Love Song actor shares hidden talent
We’ve always been blessed with using fantastic photographers at Cygnet. Josh Zimmerman took beautiful setup shots for Yellowman and Love Song. Chelsea Whitmore caught some great images during Desire Under the Elms.
Our favorite photographer, Randy Rovang, has been providing us with incredible production shots since our very first show, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Randy served as our Resident Photographer for the last year or so, shooting all of our productions, documenting the remodeling of Old Town, and providing candid shots during our Opening Night festivities. Unfortunately for us, Randy decided to retire from photography earlier this year so that he could focus on other things. And while we’ll miss his images, we wish him the best. He has been a huge asset to Cygnet.
Randy’s retirement meant that we had to find another photographer for our upcoming production of The History Boys. Sean Murray had been approached by somebody regarding taking photos, but unfortunately, he couldn’t remember who that somebody was. I can’t really blame him since he was in the middle of rehearsals for The History Boys, trying to finalize casting for Bed and Sofa, and planning our next season.
Luckily, my wife remembers everything. When I mentioned to her that I was looking for a photographer she said, “Why don’t you ask Daren Scott?” My immediate response was, of course, “Daren’s a photographer?” After she s
teered me to Daren’s Facebook page so that I could review some of his work, I decided to ask Daren if he would like to shoot our upcoming show.
For those of you who don’t know Daren Scott, and I hope that’s a very small number, he has appeared on the Cygnet stage in Las Meninas, The Invention of Love, Biedermann and The Firebugs, and most recently as Harry in Love Song.
When Daren accepted my invitation to take some photos for The History Boys, he was excited and nervous. He had never shot a theatre production before, and especially not one in the Old Town Theatre where the stage can be wide and the lighting a bit difficult. The photos he took, however, turned out beautiful. So much so, that I’ve already invited him to take pictures for our next production, Mauritius. Hopefully we can make that scheduling work. Here’s to hidden talents!
By the way, the name of that person that Sean Murray was trying to remember: Daren Scott. I love my wife.
Creating a world for the imagination
The term “set design” is really such a boring phrase for, well, the set design. Costume design is really the wardrobe of each individual character, lighting and sound designs are the atmospheres, props the personal objects of characters, and the set design is the environment. The hard world of the play. Tactile.
One of the challenges with Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius is that it floats between three different environments. Not odd or uncommon or unusual in theatre. But normally it always leads designers, directors, and everyone else involved to ask: “Okay, how do we do this?” So then you start brainstorming and come up with a few great ideas, a couple of good ones, and several that lead to kind of uncomfortable silence (those ideas, unfortunately, normally emanate from me!). Mauritius has to move from a seedy, basement-level stamp shop to a street cafe to the parlor floor of a brown stone and back again. Sean Fanning’s set allows the actors to enter from the world above down into the stamp shop – the world below. And then this combatively comic world of philately simply, easily, and fluidly becomes a worn but still somehow elegant family home. And I am considerable jealous of the cast that gets to play in this environment because there is a great attention to deliberate detail.
In the process of design, it’s always curious to me how you can run the risk of going too far. You can add too much “reality”. Sean Murray was wise to advise that you can go too far and open a kind of Pandora’s Box in which nothing is left to the imagination, everything is real, and what once was going to be a partnership between the suggested reality of the designer and imagination of the audience is no longer possible. I think we’ve avoided that, I think Sean Fanning has avoided that. Instead what he has created is very deliberate, very precise, very beautiful and still leaves much to the imagination….Now all we have to do is add the lights, the sound, the costumes, the props, learn our lines and not bump into anything!
Thoughts on The History Boys (as we go into previews)
It’s my day off. It’s raining outside. I feel cozy and happy and really excited for the week ahead– we’ve just finished teching The History Boys and I don’t think any of us could be happier with it.
Generally the whole rehearsal period seems now to have gone by so quickly… There was so much to learn and discover and figure out, and of course there still is, but as I look back on everything, I’ve been having so much fun I completely forgot how much work has gone into it. Through the French and the History of WWI and the songs and dances and subtext and blocking it really did all feel like playing… Playing with building blocks or clay and kinda just creating something along the way. I know that’s a very general way to describe a rehearsal process but it doesn’t always feel like that. This one did.
As for me, I love Posner. This isn’t a comment on my performance– there’s still so much to discover and figure out, and I’m incapable of observing myself like that even if I wanted to. No, I just love the words I’m given to say and the actions I’m given to do. Who else gets to sing Edith Piaf, quote Shakespeare, define words AND be utterly in love, all in the same play? And within moments of each other? And being in love in this play is incredibly easy. With this cast, you’re constantly surrounded with vitality and good energy, and you know you can’t fail because they’re all there to catch you, and you’re there to catch them. There really is a lot of love on that stage. Every time we run the show I feel us becoming more and more cohesive, and also more and more confident in our individuality. It’s awesome. This weekend especially we’ve gotten to a point where I find myself onstage so completely drawn in to what’s going on that I forget there’s any lines or acting involved. The actions and words just tumble out naturally. And I know the others would agree. This is an incredible ensemble Sean Murray has put together. I feel so lucky to be part of it.
Best of all, it’s FUN. This is a fun, fun, fun show to be in. Every moment is a treat. I don’t think there’s a single person in the ensemble who doesn’t enjoy every single moment they have on stage.
I think that, whatever happens, we have something very special in the works here.
Teching History Boys
I am full of anticipation today. We begin tech tonight for our upcoming production of The History Boys. It’s one of my favorite times in rehearsal: when the show that is being put together in a rehearsal room begins to actually look like a play! This is where the production begins to develop it’s “look” in the lighting and sound designs. I always love working with Eric Lotze and can’t wait to see what we come up with.
Matt Lescault-Wood is designing the sound for the show. Full of atmospheric environments that will help create the school grounds of these boys. Shirley Pierson, one of our SDSU Lipinkski Fellowship Designers, is creating the 1980’s school wear. Bonnie Durben our props. And Andy Hull, also a SDSU Lipinski Fellowship Designer, has created a sort of deconstructed school, not really literal, but definitely evokes that environment. With Stanley Cohen as my stage manager, rather the captain of the show, I am so happy to be working with all of them.
Oh, and those boys…there’s a lot of talent up there and a lot of energy. Go get ’em guys.
Bon Voyage, History Boys!
An update:
We’ve finished teching the show and had the great luxury of doing a run thru on Sunday. I couldn’t be happier or more proud of the work that the boys and their faculty are doing. It’s just such a treat to get to work with them. They are dedicated, fun, energetic (o God, are they energetic!) and thoroughly talented.
The black and white world of Bed and Sofa
I am really excited about beginning work on our upcoming musical, Bed and Sofa, by Polly Pen and Laurence Klavan. We did this show as part of our very first season, before many people had even heard about our work. It turned out to be a wonderful success and helped introduce our theatre to a new range of people. I’ve wanted to work on it again because it was one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had in the theatre.
It’s based on the 1926 Russian silent-film by Abram Room. The movie, which is available on Amazon in beautiful restoration DVD, was a breakthrough film that is startlingly contemporary in it’s acting style and cinematic directing.
As we begin work bringing this musical-adapted-from-a-silent-film-for-the-stage we’re trying to capture the essence of a silent movie. As in our first production, we are creating a world onstage that is completely engulfed in glorious black and white! Every detail of the set from the bedding to the fried egg is presented in shades of grey. Even the actors are in grey scale creating the total illusion of the silver tones of the silent era. Andy Hull, our SDSU Fellowship Designer who designed The History Boys, is working with me on the set design. We are having a great time taking the cramped apartment set from the film and adapting it for the stage. The set from our original production in 2004 is being re-imagined in a slightly bigger version for the Old Town Theatre.
What’s exciting for us is that the new production isn’t a remount at all. It will feature a entirely new cast, as our original Kolya, Eric Anderson is currently on Broadway in the revival of South Pacific, and Julie (Jacobs) Ludlum now resides in Northern California with her husband and two babies and Michael Elliott now lives in Texas. They were wonderful and were recognized for their work with awards from the San Diego Critic’s Circle. But the new cast that is being assembled consists of some of San Diego’s favorite musical performers and I am thrilled and excited to see what they bring to the roles. When I am finished casting I’ll share who they are and maybe they can be convinced to add to this blog as we begin rehearsals.
The production team is top notch. The talented G. Scott Lacy will be music directing and a designer I’ve loved and worked with several years ago, Corey Johnston, will be designing the costumes. Our resident artist lighting designer Eric Lotze is given the challenge of creating a live version of a black and white film and Sam Lerner will be creating a soundscape that evokes the world of Stalin’s Moscow. And the many black and white props, including grey eggs and real black bread, will be created, as always, by Bonnie Durben.
It’s getting exciting. More to come…