Christmas Time Is Here!

Well we had our first rehearsal. The morning of the rehearsal I felt like a kid on Christmas day. I jumped out of bed, running around the house singing "It's the first rehearsal, it's the first rehearsal".  I had even gotten out my old copy of the Charlie Brown Christmas album (good album by the way).  I know I might be going over board with all of this, but it still amazes me what can be achieved when creative minds come together.    


There's something about starting a new project that is so energizing, it's seems like love, well all most.  I don't want to sound corny about it.  I really do enjoy the whole process, it  just tickles my insides.  Hearing the play read for the first time, seeing what the actors bring to their characters, listening to how the director finds something in the script that I hadn't seen before, and then, of course, the feeling of excitement that comes with creating a passionate endeavor, how can you not love this.  


We have our next rehearsal on Friday and I will be making breakfast for everyone.  YEPEE! I get to do this again! 

Think of your audience

OK here's the deal - I was tiring to understand how this blog thing works so people can view my blog and make comments,  or at least send a thumbs up. 


So I did a blog help search and found this page "Promoting Your Blog".  In it I see a whole list on ways to grab people to your site. One of the titles is "Write quality content and do it well".  It goes on to say "If your "style" is bad writing, worse grammar, no punctuation, and an ugly design, that might be okay for a niche crowd.  But the idea here is to achieve mass appeal, so fix yourself up a bit."


What! "do it well" "ugly design" "fix yourself up a bit!".  Holy typo! Could this be why no one comments on my blog?


Sometimes I can't even write a sentence, or worse, I don't have a strong command of the English language, let alone punctuation skills.  I'm forever grabbing my dictionary for the spelling of a word or yelling across the apartment to my spouse "Sweetie, how do you spell" (I can't trust spell check) "Sweetie, can you proofread this".  I'm amazed we're still together and that the neighbors haven't pounded on the door and thrown a thesaurus at me chanting, "The question before us is, where's his thesaurus!"


Since we live in this cyber age where corresponding with people is through emails, chat-rooms, networking sites, and blogging, I thought I better "fix myself up a bit" with this form of dyslexia I have and bought this book called Send - Why Peolpe Email So Badly and How to Do It Better, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.  I don't know if this book is giving me "style" but it's helping me with communicating better when corresponding with my theater company colleagues.  Let's hope this new fix - me -  up is more effective then the old.


Lesson number Three:  When casting your project, make sure you're clear about dates and times for rehearsals before you hire your actors. 

Keeping your eye on the ball!

When starting out with a goal, I've learned that, in order to achieve it, you must always keep your focus and your eye on the goal. Or at least that's what my dog Daisy teaches me when I toss her the ball. 

Sometimes it's so easy for me to lose focus of what my passion is with starting up the theater company. So many times I'm ready to run to the next event or be caught up in what everyone else thinks I should do or shouldn't do, which always makes me lose sight of the ball. 


In times like this I'm learning to nip in the bud the should's and shouldn'ts, by regrouping, breathing and going back to my original vision for a theater company, which is, To create a theater where powerful play writing can be heard and where exciting actors of all ethnic backgrounds can have a platform to showcase their talent.


I have heard and seen theater like this and have always been inspired by it. I'm a big lover of playwrights who start out telling you a story, and I'm in for the ride, and then Boom!, I'm hit with a curve ball at the end. I always leave the theater thinking, Wow! I never saw that coming. At one minute I'm laughing my guts out, than I'm crying my heart out. 


Don't you love writing like that! I had an acting teacher who taught us, "When you have great writing, your job as an actor is a breeze". She is correct.  Some of the playwrights that helped make my job a "breeze" are, Stephen Belber, Craig Wright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, just to name a few.


As for the exciting acting, well the list would go on forever with all my favorites, which I'm sure you could also add to, but here are some: Rege Lewis, Paul Sparks, Christopher Mann, and Michael Shannon.  You can IMDB these guys or Youtube them. I'm sure after you see just a snippet of their work they'll be on your list also.


Lesson number two: When you stay true to your passion and keep the focus, you always catch the ball!

Is it a Stage Reading or Staged Reading

So here is the postcard for the reading. Funny thing, there was so much discussion on the wording of ("Stage Reading or Staged Reading"), and as you can see, we went with Staged Reading.

This question might not seem like a big decision, however one does want the correct formatting with a very important project. I had the AEA guidelines, which has the wording as "Stage Reading" I thought Oh OK I'll go with that, Hooray I can start sending out my postcards for the event, than I picked up the newspaper and to my horror I see in big letters "STAGED READING". Could I've made the biggest mistake of my life? Oh God I have to email again, for the hundredth time, the friend who is volunteering his time with his amazing computer skills. Stop the press (or is it presses), we need to change the postcard again.

I did a google search and this is what I found.

Reading: Just that. The actors sit on chairs in a rehearsal room or on stage facing the audience and read your script, sometimes with no rehearsals. A Stage Manager or another performer reads the descriptions from our Character Page and Setting Page, and then the essential stage directions during the presentation.

Staged Reading: The Performers have several rehearsals with a Director who establishes entrances, exits, and other movement as well as basic character interpretation. You may have a chance to revise dialogue during the rehearsal process. It's not unusual for a plain old Reading to be called a Staged Reading if the performers have at least one rehearsal and even if they never leave their chairs.

So "Staged Reading" it is.

I never know all the ins and outs of producing theater. At moments I feel like Wow this is great, it's really happening, but than I get thrown a curve ball and think, Man I can't do this, I don't know what I'm doing, I must be crazy.

I ask myself, do I have what it takes to manage people, the marketing skills, the financial savvy, and the personal strength to reach my five year goals? How do I make those networking relationships, when I'm the new guy on the block. How do I get industry people to take me and the theater company seriously?

These are some of the questions I'm asking myself and more. My hope with this blog is, to share with you my search and the process of building a theater company (or make my dream a reality), and hey if I can inspire someone else to start their own theater company that would be a blessing! One thing is clear, I'm getting the education of a life time, and fast!

Oh yeah! marketing skills lesson number one: Promote your project!

Checkout the info in the above postcard. Or contact info@nonametheater.org to reserve your seats, seating is limited.

OK back home in the crazy city of NY and it's time to make the donuts. Yummy!

Here are some images we're thinking of for Fault Lines.

I like the image of the tracks cutting into two.

My view from my window.