Late Monday July 14

I did not have internet access the final two days in NY or Wisconsin so I'm posting this note that I wrote on the final night in NYC.

Saturday July 12, 2008

It is the final night in NYC and it has been a terrific 4 days. On Friday we went to a workshop at the Roundabout Theatre Company. We spent about 2 ½ hours at the theatre talking with staff about development issues, fundraising, marketing, and educational programming. We also were treated to a tour of the theatre. Roundabout is the largest non-profit theatre in the country with an annual budget of over $45 million. They have 5 separate theatres from a 50 seat black box to their 750 seat American Airlines Theatre. From the tour it was amazing to see a theatre that was so intimate that only had 14 rows of seats on the main floor and 7 rows of seats in the balcony. The back row is even closer than the back row of the Market House Theatre. They have a 40’ proscenium width and a 25’ tall proscenium opening. Their stage is 30’ deep. The theatre is truly intimate enough to a do a 2 person play or a big musical and the seating is so great that you feel like you are in a small theatre even when there is no one in it. They just closed the play Les Dangerous Liaison’s. Friday night we went to see the musical Spring Awakening at the Eugene O Neal Theatre. It also is a very small theatre. We had seats in the second row center of the balcony. The seats were so close between rows that I couldn’t fit my knees in the row unless I angled them slightly into the curves of the seats in front of me. April and I didn’t know if we were going to be able to make it through the show because our legs were so tight and cramped after walking all day. We made it through and the show was outstanding. The lighting, direction, choreography, and scenic design were wonderful. The actors did a wonderful performance and the music was sensational. Don’t look for it on the Market House Theatre stage anytime soon due to the brief nudity and language.

Saturday morning I went to the Show stopper dance workshop and had a wonderful experience. We were treated just like Broadway dancers who were there to learn a song and a routine. The two teachers were outstanding Broadway musical and dance veterans. The musical accompanist started out by giving some statistics. For 10 musical dance roles in a Broadway show they will see about 2,000 women and 1,000 men audition for the parts. You are expected to walk in and sight-sing a new piece of music. That means you have to know how to sing the song note for note just looking at the music without someone playing it for you. There is no learning process outside of the audition. They expect everyone to do everything at performance level from the very beginning. From learning the steps to singing the songs. We learned the song Me and My Baby from the Broadway show Chicago. The musical director played a phrase of the song and sang it to us and we sang it back immediately. Then we moved on to the next phrase. We learned two verses of the song that didn’t repeat in 30 minutes and learned to sing it with expression and dynamics. We were expected to remember everything we had just learned as we were turned over to the choreographer who taught us the dance number for the entire song in 1 hour. The song was probably 2 minutes long in total and every 8 beats of the song there was a new section of dance that was totally different from the other sections. Nothing repeated itself. I never worked so hard in my life. At the end of the workshop they expected us to sing and dance at performance level. It truly was a workshop I won’t soon forget. I was one of about 20 people who did the workshop. I was also one of the four oldest people who did it. My finished product was nothing that would have ever gotten me a callback for any show on Broadway. I learned some great things from both the musical director and the choreographer. His first rule was smile. No matter what is going on in your head smile. You may be working incredibly hard to sing the lyrics and remember what part of the dance routine you are doing but you must smile at all times. Many performers only remember to have energy when they are singing or dancing. Then their face goes totally blank. April and I ride performers about this constantly. In addition audiences want to see the character think. Acting is about discovering something as you do it. The joy of the audience is seeing that thought and discovery process take place. A great deal of discovery happens during what the musical director called “the silences” in the music. The parts that don’t have words written. He told a story of a young man who auditioned with a Sondheim piece that had 32 measures of music in between the lyrics. The man cut the musical section out of the piece and jumped to the next lyrics. In the play South Pacific at the Lincoln Center right now the end of one of the songs has a huge instrumental section after the singing. It is during this non singing non dialogue section that the characters fall in love.

The second rule he gave us was silence. No one talks while they are working. The choreographer would work with half of our group on one side of the stage to teach a dance step and then say “Okay now the other side of the stage do the same movement and reverse which foot you start with.” Then she would move on to the next section. If you were talking you would miss something.

The third rule was to be larger than life. People don’t pay money to see life size people. Actors have to become larger than life. Their emotions and their character need to be able to fill a stage and have the audience want to look at what they are doing.

Finally actors should never just mark something in rehearsal. That means to only put a small effort into the choreography or singing. The idea of waiting until an audience is there to “give it all you got” is totally wrong. You have to build on what happens each time you rehearse something so that it gets better and better. If you aren’t willing to put everything on the line in an audition or a rehearsal there are a couple of thousand other people who are willing. And the directors will weed you out very early in the process.


After the workshop I met back up with April whose knees couldn’t take the dancing after our 3 days of walking and we took the subway to Soho and spent a couple of hours- walking and looking at all of the artists who had their work out on the sidewalks. The artwork was terrific and really affordably priced! Soho was a wonderful place to look at architecture, artwork, and little restaurants and boutiques spilling out onto the sidewalks everywhere.

Saturday night April and I went to see The Little Mermaid. Former Market House Theatre actor Jason Snow was in the company of the show. Unfortunately we don’t think Jason was performing the night we saw the show. It has been over 12 years since I’ve seen Jason and he is a swing dancer which means he fills in for everyone when someone is understudying. He was the understudy for a couple of characters but we saw the leads the night of the show. It was a great spectacle show with lots of special effects. The performers did a great job. April and I both are proud for Jason and his hard work to get where he has. Jason always was a terrific talent!


Monday July 14

I left New York flying out of La Guardia airport at 11:30 am Sunday morning exhausted but with creative ideas and thoughts about many of the shows this season already “dancing” in my head.

I’m just putting the final touches on this post from home at 10:30 Monday night after driving back to Paducah from Wisconsin. Tomorrow is a committee meeting on membership at 5:30 and rehearsal at 7 pm for MY WAY. April has Tortoise and the Hare rehearsal in the afternoon.