I've been remiss in keeping my journal but my social schedule is keeping me busy.

I slept in to 8 am on Sunday.  I think it's going to take some time to catch up on my sleep.

I have a party in the Bed-Sty section of Brooklyn (Bedford - Stuyvesant for those not in the know) this afternoon then I plan on going to the Drama Book Shop then meet Madeline Muravchek for dinner at six at Union Square.

Easy to get to - two subways, walk five blocks.  So I hop on the first subway - get off at 59th to find some beer to take with me.  No luck.  Back on the subway and get off at Times Square.  Walk for blocks and blocks finally find a place that had cheap beer (Bud) for $11 a six pack.  I get on the second of the two subways I need to take, realize about fifteen minutes into the trip I'm on the wrong subway, so I backtrack to Times Square again and look for the subway I was supposed to take.  I can't find it so I ask a cop.   Nice guy, good answer.  The subway I want isn't available at Times Square - I need to go to West 4th and get it there.  Know what subway I need?  Right!  The one I was on and back tracked so back onto it and go south.  It's now taken me over an hour and a half to get to where it was supposed to take me twenty minutes to get to.  (But that includes getting the beer.)  Get the right subway and get to the party over an hour late but I'm still one of the first there.  The others trickle in over the afternoon.  With very few exceptions, the later they arrive the later they got home last night (or to be more accurate, this morning).

You know, one of the best things about the subway is the cost structure.  The fare is $2 (or $76 for an unlimited one month pass like I have) and once you are in the subway you can take as many trains as you want.  You can ride all day if you want - until you leave the subway system.


The party was at a brownstone - what  we call a townhouse today - the interesting thing is that the houses are just 20 feet wide.  Deep enough to have a reasonable square footage but really narrow.  This is based on my survey of two places.  Different families live upstairs and downstairs.

The party was really fun - a nice mix of people from the Lab, others associated with the theater and neighbors of our host.  We had a cookout in the back yard.

I'm having a real good time so I bag the plan to go to the Drama Book Shop and leave at 5 pm to meet Madeline at 6 at Union Square.  I ask directions:  Go to West 4th (I know that station pretty well now), walk north ten blocks to 14th then turn right and walk to Union Square.  Is there any way to tell which way is North?  Just walk towards the Empire State Building.  Got it.

Back on the Subway, the right direction this time, get off at West 4th and exit the subway.  First, there's no way to see the Empire State Building or anything else with all the high buildings surrounding me.  Second, I end up in the middle of the biggest Gay Pride parade I've ever seen - floats, streets blocked off in every direction, men wearing a G-string and nothing else, women topless with Obama stickers over their nipples.  The sidewalks jammed with people to the point of making them impassable.  I watched the parade for a few minutes then need to get going if I'm going to make Union Square by 6 pm.  So I struggle through the mob, getting my ass grabbed regularly.  I don't want to know whether it is men or women - I think I know the answer - and at this point it really doesn't make any difference.  Relax and enjoy, right?

I get a call from Madeline and she is running late and won't get there until 6:30.  I'm saved.  I get there about 20 after and Madeline shows up a few minutes later.  We walk deep into the village and have a nice dinner at a Philipino restaurant.  We talked for several hours.  She says to say hi to everyone. 

We talked about her life - she's leaving for Paris with Rob O'Neill to teach theater for a month.  She's getting discouraged - she keeps auditioning and getting call backs but not getting the parts.  She encourages me to do some theater off Orcas Island - of course, she thinks it should be in New York but maybe Seattle is okay.

I get home around eleven.  My feet hurt from the walking.  Somehow I got a blister.   Which really surprises me - I've walked far further before.

The day started with two presentations on on the Meisner approach to acting - the approach builds a system of habits in the actor similar to playing the piano where the pianist doesn't think but lest the music flow for the page to his fingers without conscious thought.  Meisner stresses imagination as the source of emotion rather than emotional memory - saying it is healthier for the actor.  Very few people have enough experience to have an emotion that works for every circumstance the actor might find himself/herself in.

Acting is living (behaving) truthfully (emotional truth) under imaginary circumstances.

Character is found in the point of view (reacting not acting).  Listening is a key part.

Don't do anything until something outside you makes you do it.  What you do depends not on you but on the other person.

Keep attention and focus outside you.

Meisner said:  85% of acting could be improved by just picking up your cues faster.

After that we had a session on creating a non profit theater.  Not much new.

After lunch, we had a long talk with Anne about the lab and what was happening in theater and what was working for us in the theater and what wasn't.

One topic was the loss of younger audiences.  I said that I've heard that for decades.  Today the young people are both working are raising families and don't have the time or energy to come to the theater.  I suggested that they would be back when they reached their 40's.  It wasn't taken well.  I don't know - kind of shoot the messenger or this guy's too old to know what's going on.

After the session we had a party then off the to bar for the real party.  I got home about ten.

We have a party in Brooklyn Sunday.

More later.

Thursday 4 - Friday 4 - June 1st and 22nd

Thursday morning was a group discussion of available director training opportunities.  I was surprised how many different programs are out there - short term intensives, resident summer programs, college based long term programs and many, many opportunities for internships,  assistant director positions and so on.  There are very few opportunities for training that do not cost money.

Thursday afternoon we went back to our rehearsing of the John Guare play.  Things went a lot better Thursday.  Maybe because we had the pressure of a performance Thursday night.  If you forgot (or didn’t bother to read it the first time) the Guare play is A Woman on the Threshold, Beckoning.  It is 9/11 based.  Anyway, we were given complete freedom as to what we did for a presentation.  Some groups did a straight presentation of the play.  Our group did an interpretation of how the play made us feel (don’t blame me) we took three sections of the play including one from the beginning, one from the middle and one from the ending.  I thought that it came out surprisingly well.  It was a movement piece.  We did our presentation in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater lobby.  The lobby has about a hundred lockers which are available free to put your coats, umbrella’s and packages in during a performance - neat idea.  The theater side of the lobby is curved (the seats on the other side of the wall are also curved to match).  The lockers are in this wall.  Since the theater is 3/4 round the lockers were in a large curve - anyone standing in the lobby could not see all the lockers.  We opened all of the lockers.  For the middle part of the play we got the audience singing a song (I can’t remember the song right now.  It’ll come and I’ll add it later.)  Then five of us ran , one at a time around the curve.  The fourth person closed the doors as he passed them (very rapidly).  The effect was to hear a very loud sound coming towards you, pass in front of you and move into the distance again - to symbolize the falling of the towers.  Effective.

Friday - interesting start to the day.

Several days ago Daniel Swee, the Casting Director at LCT was there with someone else.  People were directing most of the questions to him and they wanted questions on a different topic.  So they promised us a day with just Daniel himself.  Friday morning was the time.  The problem was that there were just 20 of us there - out of a total of 55.  He said that he was offended by the low turnout.  Not unreasonable but the presentation after him didn’t have a big draw and the late night partying is getting serious.  People come in late.  Fact of life.

That said, the up side is that the group dynamic was far different far more interactive with every one participating and it turned out to be one of the better discussion we had with anyone.  Here are my notes:

Casting start six months out for a straight play and longer for a musical.  Longer for the leads and shorter for understudies and spear carriers. 

Directors need to know what they want in a character so they can ask the right questions in an audition and be able to make a decision in a reasonably short time period.

How do you cast spear carriers?  With a lot of care actually.  Many of the spear carriers also serve as understudies and the requirements may be very different.

He hates having two actors read together.  One is always working at a deficit - being overpowered by the other, being upstages, being made to look bad so the other will look better.  LCT hires good actors to read to give the actor the most help possible to look good.  They use people who can keep their mouths closed afterwards and have an ego that lets them help the other actor look good.

The biggest problem he has with actors auditioning is not knowing the work.  Not having read the play and studied the character they are being called for.  They usually send out sides (five pages) for the actor to look at.  He wants them mostly off book but with the side still in their hands (if they don’t have it, it makes it look like more of a performance so they should have it even if they don’t need it.)  It’s hard to do rapid fire dialog if you don’t know the words.  Many playwrights write intelligent characters with complex ideas and sentence structure.  It’s hards to do without knowing the material.

Experienced actors and "name" actors often won't audition for a role.  They are hired for other (often commercial) reasons.

Law and Order TV show is the best thing that has happened to actors in NYC.  They use a lot of new actors and they get seen.

They do open calls as required by the union but most of their casting comes from prior knowledge of the actor.  They don’t invite people in unless they are under serious consideration for the role.

Schools are graduating far too many actors who will never work.  They just don’t have the talent but the schools need the money.  He also said that agents push actors out to get money.  Years ago the agents would bring an actor along, picking roles that fit the development of the actors.  Now it is all about money and that usually means TV and movies.

He is seeing fewer young actors with great roles under their belts than he used to see.

The rest of the day was spent in small group sessions learning about Grotowski - a famous Polish director.  Rather than a character having an arc in a play, the performance is made up of thousands and thousands of individual moments each with its own start, run and end and event.  He only directed five plays in his life - the best known was Acropolis.  He died in 1999.  His last play (which was never performed) was in rehearsal for FIFTEEN YEARS.  I wonder what the ingenue looked like?????

We also had as session on fund raising and grants.  Money is a big problem for most of these very small theaters.  About 5% of us knew much about the process.

Party time afterwards.

Wednesday 4, June 20th

Another up and down day.  But more on that later.

We had a thunderstorm last night - the east coast kind with bright flashes of light and great rolling thunder.  I remembered all the nights in Connecticut, as a kid, watching the flashes and counting the seconds to the thunder to figure out how far away it was.  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. . . . Five seconds to a mile.  I’d hear it coming closer then move away.  What was the minimum time?  How close did it get?  Funny how something as simple as a thunderstorm could bring back such a specific childhood memory.  Didn’t get too close last night - fifteen seconds was the shortest - 3 miles.

Walking to LCT today, I felt like an actor on stage with a good scene partner.  Everyday, something about her performance is slightly different, still the same but something changes just a little and it makes it new - like the first time all over again.  Each day I discover the city all over again.  Not a copy but a re-creation that has changed very subtly.

Last night we had a brown bag dinner about staging opera.  I went to Ollies Noodle House and got fried rice.  I’ve missed Chinese food.  Next week after this thing is over, I’m going to go to Chinatown and pig out.

I wonder how much weight I’ve gained?  Probably a good bit.

We had an early morning session on how American Theater works.  It was primarily for the foreign directors but several of us sat in on it.  Here are my notes:

Most non musicals have three weeks of rehearsal, one week of tech then 4 to 6 weeks of previews.  Major changes are made during the previews based in part on how the audience reacts.  Actors often find themselves rehearsing a scene one way during the day but performing it another way at night.  This is an exhausting grind - twelve hour days.  About ten days before opening, the play is fixed and no more major changes are made.  About six days before opening the press is invited so they can write their reviews to come out just after opening night.

Shakespeare in the Park does most of its performances as previews - the tickets are free and they always have full houses - and they don’t want the reviews.

New York theater is run by the unions.  Things as simple as turning on the lights in a theater has to be done by a union worker and could cost up to $2,000.  An experienced director at LCT will earn about $2,000 a week.  TV pays $35,000 a week.

93% of the union actors are unemployed at any given time.

LCT has 46,000 members.  There is a three year waiting list.  They have found that their members are growing older.  The young members don’t renew on time and the older ones are right there.  Members pay $35 a year and get to buy tickets to a preview for $35 - about half price.  When I asked if the members get any other privileges like electing the board of directors.  They seemed horrified that a member might actually elect the board.  There are no other bennies to membership.

We listened to Ira Weitzman who produces musicals for LCT.  Here are my notes:

LCT doesn’t do any work on musicals unless they fully intend to produce it.  Over the years about 98% of the ones they start working on get produced.

There was a lot of talk about The Light In The Piazza which got it’s start n Seattle.  Bart Sher directed it like a play with music rather than a musical.  The difference isn’t obvious but makes a big difference.  After Seattle Piazza went to Chicago and then on to New York..  There were a lot of changes to the show between Chicago and New York.

For the last twenty years, every composer and writer wanted to be like Sondheim.  Not so anymore.  He is seeing young artists (Playwrights, composers, lyricists) doing their own thing.

Music lets you feel the feeling.
A Play lets you think the thoughts.
A Musical lets you feel the thoughts.

“If they’re in love they sing.  If they’re making love, they dance.”

Next year, LCT is doing South Pacific.  Ira was asked why they are doing an old piece like that.  His response was they maybe we don’t know South Pacific as well as we thought we did.  The messages of that show are relevant all over again today.

He said that many feel that a musical is a lighter, more entertaining form of theater.  They are missing what musical theater can do and therefore make it trivial.

As an aside: One thing that I never appreciated before is the true effect of the 9/11 tragedy on New Yorkers.  This is really the single biggest thing that has ever happened here.  I don’ think those of us on the west coast, or at least me, have any real idea just how much it affected people living here.

Just before our lunch break, we toured Lincoln Center Theaters.  The larger theater, the Vivian Beaumont, has over 1,000 seats depending on the stage arrangement.  You can not imagine how big the stage is.  It is the third largest stage in NYC after the Met Opera and Rockefeller Center.  All of Orcas Center could probably fit on that stage plus there is a great thrust which can serve as the orchestra pit for a musical or be decked over for a straight play.  The seating arrangement is really intimate - you would never know there were 1,000 seats - none of them at over 50 feet from the stage.  The smaller Mitzi Newhouse is a 300 seat theater which has the acting area on the floor and the seats raked up from there.  It is three quarters in the round.  It is so quiet in the Newhouse that you could hear a pin drop.  A whisper sounds like a scream and can be heard anywhere in the room.

Wednesday afternoon they broke us up into groups to work on “emotion”.  It is hard to explain in a few words.  But we separated ourselves by how much emotion we want in a play.  I ended up in the second group from the top although I thought I should be in the top group.  People were fighting to be in the top group and I just gave up and settled for the second group.

We spent the evening trying to figure out how to present the Guare play we had worked on two weeks ago.  It was a terrible experience.  Enough said.  I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that we drank our dinner?  A first for me - at least at Lincoln Center.

Tuesday 4 - June 19th

It hasn't been my fault I haven't posted for two days.  The great internet computer has been so busy that I haven't been able to log in.

Interesting walking to LCT.  Today the mothers were out in force pushing every size and type of stroller.  At one end there are the big units with tires that would fit a car.  Some are almost the size of and look like HumVee’s.  Then there are the twelve wheel, four axel two seat models.  Some older kids have little tricycles with a long push handle on it.

Sight of the morning: A woman comes out of an apartment on West End Avenue with a little dog in her arms.  She sets the dog down on the sidewalk and starts to take the dog for a walk.  The dog sits down.  The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end and starts to walk again.  The dog sits again.  The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end again and carefully aligns the dog with the sidewalk.  She starts to walk again and the dog sits again.  The woman picks up the dog and carries it off.

Today was another busy day.  Our days are getting even more hectic as our days remaining winds down.  We are now having brown bag sessions during the lunch and dinner breaks.  These are sessions the group decided to hold so we could talk about common problems.

Our day started off with 90 minutes talking to Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of LCT. 

He described the start of the Non Profit theaters in the late 1960's.  At that time theaters were all doing the old standards and new material came from touring Broadway shows.  By the 1980's the regional theaters were looking for new works but most came from playwrights living nearby.  In New York, Playwrights Horizons was trying to support all playwrights by giving them support including readings and productions.  Playwrights Horizons had fallen on hard times when Bishop took it over.  He narrowed the focus and concentrated on the most promising playwrights: Wasserstein, Finn, Durang, Gurney.

He said the diversity of what is happening around the country is truly astounding.  Millions of people go to American theaters each year to see new plays.  He is not sure the current new play production model is outdated but it may have become too big. 

Last season, for the first time in his life, he did not have any new plays or playwrights to work with.  They are in school, have commissions to work with other theaters or are otherwise occupied.  “I don’t know if I get the play, but I get the quality of the writing”.

The landscape of theater is changing again.  Theaters are being forced, in a good way, to open their doors for a new generation of playwrights.  He said he expected to spend the rest of his life working with the writers he grew up with.

He said writers get trapped by tying themselves to second rate directors.  They have to be willing to cut the string when the time is right.  There are many, many, many more plays today so the competition it tough.

LCT has the only thrust stage in NYC.  Remember that thrust stages work well for majestic productions not walls and doors.

In response to a question he said that failure is more interesting to talk about than it is to go through.    He said he is not certain that writers, directors and producers learn much from failures because a defense mechanism sets in.  He said that he thinks the some of their failures were some of the best work they’ve done.

He doesn’t pick a season.  He picks work as he finds good material that appeals to him.

American Theater needs good directors as much, if not more than, it news new playwrights.

He said that the best way for a young director to move up is to work with a GOOD director who can recommend them for a job that is right for them.

He said the best thing about drama schools are the friendships that will last for the rest of your life.  He said he is leery of directors coming out of schools who have been taught by bitter, out of work directors.

We spent time talking to Ben Cameron in the afternoon.  He used to be the Executive Director of TCG - the national organization of the nonprofit professional theaters.  A really interesting speaker.  The first speaker who got a standing ovation from us.  I’m too tired to include all my notes - maybe another day.

We had asked LCT to put aside some time so we could talk to each other about who we were as directors.  We did the speed dating thing: Sit across from another director and have 60 seconds to tell them what kind of work you do as a director.  Then they get 60 seconds.  Then you have 5 seconds to change seats and do it all over again - 60 times.  It took 2 ½ hours and the noise level was unbelievable and we were all hoarse by the end of the night.  It wasn’t very successful for me because I didn’t have time to write down what the others did.

Long day.  Today was even longer but that is for another day.

Monday 4, June 18th

Ten days till I go home.

I love New York.

I feel guilty because I keep falling behind in my blogs.

Back to the weekend.  I finally found that there is human life in New York City.  For the first time ever, someone spoke to me on the street.  First:  how it came about.  There are five main streets between 80th and Lincoln Center.  On the east we have Central Park West (very seldom take that one).   Then moving west we have Columbus (lots of businesses) , Amsterdam (wall to wall restaurants), Broadway (all sorts of businesses including some restaurants), West End (residential) and Riverside (the park to the west, mostly residential to the east).  Except that Broadway curves eastward.  At 80th Broadway is east of West End Avenue but by 72nd street it crosses Amsterdam and by 65th (Lincoln Center) it crosses Columbus.  So I can take a number of walking routes to get to LCT.  On Sunday I was walking on West End Avenue - you know just taking in the scenery - human and otherwise - when another pedestrian (a woman) actually looked at me.  NO ONE in New York ever looks at someone else.  Not only did she look at me - she talked to me.  She said “nice hat”.  I said "thank you".  I was wearing my straw hat so I probably deserved the compliment but it was totally unexpected.  It reminded me of Lopez where everyone waves - just to remind everyone that there is a real live person in this hunk of metal that is approaching you.  When I tried to explain it to my friend Hank tonight, he was surprised that I thought that someone in NYC might actually have time to talk to me or even look at me. 

Before I get to Sunday, just a minute about today.  Today was our day off.  I took off at 10 am, walked to Times Square (38 blocks) with a few stops along the way including LCT.  I stopped because I wanted to print out version five of a scene that is troubling me.  I know what I want out of it but I just can’t seem to get there.  Anyway, LCT has a computer lab that we get to use.  I wasn’t sure they would let me in but there was no problem.  I think I was the only person in the whole compound.  I printed out the latest version of the scene.  It still doesn’t work.  By the time I get to Times Square, it is noon so I try the Olive Garden - I have my usual (in Washington) - soup and salad.  I particularly like the Toscana soup but it is very bland.  That is my take on food in New York - it is all bland - except hotdogs from the street vendors - they are really good.  During lunch I worked on the scene - still not there.

Then I went down to Bryant Park - a nice park - New York has a lot of very nice parks.  Worked on the script.  The reason I went there is that I had a 4 pm party for an English director who had to leave a week early to start work on a play she is directing next week.  Not her choice.  I had come to know her and think a lot of her.  We’ll here from her later in life - although maybe in England.

My social life is getting busy.  Today I had the going away party at 4 pm, dinner with Hank at 5:30 and a birthday party for another lab director at 8 pm.

Now back to the reason I’m here.

On Sunday we had another session with David Grimm on play writing.  When we left him on Saturday, he asked us to think of the worst thing that could happen to the character we developed Saturday.  I wrestled with lots of things but when I was walking to LCT on Sunday morning (just before the lady complimented me on my hat) I passed a residential home for those with Alzheimers.  I decided that would be the worst thing that could happen to her.  When I was writing the scene, the salty language turned out to be an early indicator of Alzheimers.  Nice closure.

Anyway, David took all the stuff we had typed up from Saturday and selected stuff that we will present on Tuesday.  He picked two of the thing I had written.  I’ll share them with you someday.

After lunch each playwright (remember that we are really directors) cast his or her play from the other directors.  I was lucky.  Of the ten in our group there are seven women and three men.  Of the three men, I’m the only one with English as their first language.  Matteo is Italian and Michel is from The Netherlands so I got cast a lot.  We will read them Tuesday.

Matteo is a cool guy.  He wears black.  Black suit, black shirt, black tie.  But he pulls it off.  It really looks good on him.  Michel is a composer of music.  Both really nice guys.  

David Grimm is a guy we need to get to Orcas. 

So much for the last two days.

Saturday 3 - June 16th - Day 12

As Anne Cattaneo explained on Friday, the first week of the lab we examined the roles of the playwrights and directors and designers and actors in bringing a new play to the stage.  We spent the first part of this week looking at the actor - director role and relationship (pretty basic and redundant for most of us) and over the weekend we are going to look at the director playwright relationship.  To do this, LCT put an experienced playwright with a group of ten directors.  We are collectively to write a play (of whatever we are moved to do) and present it to the whole group on Tuesday.

Our group worked with David Grimm who teaches play writing at Yale.  This guy is absolutely top drawer in getting us to put pen to paper and come up with something.  I selected this group because he is working on character development.  We spent six hours with one short break writing and sharing with each other.  We sat around on the floor.  And we wrote.  And we wrote.

He started us off by having us think about our favorite play.  Then he gave us a half hour to write it.  I picked Enchanted April.  I know I can’t write it in thirty minutes so I strip it down to the essentials: Two women find the advertisement and decide to spend a month in Italy.  Rose has a melt down, Frederick arrives and Lottie has a closing monologue.  About fifteen minutes into he tells us we have five minutes to write the ending to the play.  Then we share the work.

Next is a “Rant”.  Pick something in our lives that is really pissing us off and write about it.  Don’t think about what you are writing just put the words down.  If we get stuck, just write the last word over and over till we start again.  Then we share them.  Wow!!! What writing and what problems we all have.

We kept doing writing exercises that gradually built a character and then we had a dialog with that character.  When we broke for lunch with instructions to write down dialog we heard from other people.  We all felt like spies.  When we got back we read the snippets and David made a list of phrases we heard.  Each of us then picked one and wrote some dialog that included that line.  Great fun.

Then he put a lot of small objects.  I picked a small highly polished stone.  We then described the object then transferred those attributes to a character.  We then put the character on one side of a door.  The character wanted something that someone on the other side of the door had.

Anyway, the whole day went like that.  It was wonderful.  I couldn’t imagine a batter day.  THis one day (with the promise of Sunday) was worth the cost of the entire trip.  Not that it's the only day I have felt like this.

The good news is that he told us to type it up last night so he could have a hard copy.  The bad news is that I can’t share a lot of it with you.  Here’s what I can tell you:

The attributes of my stone were: Smooth, sculptured, strong, sensual, warm, true, important, soothing.  I won’t tell you what I named my character but it was based on a woman I know.  The thing that really surprised me was that the more I wrote dialog for her, the saltier her language became - (definitely not true of the woman I named her after) - by the end of the afternoon her language would make a sailor blush.  Remind you of A.I.R.E.?????

Before I move on, here is David’s sure fire recipe for writing a play:

Act 1    Get the character up a tree.
Act 2     Throw rocks at him.
Act 3    Get him down.

During the evening, we met in small groups with low and mid level playwrights to explore how the process of bringing new plays to market works.  There are a lot fo issues but everyone agreed that a personal relationship between the playwright and director is the single most important factor.  We struggled to find ways to get playwrights and directors together.

On one hand, most theaters have a specific type of plays they do.  At most they have one new play slot a year but even then it can’t push the audiences too far outside what they expect from the theater.  On the other hand, most playwrights write far broader material and it make take several theaters to produce the varying works.

There is a real feeling the if a play if done outside of New York first it is dead to New York.  No one wants to produce a play that has had it’s world premier in a regional theater.

I have pages of notes from our discussion but I don’t know that I’ll ever get to type them up.

Now to the fun part: Remember the laughing thing we did in the clown class?  Remember that we (not that I was actually a part of the decision) decided to do it on the plaza in front of Lincoln Center Theater?  Well, some warped mind decided that we should do it in Grand Central Train Station.  So thirty of us hop the subway to 42nd street, change to the Grand Central shuttle and up to the main concourse of Grand Central (which is really a very pretty place). 

Two of the directors from other countries made me promise to call their embassy’s if we were arrested.

We split up and spread out around the concourse in ones and twos.  I started with John the laugher from Wednesday night.  We were at the bottom of an escalator.  I can hear people laughing over top of the background noise level of the station.  John is next to me laughing his ass off.  It makes me laugh too.  For some reason we start to move together into a group - it’s so much more fun to watch the others laugh.  In about five minutes four VERY large soldiers show up.  No guns but these guys were big enough not to need guns.  They didn’t do anything - just kept an eye on us.  Then someone official came out and said we were disturbing people and we had to stop.  As we move back to the shuttle our military watchers kept us in sight.  We tried laughing on the subway but it seemed to make people uncomfortable.

We stopped at a bar for a beer for dinner.

Then back for the evening session then home at 11 and write up my stuff for today’s play writing session.

At least we didn’t get arrested.  Lincoln Center would probably not be too happy having to come down and bail us out of jail.

Friday 3 - June 15th - Day 11

I hate to be two days behind on my journal.  I want to write about Saturday because that is what’s at the top of my mind but I have to talk about Friday first.

But at least I can give you a teaser about Saturday - actually two: First Saturday by itself was worth the whole trip.  Of course this is not the first time this has happened but I have to tell you about it.  Second, do you remember the “laugh in” we were going to have on the plaza?  Well it happened but not like you might think.  But those stories are for tomorrow.  (Or hopefully later today so I can get back on schedule.)

Friday was a slow day.  We had three sessions but still finished at 5 and got the evening off.  There was a party at a house up in Harlem but it didn’t start until 11 pm and we had a full day on Saturday so I didn’t go.  I guess some of those who went didn’t get home till 4 am.  Too late for me.

The first session today was about devised works.  Devised works are plays that are developed during the rehearsal process.  There are a wide range of ways to make this happen but in general, each participant brings an object or text or something that is important to them or that they think should be in the play.  Then during the rehearsal process the group makes decisions as to which objects will be incorporated and which will not.  Then a script is jointly developed and the rehearsal process continues as usual.

It didn’t excite me but I was surprised how many people are doing it.

After that Anne Cattaneo who is the Director of the Lab did a Q & A.  We talked mostly about her various roles at LCT.  She was the dramaturg on The Coast of Utopia - she started with the principal actors six weeks before rehearsals began to educate them on the historical environment of the play.  This is something that I need to be more aware of - Enchanted April would have benefited greatly to have had a resource like this available to us. 

She said that she doubted that The Coast of Utopia would ever be remounted again.  It cost $7 million to do - far more than most theaters are willing to risk.  The play ran nine hours - actually three shows that were three hour each.

Her “main” job at LCT is to read plays, work with playwrights to find a venue appropriate for the play and in general serve as the creative advocate of the Playwright.

A few statistics: LCT has 46, 000 members with a three year waiting list to join.  There are two theaters at LCT: the 1,200 seat Beaumont theater and the 300 seat Newhouse.  They plan to build a third theater of 100 seats for smaller works but are having problems finding a place to build it.  The Newhouse does three plays a year - usually a 4 ½ week rehearsal period plus a 16 week run.  The larger Beaumont does 2 or 3 shows a year.

She said: Those in the field have a bad disconnect with academia.  Academia is serving their own needs without knowledge or care of what is happening in the real world.

A final thought from her: Directing a play is like climbing Mt Everest: It takes a lot of support and help to make it happen.

In the afternoon, we had directors in our group from other countries tell us about theater in their countries.  An interesting session. 

An interesting statistic: On Broadway, the minimum wage for an actor in a minor (chorus) role in a musical is $1,800 a week.  In England it is $671.  Tickets to musicals in England are $130 - on a par with Broadway.

Some theaters in England have “Scratch Nights” where people can present a ten minute segment from their shows for free.  They can be seen and picked up by the fringe theaters and ultimately by a major house.

An interesting day but not earthshaking.

Do you realize I’ll be home in less than two weeks?  Good and bad.

Thursday 3 - June 14th Day 10

I was too tired to write this last night.

One thing I missed telling you about on Wednesday was one of the games during the “clown” session.  He got five people to sit on the floor in a row.  The first person was to get the second person laughing and the second person was to pass it on to the third and so on until it got to the fifth person who was to hit a ten on a 1 to 10 scale of laughing.  Sound dumb?  That’s being a clown.  Anyway, the first group got everyone in the group laughing.  I mean really laughing.  I mean like pee in your pants laughing.  And they kept laughing and kept on laughing and kept on laughing for minute after minute after minute.  Every time the laughing slowed down, someone would start up again and in a second everyone was back laughing at full volume.  This kept on and on.  While they were doing this we were laughing too - it was just so funny watching the laughing start to quiet down then take off again.  After several minutes the instructor pointed to three more to join them and then we had eight people laughing their asses off.  In less than a minute he had the entire group sitting on the floor laughing.  On my right was John - a director from NYC, on my left was Pia a director from London.  They were both laughers.  Just listening to them kept me laughing.  After several minutes the laughing was slowing down except for the ones on either side of me.  They were trying not to laugh but that made me laugh so off we were again - the whole group laughing .  I don’t know how long it lasted but it was a long time.

Now there are a few misguided directors who have put together a plan for the whole group to do this on the plaza in front of the theater.

On Thursday we had the second days of the same three people we had on Wednesday.

Master Teacher Ron van Lieu.

As directors, we use adjectives as shorthand to communicate with our actors: Be funnier, sexier, bigger, softer.  This puts the actors concentration on how to do that rather than what they are on stage to do.  If the actors finds it themselves, they will own it and it will be more real to the audience.

When he was directing the actors in the scene from Streetcar Named Desire, he asked the actress playing Stella to describe the apartment after the party the night before.  She described it in unbelievable detail right down to the way the room smelled (stale beer and man sweat).  I was blown away by how much detail and how much work she had put into a room that was just a table and three chairs.  Beware the next time I direct you in a scene!!!!

You (the actor) need to have your own opinions about statements made by the other actors.  For example, In Streetcar, Blanch tells Stella that she went to Florida over Christmas.  Do you believe her?  Do you believe what she said she did in Florida?

To an actor: Before you do it for real, you have to throw it out there - over do it - make it over the top, so you can pull it back inside you and make it right.  (Note: This is very different than the people I direct who keep taking baby steps and may never be big enough or over the top.)

There is a danger in complimenting an actor:
    It puts an obligation on the actor to do it again
    It makes the actor self conscious of it.

Compliment in general and correct specifically.  (Don’t know if I can do this!!!)

“Lets do it one time badly.”  Gives the actor permission to experiment and try things and do things that are clearly not right.

The actors who did Death of a Salesman on Wednesday were not available on Thursday so he invited another pair of actors.  They did a scene from Ibsen’s Doll House.  The guy in the scene was nothing to write home about.  I was very under impressed with his first read through.  Then Ron worked with them and they did it again.  The guy was much better.  I could see and so could Ron, that the actor wanted to do things but he was afraid to try.  Ron gave him permission and they did the scene again.  This guy blew my socks off.  What a change just giving him permission!!!  (Which is exactly what I would have done in that situation.)

In the afternoon we did more Clown stuff.  I finally got up and worked but it just isn’t my thing.  He kept saying “Commit to the stupid stuff”.  Well, I’m sorry, I’m just not into stupid.  I tried but I really didn’t enjoy it.

In the evening we did more vocal stuff.  I learned one big thing.  Telling an actor to be louder (ever heard me call “volume”?)  doesn’t accomplish anything.  It means that the actor doesn’t have enough support from the diaphragm and just trying to be louder with a chest voice just strains the vocal chords.  Actors need to learn to speak from the diaphragm. 

Wednesday 3 - June 13th Day 9

Walked to Lincoln center again.  A few observations:

Everyone who lives in NYC must have been issued an Ipod.  If you see someone without one, they’re probably a tourist.

The food in NYC is good, if expensive.  But a Subway sub is not as good as in Washington.

Since I don’t have an Ipod, I spend my time thinking as I stroll along.  It would much easier to do this blog if I could just record my thoughts.  They would be very jumbled because I never seem to finish one thought before another pushes it aside.

Which reminds me - Someone over the last two weeks told us about speaking lines to the audience or some imaginary person in a play.  The bottom line is that when you are thinking to yourself, whether out loud or not, you are always talking to a very specific person.  I’ve been testing myself as I walk along.  Sometimes I am describing things as if I were writing them in this blog, sometimes I am sharing my thoughts with someone at Lincoln Center (always a specific person) and sometimes I am telling a friend.  Interesting to think about who you are thinking to. . . .

Today and tomorrow we have three hour sessions with “Master Teacher Ron van Lieu”.  That’s what people call him.  He directed two scenes with two professional actors.  The first pair of actors memorized the second scene of Death of A Salesman.  The second did a scene from Streetcar Named Desire.  Ron directed them for the first time today.  Here are some comments:

Rehearsal is a time for discovery, not reaching a predetermined goal.

What is the event in the scene that the playwright had in mind?

Rehearsal is a process of trial and error with the actor and director finding their way collaboratively using the play as a guide.

When talking with actors about a role or a scene, start with what they know not with what they don’t know.

The ending of the play is inevitable - it has already been written.  Each scene must feed directly to that ending.

Find thoughts that the actor can move from his head to his body.

Characters move their lives forward moment by moment by moment until they reach the end.

“I don’t see any difference between you and Willie.”
 
Never let an actor act a negative such as “Don’t be crazy.”

Stella is the center of the play (Stella = star) with the two warring planets circling around her.

Make sure all relationships are multifaceted: Stella loves Blanch but she also thinks she is a pain in the ass.

Actors work so hard to get th epart “right” that they don’t find the joy in the part.

From and actor: I worship at the alter of self doubt.

For him, directing and teaching are the same process and he can’t separate them.

He doesn’t do blocking - he lets the actors find it.  According to him, blocking is just making the actor be in the right place to do what is required of them to do what they need to do at that moment and the actors will find it themselves.

This afternoon we had three hours with on releasing our inner clown.  A lot of fun and at least we weren’t sitting the whole time.  I actually got a couple of good games for rehearsals.

Here are the things I wrote down: Actors have to LOVE the gift they have made for the audience.  If they think it is cute or nice or funny, the audience won’t enjoy the gift.

It’s not about the thing you have made, it’s about your relationship with it.

This evening was a session with a voice coach.  Good but no notes to write down.

All this reminds me of something Roy Thinnes told me.  "Don't ask me why I'm entering or how my day was or where I came from.  I'm an actor and it's my job to do my homework and you need to assume I have done it."

Another note:  The young woman playing Blanch in Streetcar talked so fast that she made Alyssa seem like a slowpoke.  He didn't have much luck getting her to slow down.

One last note:  When he was directing the scene I picked up on a lot of the notes he gave the actors too. 

We have the same three people tomorrow.

That’s it for today.