crew, and to be making my debut with director John Knapp and the ambitious Richmond Triangle Players.

What's Next: "This Beautiful City"

After two years devoted to directing, producing, composing and teaching theatre, I'm finally returning to the stage as an actor. This time, I can honestly say that the project may be the most important piece of theatre with which I have ever been associated.

I will be part of the six-person ensemble creating the population of This Beautiful City at the Richmond Triangle Players as part of the Acts of Faith festival. The script was developed by an exploratory New York theatre company called The Civilians, who are best-known for their 2007 piece, Gone Missing. The Civilians create documentary theatre, usually with music, by interviewing people and building a script out of that material. In the case of TBC, the Civilians wanted to create a piece about the rise of Evangelical Christianity and its influence in American political dialogue, particularly the tension between Chriatianity and the rising tide of gay marriage rights. They chose to examine Colorado Springs (the beautiful city of the title), home of Focus on the Family and the enormous, politically connected New Life Church.

The company traveled to Colorado Springs, began the interview process--and then all hell broke loose. New Life's high-profile pastor, Ted Haggard, was outed as having both a gay affair and a methamphetamine addiction, shining the national spotlight on the community. It was a journalistic bonanza for the Civilians, raising the intensity level of the entire project. The result is a two-act documentary with music, with all the text culled from interviews and emails.

So why is this piece so "important," in my mind? Well, I happen to be both a passionately evangelical Christian and an ardent supporter of gay rights. I find no conflict between the two perspectives in my heart, though I can intellectually appreciate how people on one side or the other could find themselves in honest, conscientious opposition. That said, I did as much research into the script as I could before auditioning, and even after being offered a role I respectfully insisted on reading the script before committing in order to make sure there was no egregious conflict between the play's message and my own faith perspective. I'm sure most people reading this are thinking something like, "Oh, a bunch of theatre people from New York making a play about the Ted Haggard scandal? I'm sure that's a really even-handed portrayal of Christianity [/sarcasm]."

You know what? It is. Chew on this for a moment: Ted Haggard himself attended a performance of this play during its brief New York run. With his wife.

The fact is, and this is what attracts me so much to this script, the Civilians are completely even-handed and respectful of all perspectives depicted in this script. More than any play I have ever attached myself to, I am proud of this project. Opportunities to artistically challenge and question my faith in an honest and incisive, yet still loving and respectful manner are rare.

Arts and faith communities so often find themselves at odds with one another that for those of us who live in both worlds the tension can often be baffling and painful. I've long lived what I've come to describe as an amphibious existence, living half in the world of faith and half in the world of art, never entirely comfortable or accepted in either community. I have left a church because of their stance on artistic representation, and I have rejected excellent theatrical projects because of their representation of Christ. At the risk of revealing too deep a secret, I always internally phrase my work in the theatre in the context of my Christian worldview. Everything I do as a theatre artist is framed by humanity's brokenness, our inability to make the world work without help, our need for unconditional forgiveness, for a Redeemer. The work I've done on Doctor Faustus, Measure for Measure, Amadeus, and even the silliness of A Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night's Dream all have had this as core ideas. It is an INCREDIBLE joy and privilege to work on a script that has these ideas at its center without my having to make much of any internal justification.

This Beautiful City allows art and faith to talk to each other. It asks incredibly difficult, essential questions and demands that YOU, dear audience, answer them for yourselves. And it does this in a context of complete respect and love for the people and perspectives presented. A person of faith and art can not possibly ask for more.

I love ensemble-generated theatre. I love theatre that allows me to present my Christian faith, an exceptionally rare thing. I love theatre that challenges the audience's perspectives, and that challenges mine. I love this play, and I think it's the most important thing I've ever done as a theatre artist. I hope you come see it.

This Beautiful City opens January 12 and runs through February 5.

Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre Adventures!

For the past three weeks, I've been serving as director, musical director and sound designer for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre's production of The Comedy of Errors. Since we open in six days, it's probably about time I started writing a bit about this, eh?

It started almost a year ago when I got a phone call from Producing Artistic Director Matt Chiorini. He said they were looking to scale back the size of the festival a bit in 2010, and that his research into small-cast Shakespeare had turned up reviews of my recent shows (As You Like It with Richmond Shakespeare). I applied for the job, was told it would be a five-actor As You Like It, then possibly a small-cast Othello. Then came the sad phone call; he rang me to tell me that they had narrowed it down to two candidates, neither one of which was me. Maybe next year. The very next day, he called me back for another interview, then an offer. Apparently, he just got a better vibe about me than the others. Let that be a lesson, young theatre artists: being a NICE PERSON will get you quite far. It's the undefinable something that always comes into play but rarely gets talked about.

AST works in association with the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, a small college-centered city about 30 minutes north of Little Rock. As such, we have full access to the university's theatre facilities. Many of the department's faculty members are involved in the design phase of the show, and that has been one of the biggest eye-openers of the entire process.

I've become accustomed, both at VCU and at Richmond Shakespeare, to having very little in the way of tech and essentially no set or lighting whatsoever. So the need to communicate my ideas to a massive number of designers on a 45-minute conference call from my freezing car on my lunch break last winter was quite intimidating. Similarly, relinquishing production duties to Lizzy, my stage manager, Andi, my production manager, Matt, and the various designers and technicians has been a bizarre feeling. I know, beyond doubt, that they are competent far beyond my abilities; I just simply have no precedent in my career for seeing these tasks done without my having to do them. In a lot of ways, and intending no disrespect to the "poor theatre"-inspired companies I have mostly worked for, this feels in many ways like the first "grown up" directing gig of my career. I could get used to this.

I have to get to rehearsal now, but I'll write more in the next few days. For now, here's an image actors who have worked with me in Richmond will recognize:

Reviews, reviewers, and different markets.

Rather than hijack Dave's blog (scroll down to "Other People's Writing" if you want to share the pain), I'm going to make a few remarks in this space. Interestingly, Dave's discussion comes from remarks on yet another blog, so this is a topical three-peat.

It was remarked by a very polite Anonymous (a rare thing) on the subject of negative reviews in Richmond versus New York that "Reviews in the big markets are written by experienced theater critics who have the guts to tell the truth, and not sugar-coat everything."

So is the argument here that experienced critics have a better eye for crap? Or that they have earned the right to call plays "awful," "garbage," or "tripe," or to say that an actor "has no business working as a professional actor" or some such? I'm sorry, but I believe you can be critical of a play, even savage a production, while avoiding language that functions primarily as character attack. You can even do that on a blog. Even anonymously. To my mind, exceptional writers use descriptive language, not simplistic value judgments.

I've read reviews by both knowledgeable and ignorant critics that used nasty, deliberately insulting language. I read it far far far more when I lived in New York and DC than in Richmond or Albany. There are, I'm sure, many reasons for that, but I suspect the fact that artists in Richmond routinely run into critics in Ukrop's has something to do with it. Much like posting anonymously gives some people the freedom to be insulting, writing in a huge city does the same.

This isn't New York. It never will be. There's much less of the "artists waiting for a big break" here; enough persistence and finding the right niche can get you some fairly regular work here. Bad reviews won't force you out of town. Many of the artists in town are lifers. And there are only a half-dozen reviewers in the Circle. How foolish and impolitic would it be for them to use insulting language in reviews? Good luck getting an interview with one of the insulted actor's friends, which is pretty much 90% of the rest of the theatrical community. Honestly, we don't need the reviewers the way they need us.

I'm not going to find fault with a community of reviewers who chose to approach their craft with an eye partly toward building up the arts community in a town that needs building. Especially since there are plenty of voices, many (not all) anonymous, WITHIN the theatre community who have no problem tearing it down in the name of "honesty," an "honesty" that is sometimes embittered by not getting a part they wanted.

And if you think the local critics "sugar-coat everything," you must have only been in a lot of really exceptional shows. I've gotten plenty of tepid reviews in this town. I've read between the lines and knew what they meant. They were mostly right; examples of shows where my idea didn't work the way I'd envisioned or where my work just wasn't at as high a level as the role and company demanded. None of it changed the way I viewed my craft. Never have I gotten a bad review of work that I thought was flawless. I don't do theatre for reviewers. I don't take notes from them and I don't let them influence my artistic choices. I use them as a barometer for some things and I rely on them for promotional materials. And they provide a starting point for discussing the craft of theatre, which I love to do. Also, I've met many of them and they are nice people.

How many actors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 100: 1 to do it and 99 to blog anonymously about how they could have done it better.

"MIDSUMMER" WINS!

Congratulations to Sandra Clayton, Brandon Crowder, Stacie Rearden Hall, Kerry McGee and Adam Mincks, the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream, for winning the 2009 Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Ensemble Acting!

This award is the second-greatest honor of my professional career. The greatest was working with these talented artists and beautiful human beings in the first place.

Cheers!

RTCC Awards 2009

I hate arts awards.

Hate is a strong word. Let me back up a bit.

I am deeply suspicious of labeling one person’s art as being superior to another’s, or in the case of a “Best” award, all the others’. Art is incredibly subjective, both from the perspective of the performer and the audience, and theatre perhaps the most of all. For example, what about the phoned-in performance that critics and audiences love? Is it “good” art because people liked it, or “bad” art because little effort was invested in its creation? And what about the brilliant performance that half of a small audience simply didn’t get? Who’s at fault; the actor, the playwright, the director, the spectator? Everyone or no one?

So I don’t like arts awards. I don’t watch them on TV and I don’t care what the results are. I hate the politics, the sense of entitlement, the atmosphere of egocentric self-congratulation.

So it’s fortunate that this isn’t what the RTCC awards this Sunday are about.

Last year’s awards were one of my favorite memories of all Richmond theatre. Friends and colleagues gathered at the Firehouse to celebrate each other’s craft in an evening of fellowship and congratulation, a night of wine, women and song, and of men who looked so good in tuxedoes it made me wish for the fashions of yesteryear. The Richmond Shakespeare contingent was the bad kids in the back rows, making a ruckus as usual. I had written more than a couple blog treatises about how much I hate arts awards, so it was with more than a little awkwardness that I sat, a nominee. Fortunately, the puck my show won was for costumes, and Becky Cairns got to give a speech instead of whatever unrehearsed horribleness might have spewed from my piehole. For me, events like this are especially odd, because most of my Richmond theatre experience is with one company and I don’t know many of the performers who work elsewhere, simply because we haven’t played together—and because I am often too shy to stick around after shows I see to tell performers I don’t know that I liked their work. (Yes, I am shy; try not to faint.)

This year, I am once again honored to have a show nominated for an “Artsie.” (By the way, let me just publically state here that “Artsie” is the most generic name imaginable for an award. Can’t we find a way to name them after the first recipient of a memorial award, Liz Marks? The “Lizzies,” or the “Marksies?” Even “Ratsies” or “Ritzies” is better. Maybe we could use one of the rejected baseball team names, which are also hideous.) That’s actually what I most wanted to write about today, but I haven’t blogged in forever, so I’ve sort of rambled a bit.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is nominated for “Best Ensemble Acting” this year, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. This is quite a contrast to last year’s noms for As You Like It, which caused me mortal dread at the prospect of winning, dread which was only assuaged by the certain knowledge that there was no way in hell the show would win Best Play or Best Director. Interestingly, when the 2008 nominations were announced, I mentioned that a “Best Ensemble” award, like at the SAG Awards, would be a welcome addition. While I was, indeed, thinking of the experiences of directing Doctor Faustus (an ensemble of two) and As You Like It (another truly remarkable couple of ensembles) at the time, this seems more than a bit self-serving now; ironically so since A) it’s an acting award and therefore not mine to receive, and B) I would be dreading the prospect of winning it were I able to do so. Wrap your head around that mass of contradictions. My ambition of becoming a real-life Joss Whedon character is fulfilled.

But I absolutely have to re-state how immensely proud I am of the Midsummer company: actors Sandra Clayton, Brandon Crowder, Stacie Rearden Hall, Kerry McGee and Adam Mincks, designers and crew members Ray Bullock, Becky Cairns, Will Hankins, Annie Hoskins, Bryan Laubenthal, Emily Rawlings, Caroline Sumner, J. David White and David White (confusing, I know), musicians Jake Allard, Todd Borden, Holly Harris and Holly Lucas (who was also a designer) and everyone at Second Pres and Agecroft Hall whose names aren’t on the tip of my cerebrum, not to mention producers Grant Mudge and Richard Moxley. This is technically an acting award, but all those people are honorees in my book. That’s what ensemble is about, in my book.

When I direct, I try to strike a balance between making it fun and making it a challenge, and these actors rose to the fun of the challenge and the challenge of the fun like none I’ve ever worked with. For a director who prides himself in building ensembles, their nomination is an indescribable honor. Plus, it’s the best of all possible worlds: I can root for them without having the awkwardness of actually having to accept an award if they win. Score!

So regardless of what happens on Sunday evening, I offer my congratulations to the cast of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I look forward to seeing my enormous Richmond Theatre family dressed to the nines for a celebration of our trials and triumphs at the Empire on Sunday night.

Carrying the Flag

I have been given the honor of carrying the American flag onstage for the opening of CenterStage this weekend.

For tonight's official opening performance, I will be carrying our nation's colors in honor of my friend Scott Wichmann and his tirelessly humble service to our country and our culture.

If you're there tonight, look for my Red Sox red socks in tribute.

God bless you, Scotto. God bless America and all nations under His mercy. And God bless Richmond CenterStage.

Don't Call It a Comeback

Hey, y'all. Sorry for the long absence. Believe it or not, my life of the past few months has been even crazier than usual. A couple of announcements:

With Midsummer closed, my tenure as Associate Artistic Director for Richmond Shakespeare has come to an end. It was a roller coaster three years on staff plus two before as a contract artist, and I cherish the memories and the resume credits. But it's time to move on to other venues. I'm planning to continue my associations with the excellent artists and friends there, and will still do the occasional special event, such as the Center Stage opening (see below), but my days of doing full productions with Richmond Shakes are, for the time being, at an end. Even had the economy not necessitated the move, it was time to go. The amazing ensemble of Midsummer's cast and crew was the perfect final project, and I am grateful to every one of them for their hard work in the face of four rainouts in ten tries and little or no pay.

So in sports terms, I'm now an unresricted free agent. I'm looking forward to playing with other theatres in town at some point, but for now I'm on a bit of a hiaitus. I'll be teaching acting at John Tyler Community College in the Fall, and that, combined with my Wednesday evening praise band commitments, makes scheduling rehearsals pretty much impossible. Short-rehearsal projects like staged readings, concert musicals, etc. are feasible, of course, and they are also among my favorite kind of theatrical event.

While I'm out, I'm thinking about trying my hand at some theatre criticism. I may phrase my blog responses to plays I see in the form of a review (thanks to my good friend Dave T for giving me some of Style's guidelines) to get another perspective--and, perhaps, to give one.

So the next big thing? Aside from finally REALLY putting my apartment together (I've been here since March 1 and still haven't unpacked many boxes or put much of anything on the wall), I'm looking forward to Richmond Shakespeare's contribution to the grand opening of Center Stage: a ten-minute collection of sonnets and songs concluding in a fully-orchestrated suite of music composed by... me! Yes, the Richmond Symphony is going to be playing the conclusion to A Midsummer Night's Dream, composed by me and orchestrated by my dear friend Keith Tan. I have no frame of reference to figure out how I should feel about this, but I can say without exaggeration that I have never been so terrified by an artistic endeavor in my entire life. As of yesterday, the score is finished, but I haven't seen it or heard the synthesized demo yet. I think that when I see the multi-line conductor's score for "Through the House Give Glimmering Light" I may actually have to sit down. Or I may faint.

So that will be the climax to my Richmond Shakespeare experience. I am incredibly grateful to Grant, and to the people at the Symphony, for the opportunity. I don't expect it to ever come again.

After that? I may have an opportunity to spread the gospel of five-actor Shakespeare to the Arkansas Shakespeare Festival in May. We've talked variously of As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, and Othello. Doing a show I've already directed seems like cheating...

I'm just building the new Me some more, friends. Questions and comments are always welcome.

Belated Reviews for Midsummer "Midsummer"

From Style Weekly:

Getting Some Fairy Tail

Richmond Shakespeare’s "Midsummer" adds pop culture to a play that is sexy or innocent, depending on what you’re looking for.
7/8/2009
by Mary Burruss

Five actors populate the "Midsummer" forest with nearly two dozen characters, all more or less excited about getting together.

Sensual is the word that summarizes the Richmond Shakespeare Festival’s version of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," Shakespeare’s ode to love. It is steamy yet playful, capturing the giddiness of young lovers and proving my companion’s point that "Shakespeare is all about hooking up." But this show is not just for grown-ups; several children in the audience thoroughly enjoyed themselves, laughing often while the sexual innuendo sailed harmlessly overhead.
Part of the fun of the play is Shakespeare’s observations of the incompatible behaviors of men and women engaged in timeless entanglements. To emphasize the differences between the sexes, director Andrew Hamm casts three voluptuous goddesses to contrast with his muscular males. The five-player ensemble -- Sandra Clayton, Brandon Crowder, Stacie Rearden Hall, Kerry McGee and Adam Mincks -- displays remarkable versatility and physicality as they play 22 human and mystical characters with Richmond Shakespeare’s trademark modern-day adaptations.
All of them sing, act and move marvelously well, but Crowder amazes with his spiderlike embodiment of Oberon and McGee shines as the mischievous, childlike Puck. Hall sings a mean rendition of "Let’s Hear it for the Boy" during intermission and Egeus will never sound the same again without Clayton’s expert Boston accent. Minks gets high marks for his Bottom (no pun intended).
While Hamm’s use of pop-culture references and music amplifies the fun-loving spirit of the show, an added original song at the close drags out the ending. And although the play-within-a-play is so hilarious it prods shrieks of laughter from the audience, it could use some editing. But aside from that, there is not a better way to spend a midsummer night.

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" plays through July 12 at Agecroft Hall at 8 p.m. Gates open at 7 p.m. for picnics. Tickets are $25. Visit www.richmondshakespeare.com or call 866-BARD-TIX.


From The Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Irreverent ‘Midsummer’ is so hilarious it hurts

SUSAN HAUBENSTOCK SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Published: July 5, 2009
One-line review: I laughed so hard at Richmond Shakespeare's new production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that I got a headache.
The perennial favorite of Richmond Shakespeare and the Shakespeare canon itself is back for a short run at gorgeous Agecroft Hall. Andrew Hamm directs this time, pushing the comedy and mayhem way past any previous boundaries of taste, propriety, reverence for the Bard and other annoyances.
We have here a cell phone and a drag queen, imitations of William Shatner and Christopher Walken, a Macbeth-worthy Scottish accent and a half-witted Starveling with a stick. It's just nuts.
Hamm uses the company's customary five-actor approach, which guarantees craziness as two men and three women take on 21 roles, switching dizzily from one part to another with just a change of hat or vest.
When you pursue the comedy this strenuously, you get the laughs you want, but there's a cost. The rest of the play -- romances and rivalries among Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, Oberon and Titania -- seem like arid patches that have to be gone through to get to the next guffaw. That's unfortunate, because the actors do admirable work with language, with distinctions among roles and with movement. But subtlety suffers as too many speeches are delivered at top volume.
All five actors expend staggering amounts of energy. Sandra Clayton does a broad Boston accent as Egeus and is hilarious as the wall in the play within the play. Stacie Rearden Hall projects majesty and sensuality as Hippolyta and Titania; she does a nutty foreign-accented Snug and a desperate Helena. Kerry McGee's Hermia is petulant and her Puck unique, more demented and disorganized than crafty. Like her cast-mates, she throws herself into her roles with breathtaking physical abandon.
But the guys dominate the proceedings through sheer forcefulness. Adam Mincks acts largely with his deltoids, doing a callow Demetrius and a relentlessly preening Bottom. When he appears as Pyramus in Julie White's fabulous hardware-store armor, he blows the audience away with mirth. And Brandon Crowder is the prime chameleon here, with four big roles. He's imperious and randy as Theseus, lovelorn as Lysander and mesmerizing as Oberon. But his shameless Flute is beyond hysterical and was the main cause of my laughter headache.
For the first time, the Rebecca Cairns/Ann Hoskins costumes are lackluster, but J. David White's lighting is luscious, especially in the woodland scenes. And the fairy puppets are imaginative but not particularly effective.
Richmond Shakespeare moves its indoor season to Center Stage in the fall. I hope the place is well-built, because this company might bring down the house -- with laughter.

Reviews are in for "A Midsummer Night's Dream!"

From Style Weekly:

There was a moment during Richmond Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when I literally could not stop laughing. Near the play’s end, the sheer lunatic brilliance of director Andrew Hamm’s off-kilter rendering of the Shakespeare classic reached such a fever pitch that I found myself lost in the sea of silliness. I would have been more embarrassed about my guffaws if there weren’t several others in the audience doing the same thing.

Possibly the Bard’s most endearingly romantic comedy, “Midsummer’s” plot involves fairies, love potions, a man semitransformed into an ass, and quite a bit of mayhem. As if that were not enough, Hamm’s inspired cast pushes every envelope available. Sensual interludes between lovers stray into serious PG-13 territory. Characters who are supposed to be bad actors are hilariously horrendous. Some of the physical comedy looks downright painful, thanks to fight choreography help by David White.

Ensemble members throw themselves into multiple roles with abandon. Brandon Crowder leads this rowdy band, effecting breakneck changes between the regal Duke of Athens to the almost aggressively swishy Flute and eliciting laughs with as little as a well-placed glance along the way. Adam Mincks chews the scenery ravenously as donkey-eared Bottom, who attracts the affection of Fairy Queen Titania (Stacie Rearden Hall) thanks to the juice of a magical flower administered by Puck (Kerry McGee). Hall’s lusty looks are bracing while McGee is alternately fervent as the love-struck Hermia and delightfully impish as Puck. Sandra Clayton rounds out the crew ably with several small but vital bit parts.

It seems peckish to note that some of Shakespeare’s lyrical language gets lost in modernisms such as “Sweet!” and “Awesome!” But Hamm makes up for it by inserting charming musical interludes into the action with a cast (particularly Hall) in spectacular voice. For a show not billed as a musical, this “Dream” sings. — David Timberline

And from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Richmond Shakespeare's season finale a fun one

JULINDA LEWIS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Published: April 19, 2009

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," Richmond Shakespeare Theatre's final production of its indoor season under the direction of Andrew Hamm, roars delightfully into its raucous conclusion, which includes a play within a play and a wedding celebration.

There is something old (the play by William Shakespeare), something new (the cast and the indoor location at Second Presbyterian Church), something borrowed (costumes and props from previous "Dream" productions), and something . . . (well, there's got to be something blue in there somewhere).

With costumes and set kept to a bare minimum, the cast of five takes on 21 roles, resulting in effects and situations that might have surprised the Bard himself.

This "Dream" features a tight-knit and lovable ensemble. Some of the casting contrasts are startling and ingenious. Sandra Clayton is the elitist Egeus as well as the simple carpenter; Peter Quince, leader of the local community of actors, also known as the Mechanicals; Brandon Crowder is both the noble Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Francis Flute, the bellows mender who plays the role of Thisbe in the play-within-a-play.

And while it is not unusual for men to play women's roles in Elizabethan theater, Crowder's over-the-top Thisbe, dressed in a contemporary beauty queen evening gown and some killer black stilettos, leaves an indelible impression.

Kerry McGee gives Robin Starveling, the tailor member of the acting troupe, a round-shouldered, slumped posture, slow movements and delayed reactions that suggest poor Starveling may have either mental or chemically induced challenges.

The cast is rounded out by Stacie Rearden Hall, who plays Demetrius's lover Helena as well as three other roles, and Adam Mincks, who plays Demetrius, as well as Nick Bottom, who, as the unfortunate object of Puck's prankishness, ends up with a donkey's head and the magically induced love of the fair (sic) queen, Titania.

Shakespeare's words, juxtaposed against modern-day clothing and props, and in the hands -- and mouths -- of this enthusiastic and zany cast made 2½ hours in uncomfortable chairs in an overheated chapel fly.

(Man, Blogger is annoying. I have no idea how the formatting on this thing is going to look from computer to computer. As soon as you add a damn picture, all the spacing goes to hell with this thing.)

Obviously, I'm very pleased to get two such nice reviews. And far be it from me to complain about the nit-picky details of theatre journalism. That would be downright peckish of me (snicker). But the experience of receiving a pair of pretty silly reviews for my last show (the T-D spending half the column inches recapping a plot most everyone knows from the famous movie, the Style Weekly referring to an actor's underwear twice and her acting never) has me somewhat prickly.

I do wish Style would stop this practice of combining two reviews under one headline. In an environment where print media is bleeding market share to the interwebs, it is odd and inconvenient for them to mash two pieces under one heading, making both reviews baffling for search engines and making it extremely difficult for the second review to be effectively posted on Facebook and other such sites. On my Facebook page, it looks like some kind of a computer glitch: the headline and beginning of the review of the AART production of Steel Magnolias juxtaposed with a picture of the Midsummer cast, which, trust me, couldn't double for their show.

This isn't just a hypothetical complaint. I was contacted earlier this month by a theatre producer who is interested in bringing me in to direct a five-actor As You Like It next year based on the the strength of last spring's reviews. He found them by doing a search for small-cast Shakespeare. I'm not sure he would find Style's review, which would help me very much, very easily, and if he did, a casual glance would not encourage a scroll down to read it.

As for the Times-Dispatch, I suppose one can blame the short staff for the typos (most of which I fixed above, though "fair queen" was too amusing to repair). But it does appear that Kerry only played Starveling, no one in particular played Puck and Titania, and that Oberon did not appear in the play. Actually, both reviews omit Oberon entirely, which disappoints me tremendously. I love my entire ensemble, and cherish how much each of them has brought his or her own personality and joy to the process and the performances. But Brandon's non-realistic movement style as Oberon is absolutely one of the most noteworthy and interesting aspects of the show, and the fact that a dancer-reviewer didn't mention it at all was a big letdown to me. I was so excited that she was going to see these actors (Brandon, Kerry, and Stacie) perform these decidedly non-human movement styles, and not a mention! Seriously, I'm as frustrated by these good reviews omitting this one aspect as I have been from any bad review I've ever gotten. Brandon's work in this show deserves notice. In a company brimming with singular performances, this one merits ink. Or pixels.

That said, it was a blast to watch Julinda and Dave T laugh their butts off Friday night. There is a tendency for people in the theatre critiquing business, either as writers or artists, to go to the theater and demand to be impressed. I had a dear friend come to As You Like It last spring and sit in the back row the entire show, arms crossed, scowling. He never told me what he thought of it, a clear implication that he hated it. Everyone else in the audience, in every audience, smiled and laughed and clapped, but this one guy had had his ability to just enjoy stripped away by years of feeling the need to appear impressive. We all know these people: theatre artists who seem to hate theatre--or at least theatre they aren't in. So it was lovely to see the Reviewers of Record abandoning themselves to the barely-controlled chaos and silliness of our Dream.

Not all of the jokes land. I can't make the Christopher Walken cowbell joke work, so it's getting cut. But a new one, where Bottom calls for a line during the climax of "Pyramus and Thisbe," more than compensates. I don't say this often, but I will here: if you like this play or like this company, I recommend coming to see the show early in the run so you can come again later. The company has a lot of leeway to adlib and grow their performances, so there are going to be a lot of new and different funnies from night to night.

I plan to write my requisite "Making-Of Featurette" post later this week, so look for it in this space. For now, I'm unashamedly basking in the glow of overwhelmingly positive critical and audience response. This company is wonderful; the only thing I can compare it to is last spring's As You Like It group, and they turned out okay.

EDIT: Dave T took justified umbrage at my frustration over the omission of Oberon in both reviews. Frustration is frustration; it makes you say "Awww, MAN!" and type dumb stuff.

Let me clarify that I'm honored and tickled at the positive audience and critical response to this show. (You should have seen the two guys in the front row last night. They are going to be sore for days from laughing.) I had just really hoped that this fantastically physical performance, as well as the relationship between Oberon and Puck, could be squeezed in. 300 words is an awfully tight restriction, but I really want to share the wonder of these actors' work with everyone. I know you can't fit everything in, but Oberon is the play's biggest role, you know?

Trust me, it takes something I'm very passionate about to make me nit-pick rave reviews. Thank goodness for the interwebs, which allow us to talk for as long as we want about these things.

As for the two-review thing, I'm not talking about review length, or even the print edition. I'm talking about separating the reviews into two different URLs with two different headlines and sets of search parameters for purposes of web searching. The internet is a huge information archive, and Style Weekly should be thinking about future accessibility.

A funny thing happened on the way to Vienna...

Remember back when I talked about how I was going to blog a bunch about the process of doing Amadeus? Well, a funny thing interfered with that plan: the process of doing Amadeus.

Sorry, folks. I simply have never had my ass so thoroughy kicked by a role. That's as it should be, and I still feel as if I'm only just getting my fingers wrapped around the complexity and specificity of the show. But I have spent almost every spare moment of the past four weeks working on physical scoring and, frankly, my voluminous lines. Seriously, on my lunch break, in the car, in the shower, in bed before falling asleep...

So no, I haven't had time to write as extensively as I wanted to. I'll try to make up for that now.

THE SCRIPT

Every time I have worked on a play by Shakespeare, I have been amazed at how the writer's genius reveals itself more clearly the deeper I work on the show. Working on Hamlet and Measure for Measure, in particular, made me a fan of plays I wasn't too fond of to start with. The reverse, in an amusing way, has been true for Amadeus.

Not that it isn't a brilliant script, not at all, and it remains one of my favorite modern plays. But if you ever want to play the Amadeus drinking game, take a shot every time Salieri says something happened "suddenly." It's got to be 20 or more. Don't even get me started on all the interchangeable adjectives beginning with "a" "e" and "i".

This has been an incredibly difficult script to memorize. I gave myself easily three times as much time to learn my lines as I ever have before, only to discover that it was actually going to take ten times as much. Perhaps I'm spoiled by memorizing iambic pentameter, which is actually downright easy in many ways. Perhaps I'm just getting old; Gary Hopper once told me that he quit acting because memorization just got too difficult as he got older. Perhaps it's all the suddenlies. No fooling; this play is filled with repetition, and the repeats almost never have the same intention. The variations on "mercy," "pity" and "forgiveness" in the climactic scene just defied retention for weeks. I've never had such a hard time. The fact that I've never played a role half this size certainly didn't help.

The trickiest thing with the script has been honoring the intent of the punctuation marks while ignoring the timing they imply. Shaffer is inordinately fond of italics...ellipses—long dashes—and, quite suddenly, without warning, exclamation points! Occasionally even ALL CAPS! (Desperately implying an acting direction in the script:) Or all caps—IN ITALICS!

If we honored every punctuation mark, pause, and font emphasis, we'd have a three-and-a-half-hour melodrama largely featuring me yelling at God. (Okay, we kind of have that now.) Shaffer clearly has an idea in his head of exactly how every line should be delivered, which really rankles with me. It reminds me of Eugene O'Neill, who writes so many stage directions one wonders why he didn't just write a damn novel. At some point, I want my playwright to trust that his actors' and directors' ideas about the characters just might possibly be as good as his on occasion.

But Amadeus has, in fact, revealed itself to me as we've worked. It's a very different story than I thought it was, and at the same time it's more of what I thought than I had realized.

THE DIRECTOR

That's where James Bond (as seen on Letterman) comes in. He's had no compunctions about ignoring Shaffer's exotic formatting in the service of moving the action forward and setting up contrast for when the big emotional moments have to escalate. He's also mercilessly shattered many of my ideas about how the character's arc should travel. He always does this with me, and it's always for the best. As usual, I can't always remember where his ideas end and mine begin. It's glorious. The result is a trim two and a half hour production of a script full of melodramatic idioms that should really take about 3:10 if played as written.

Also, he makes me laugh. He sends me poetry in text message form and occasionally just ignores the playwright's intentions flagrantly. My favorite example, from about two weeks ago:

JAMES: Is there a question mark at the end of that "I amuse"?

ANDREW: No, it's a period.

JAMES: Are you sure it's not a question mark?

ANDREW: Yeah. "I amuse."

JAMES: Let's pretend it's a typo. Play it like a question mark.

THE COMPANY

I couldn't be more pleased with the cast and crew, if for no other reason than how much kindness and mercy they have shown a prickly lead actor desperately afraid he wasn't going to be as prepared for the show as he wanted to be. Feeling the pressure as never before (not to mention doing the hugest role I've ever had, while working two other jobs), I've been a bit of a prick the past few weeks, and that's really not the guy I am to work with.

Fortunately, Mike, Liz, Joe, Jamie the actor, Jake, Dave, Katie, Cynde, and Jamie the stage manager have all been fantastic and professional the whole while. One of the tragedies about a play of this sort, which depends so much on a single character's magnetism, is how so many beautifully portrayed characters can fade into the background, especially when so few of them have a memorable exit from the story. There's some really great work being done in this show: Katie's silent Katherina and petulant Strack, Jamie's priceless "gay toad" Rosenberg, the foppish choreography of the Venticelli Dave and Jake, Cynde's imperious, childish Joseph II, Joe's hyper-serious Van Swieten and doddering Bonno. Liz is always wonderful to work with and watch work, and her Constanze is Mozart's equal in cunning and commitment.

Mike Hamilton is my number one guy, a hard-working and risk-taking blur of energy and growing craft. Keep and eye on this young actor, Richmond, and cast him while he's here. His Mozart is a powerful engine in this show, and if my Salieri's scorn, sabotage, and finally pity come across at all honest, it is because Mike gives me so much to work with. He makes it so easy to hate his annoying, arrogant face throughout the first act, then to gloat over his dissolution in the second, but is his utter collapse at the end that destroys me every night.

We're all really working our asses off to make each other look good. It's freaking sweet.

THE COSTUMES

Speaking of looking good, Becky Cairns and Annie Hoskins have outdone themselves this time. I know I always say that (and Becky promises me she has amazing things in store for Midsummer), but this is even more true than usual. James calculated that they were effectively making something along the lines of 35 cents per hour on the costumes for this show (ain't Richmond theatre grand?), for which we have begun referring to them as "the Chinese children." Ah, sweatshop humor... Seriously, the CCs have worked a budgetary miracle this time around in recreating the lines and colors of the late 18th century. I say it every time, but they have outdone themselves. They are nothing short of the costuming MacGyver.

As a side note, it's a bit odd to be propositioning a character played by Liz Blake in the same jacket two years in a row. Next I'll be playing Uncle Peck in it...

AND FINALLY

I want to give a huge shout-out to Jamie Lish, our stage manager, who has come through in so very many ways for this show. Amadeus doesn't feel like it was a tech-heavy show until we're packing up at the end of the night. She keeps everything in order, including us silly players, and lays down the beats as sound board operator DJ Jamie up in the booth every night. And she always does it with a smile and a kind word. Except when she shouldn't.

Thanks to U of R for loaning us their sound design, keeping us from having to reinvent the wheel.

And thanks to Bryan Laubenthal for putting seats on the chairs. Woot.

Amadeus runs through March 8. Go to Richmond Shakespeare's website to order tickets!

Thank you, Lee Hanchey.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Henrico art teacher honored for efforts

By Lisa Crutchfield

Published: January 24, 2009

A new building can be a blank canvas for an academic program.

Henrico County's new visual arts building in the Center for the Arts opened this month already embellished -- with a reputation for producing noted works by teachers, students and alumni.

Center director Lee Hanchey, who guided the program and the construction of the facility, says there is much more to come.

Last week, the School Board voted to name the building at Henrico High School for Hanchey, who has guided the center for the past 12 years.

"Lee Hanchey is an exceptionally gifted and dedicated educator, and her efforts have helped students and the center achieve local, regional and statewide recognitions," said Fred Morton IV, superintendent of schools. "Lee's bright personality is contagious, and her love of students and her profession will live on forever."

The arts program began in 1990 with about 30 students; today it has 228 students preparing for careers as visual artists, dancers and actors. Each year, hundreds audition or submit portfolios for admission to the competitive program.

Hanchey lobbied tirelessly for several years to get a visual arts building and was not above a little politicking.

"We used to do an architectural unit for students," she said. "They would draw plans for arts buildings and think about what kind of space they'd need."

"We'd bring School Board members in to judge," she added.

Eventually, the board agreed to fund the 6,975-square-foot building, which features four studios, a gallery and storage. Designed by Moseley Architects and constructed by Haley Builders, the building features large glass windows, skylights and a gallery. It cost $2.58 million.

The rooms were dedicated and named in honor of Morton, former School Board Chairman Lloyd E. Jackson Jr., former Henrico High School Principal William H. Parker, former visual arts teacher Jeffrey Hall and Henrico County Board of Supervisors member Frank J. Thornton.

Hall, who now is chairman of the fine arts department at Maggie L. Walker Governor's School, credits Hanchey as his mentor. "I often ask myself, 'WWLD?' -- or, 'What would Lee do?'" he said.

Classroom studios are large and airy, but Hanchey's favorite part of the building isn't immediately visible. It's a large closet that runs the length of the building. "We finally have storage," she said. "Holy cow! Who'd have ever thought we'd have storage?"

The arts program students said they appreciate the new facility.

"We have this amazing natural lighting," said 10th-grader Allie Ayers. "I absolutely love it."

In a recent Visual Arts II class, Ayers and classmate Ally Wolf were inking in cartoons.

"Before the new building, we were in the theater room," Wolf said. "We sat on the floor because there were no tables."

During the arts program's history, students often worked in makeshift facilities. Before the auditorium was renovated several years ago, the dance and theater students would overheat because the space did not have air conditioning. "We had to ice the kids down backstage," Hanchey said.

The new Lee Hanchey Visual Arts Building is a culmination of Hanchey's career at Henrico -- which also is her alma mater. "I was in the first graduating class in 1965," she said. "I got a great education here."

She holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University. A musician by training, she returned to the school in 1979 as a choral teacher.

"We're lucky to have this space and this program," she said. "Parents tell me that their child found themselves here. Children tell me they've found friends here.

"We cultivate that," she said. "They have a place to explore their capabilities."

First images from "Amadeus"

Eric Dobbs and the dazzling Becky Cairns / Annie Hoskins team worked their magic on Tuesday night for Amadeus' initial promotional pictures. Check it out:


Look at the size of Mike's hair! It's like some kind of shrub growing on his head. And wait until you see me in a wig.

Rehearsals are going like lightning. I don't know if I've ever blocked anything so fast; we're almost finished with act one. The cast is just brilliant top-to-bottom, very sharp and quick and simply a pleasure to spend time with, much less act beside. I'm not where I'd like to be, memorization-wise, but then again I never am. After last night's rehearsal I found a quiet seat at Barcode to highlight my key words and eat some pecan-crusted salmon. My waitress was hot. I should ask her out.

I read Amadeus every couple of years, so I'm finding that I already know large chunks of the show very well. It's the new ending, written for the 1999 revival, that is going to give me a hard time.

Blogadeus

Every actor has a list: a collection of the roles they most want to play. These are the roles that thrill us, that intrigue us, that challenge us, maybe even the roles that we alone know we could play even though no one else thinks we could pull it off. Sometimes they are the roles that got away, or the roles we watched another great actor perform. When we check the audition notices and see that a local company is producing a play with one of our list roles in it, our hearts beat a little faster and we start to dream. We may even decide that we wouldn't accept another role in the show, simply because the heartbreak of missed opportunity could interfere with our work.

My list is long and eclectic, from the classical to the contemporary, straight plays and musicals. The double-H's: Harold Hill in The Music Man and Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. Both Freddy and Anatoly in Chess, both Jesus and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and Che in Evita. Edmund in King Lear and Bolingbroke in Richard II. Dysart in Equus, the Stage Manager in Our Town, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Alceste in The Misanthrope. Mark in Rent (for which I was called back in New York in 1998, a pure delight). Both Lee and Austin in True West, preferably alternating night-by-night. Father Flote in Red Noses, Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, Rakitin in A Month in the Country. I could go on and on. I dream a lot.

I know I will never get to play all, or likely even a fraction of these roles, though I have been able to check a few off my list in recent years: Romeo and Juliet's Mercutio, Julius Caesar's Cassius, and Twelfth Night's Feste. And my jones to perform in Othello, As You Like It, Doctor Faustus, and A Midsummer Night's Dream has been more than satisfied by directing those shows.

It was a thrill to read Scott Wichmann's blog and talk with the man himself last Fall as he tackled one of the roles on his list, Richard III. His tone of voice, in writing and in person, was different in approaching that particular role. He knew it was a dream come true from the start. I can't help but feel like now it's my turn. This winter, one of my greatest theatrical dreams is coming true as Richmond Shakespeare gives me the opportunity not only to play one of the roles on my list, but the one at the very top: Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus.

Amadeus has been my favorite contemporary play ever since I read it in high school. The drama, the language, the moral fireworks and the musical passion resonate in my soul like a bell, with Mozart's innocent arrogance and Salieri's unfulfillable envy both reflecting aspects of my own character that I am most ashamed of. Each of the two lead roles is a massive undertaking, with Mozart in many ways so close to home that I could almost play the role simply by memorizing the lines and getting on the stage opening night. (Well, not exactly. I don't talk about poop quite as much as Mozart does.) But it is the towering emptiness of Salieri that intrigues me more than any other character I have ever read.

In the next weeks, I intend to write more on the process of Amadeus than I ever have on a show I've blogged, if for no other reason than so I can look back, read it, and remember how I got to play my dream role.

First of all, my deep thanks to Grant Mudge for giving me the opportunity. It was almost three years ago that I broached the subject of Amadeus with Grant, when I had just come on board as Richmond Shakespeare's Director of Training. My suggestion was twofold: first, that the aesthetic of RS's five-actor format would be intriguing in the context of non-Elizabethan scripts, and second, that Amadeus would make a magnificent contribution to the Acts of Faith Festival.

The five-actor format, Richmond Shakespeare's calling card for over a decade, strips away layers of technical elements with the intention of giving theatre a greater immediacy and audience connection. The goal is to streamline the storytelling by relying on the tools of actor, director, and occasionally musician. It isn't that we don't like sets and lights, or that we denigrate their contribution to theatrical storytelling. We simply choose to focus on the actor's body and voice and the text, and to mine every ounce of potential from their skillful engagement. In Amadeus, we have a play that already relies heavily on actors and costumes (our favorite technical element) to mark the passage of time and change of status while eschewing period-specific scenery and lighting. We also have a play with seven principal characters, making doubling those actors with smaller roles very easy.

Beginning with a cast of seven, Director James Alexander Bond (as seen on Letterman) requested that we expand the cast to nine, allowing Salieri's gossip-gathering Venticelli to exist as two separate characters rather than doubles played by the actors portraying Strack and Van Sweiten. (This is a fairly important addition: it is difficult for the gossip gathereres to overhear characters who they can't share the stage with because they share bodies with them.) This puts Amadeus somewhere between the pocket-sized casts of five actors and the large company (for us) of 2 Henry IV's 16. By contrast, last year's Hamlet and 2007's Richard II had casts of 10. Spring's As You Like It was performed with five actors, Summer's with 16.

As for the show's Acts of Faith connection, it may be the most explicitly faith-focused show we have ever performed. Our previous festival offerings of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Doctor Faustus, and Measure for Measure were of course all strongly faith-focused in their ways, from the anti-Semitic/anti-Christian conflicts of Merchant to Desdemona's Christlike forgiveness in Othello to Faustus' infernal setting and Measure's blatantly sinful hypocrisy. But Amadeus tops them all with an antihero who declares war against God for the divine sin of giving His greatest gift to a man deemed by Salieri as unworthy of it.

In the words of Peter Hall, the play's director both in its original incarnation and its 1999 revival, "Amadeus is probably the most successful serious play of the last half century. It has triumphed everywhere." On top of that, the film won a slew of Academy Awards, and featured iconic performances by Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, and of course F. Murray Abraham, whose nose I am not worthy to blow. In addition to Abraham's flawless performance, Salieri has been played by Paul Scofield, Ian McKellan, Brian Bedford and David Suchet just for starters. (The list of famous Mozarts is pretty impressive, too.) Invariably, when people find out we're doing Amadeus, the first question is "Who's playing Salieri?"

"Me," I answer, trying to keep my grin from splitting my face wide open.

I really thought I would feel intimidated or afraid of this, but I don't. I've wanted to play this part since I was 16 years old, and I've been thinking about it for a very long time. I know the show is in the best possible hands with James Bond (as seen on Letterman) directing it, and the cast is anchored by performers I trust completely and look forward to seeing every night (Liz Blake as Constanze, Cynde Liffick as Emperor Joseph), young talent we know we can rely on for energy and ideas (Katie Ford as Strack, David Janosik and Jake Allard as the Venticelli), and newcomers to Richmond Shakespeare whom I can't wait to introduce our audiences to (Jamie Reese as Rosenberg, Joseph Sultani as Van Sweiten, and of course Mike Hamilton as Mozart). With RTCC Award winner Becky Cairns and Annie Hoskins designing the costumes, I have no fears. I've been waiting two decades for this, and the company matches my wildest expectations.

Amadeus opens on the portentious Friday the 13th of February (preview on the 12th), and runs through March 8th. Stay tuned for more gushing blogs.

Announcing the cast of "Amadeus"

Antonio Salieri - Andrew Hamm
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Mike Hamilton
Constanze Weber - Liz Blake
Emperor Joseph II - Cynde Liffick
Count Johann Killian Von Strack - Katie Ford
Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg - Jamie Reese
Baron Gottfried Van Swieten - Joseph Sultani
Venticelli - Jake Allard and David Janosik

Richmond Shakespeare is proud to announce the cast of our next production, Peter Shaffer's modern masterpiece Amadeus, directed by James Alexander Bond. The company is a mix of veterans and newcomers, continuing our commitment to introducing Richmond's theatre scene to fresh talents and developing the artists we have with challenging pieces and roles.

Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award nominees Andrew Hamm and Liz Blake share the stage for the fourth time (The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and Hamlet previously), alongside longtime Richmond Shakes veteran Cynde Liffick (more shows than we can count). Three actors are making their second appearances for the company: Katie Ford (Hamlet), Jake Allard (As You Like It) and David Janosik (The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr, Abridged). Jamie Reese makes his memorized-role debut for the company, having appeared in December's staged reading of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Mike Hamilton and Joseph Sultani once again remind us of how powerful an influence VCU's theatre department is on our local culture.

James Alexander Bond (as seen on Letterman) is directing his fifth production for Richmond Shakespeare, having orchestrated some of the most compelling work the company has ever produced: Julius Caesar, Henry IV Part 1, Measure for Measure, and Henry IV Part 2. He will be returning in the summer to direct Henry V, a unique opportunity for a director to tackle the entire Henriad. Costumes for the show will be designed and constructed by RTCC award-winning (As You Like It) designer Rebecca Cairns with Anne Hoskins.

Amadeus, by Peter Shaffer, will be performed by Richmond Shakespeare from February 12 - March 8 as part of the "Acts of Faith" Festival.

Stay tuned for updates and blogs!