Benefits of Theatre

This blog post originally appeared on the HMAC website:

I recently wrapped production on my most recent directorial job, Valley Theatre's Wise Women (which co-starred Miss Sarah!).  This production was really rewarding for me because the cast was made up of all people I have directed before.  Having them together like this made think back to the first time I worked with each of them.  All had a certain amount of natural talent at the beginning, but I've been able to watch it refine over the years.  They seem to grow more natural on stage with each production.  As they become more comfortable their confidence builds, and that is something that is valuable off stage as well.
In my semesters teaching acting at HMAC, I've really enjoyed that chance to work with younger actors.  It gives me a chance to lay a strong foundation of the fundamentals of acting.  I'm able to focus on the little subtleties that I don't often have time to deal with in a typical rehearsal environment. Having a handle on these basic principles (posture, projection, expression, gestures, etc.) will help them to stand out that when they go out to auditions for plays, but it is also applicable outside of theater.  They are things that will be helpful when you are talking in front of groups, in regular social settings or even with jobs down the line.  My theater background has hugely beneficial to me in my day-to-day life, and I really think it can be a great tool, particularly for building confidence.  Wise Women was a lot of fun, but I'm really looking forward to getting back into the HMAC classroom with a fresh crop of students. 

Gunning in the Park

            One of my favorite parts of teaching is being able to see your students progress throughout the semester.  I was very my proud of my acting class this year.  They did an excellent job performing our short play, The Trophy Case, at the Arts in Motion showcase this year.  They handled the transition from rehearsing in HMAC to using the giant stage at FCS without so much as hiccup.  This year we added a new venue to work in, the great outdoors.

            This summer we were invited to perform The Trophy Case in the Angelica town circle at their farmer’s market.  Performing outside bring a host of new challenges.  To prepare for this we had a special rehearsal a few weeks after the showcase.  To my pleasant surprise, the whole class remembered their lines, even though we hadn’t work together in over two weeks.  It was fun to have the gang together again and the students really seemed to enjoy the reunion.  We rehearsed once in HMAC then dragged our chairs out back and rehearsed a few times with the sounds of traffic, nature and everyday life.   It took a few tries to get it right with so many new distractions to compensate for, but they picked it up quickly.

            The next week we met up in Angelica to perform for the folks at the farmer’s market.  It was great to see to students working in this completely different environment.  They didn’t miss a beat.  The show went well, the audience seemed to enjoy it and the students were able to get the experience of playing to an outdoor crowd.  It was the perfect way to cap the semester and got everyone excited for what next year will bring.  Right away the acting students started inundating me with ideas for Plucky Pipsqueak III.  I guess I’d better start writing!

            Outside of HMAC, I had the opportunity to work with 3 of my former acting students in my production of Allegro with the ShortTract Town Theater.  All three are doing a great job and it has been really rewarding for me to be able to work with them on this level.  Allegro opens tonight and runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7pm in the Fillmore Central School auditorium.  Come see for yourself.

Summer Fun at HMAC

This post originally appeared on the HMAC website:
 
Exciting times at HMAC right now!   As we draw closer to the big showcase, Arts in Motion, the instructors are working hard to get their students ready, and the students are really rising to the challenge.  My acting students have their lines down pretty well and are looking forward to the small test audience I’ve invited for our next class.

Beyond the showcase, I’m looking forward to the new opportunities starting up over the summer.   We have week-long camps for ballet, dance and theater; several regular fitness and dance classes; plus something all new.  This summer we will begin offering voice lessons for kids.  This is an exciting development because it provides a new opportunity for the younger kids in the community  Kendra Mikols will be joining us at HMAC beginning this summer. (You’ll get a chance to hear her sing at the spring showcase!)  She’s a recent college grad with a bachelor’s degree in Music Education, vocal emphasis.  Aside from giving private lessons in the studio, she will teach a weekly class designed to engage young musicians, introducing students to the basics of singing and helping to cultivate their talent.  It’s a fun setup, and I think students will really respond well.

Now that we have theatre, dance and voice covered, I see a lot of future potential for things like joint classes and even musical theater camps.  Anyway, I just wanted to welcome our friend Kendra into the fold.  We’ll see you at the showcase!

Yo-ho, yo-ho, a Pilates life for me.

Recently I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy HMAC not just as an employee, but as a student as well.  My wife and I have been attending the lunch-time Pilates classes that studio is offering and we have really been enjoying it. 

Over the last year or so, we’ve have made a few attempts at starting exercise regiments.  They have not been successful.  We figured out that we are much more likely to stick with it if it is something that we can do together, but it’s been difficult find something that works for both of us.  Another issue we have is timing.  We’ve tried to do it first thing in the morning, but we aren’t motivated enough.  Evenings are tough too.  Once we get home, eat, and change into exercise clothes we don’t have much time left.  When the option of lunch-time Pilates popped up we jumped on it.  Hilary has done yoga for years, so she was familiar with some of the principles behind Pilates, though as a whole it is very different.  I was going in as a complete beginner.

I’ve tried a few DVD workouts before to varying degrees of success, and was surprised what a difference it made having an actual instructor to work with. Several times now I’ve had the experience where I’ll be working on a set and thinking I am doing it right.  Then Sarah will give me a few pointers.   I’ll make the corrections and realize that not only was I missing an important element to the exercise, but I wasn’t getting any kind of work out doing it incorrectly.  It’s amazing the difference it makes when you start doing the exercises the right way.  Even small things like breathing right or arching your feet can make a big difference.  It’s pretty clear that part of the reason I haven’t had much luck with DVDs is that I have no way of knowing if I’m actually doing right.  I’m most likely missing the finer points that can make all of the difference in any given exercise.

Hilary and I talked about trying to do some sort of lunch time exercise program before, but didn’t think we could swing it due to the time restraints.  Pilates works well for us because, while it is a thorough workout, it doesn’t leave us all sweaty and gross the rest of the work day.  Actually, I find on days when we do Pilates that I feel more energetic and upbeat.  After class I usually become aware of muscles that I never knew existed before.  I can also feel progress being made in my abs, thighs and shoulders.  Another nice perk to doing Pilates is that since it is mat based we are usually not in a position to see each other.  Meaning that even though I’m in a class with other students they can’t see me looking stupid trying to get it right!  (And make no mistake; I do look stupid doing it.)  We are definitely going to stick with it.  It is something we can do together; the lunch hour is the perfect time for us to (there are other class times as well) and little by little we are making progress.

Plucky Pipsqueak II... This Time it's Personal!

Last year, when it came time to select a script for my acting students (at the Houghton Movement & Arts Center) to perform at the showcase, I hit a bit of a brick wall.  I scoured the internet for something in the public domain that was interesting and age appropriate but all I could find were things that were either dated and stuffy or light and cutesy.  I worried that working with a script like that would do more harm than good.  I wanted something fresh that would emphasize the individual strengths of the students in my class.  Left with no alternative, I decided to sit down at my computer and see what I could come up with. (See here for more details.)  The result was A Plucky Little Pipsqueak, a 15-minute, 4-character comedy centered on a group of students waiting at the principal’s office.  It was a fun experiment that I think/hope worked out in the end.

This time around, with a year of teaching under my belt and a mix of new and returning students, I decided to work the script-writing process into the class.  As the spring semester rolled around I began to open class asking for suggestions for a showcase piece.  It was agreed upon that we would do a sequel to Pipsqueak with the returning students reprising their roles and the new students taking on new ones.  (I have a weakness for sequels.  See this or this or this.) The students became very engaged in the brainstorming process, as we began to discuss plot points, characters and other details of the new script.  We settled on a mystery theme, fleshed out the new characters and even decided the resolution together. 

In the week that followed, I once again sat down at my computer, this time armed with my notebook filled with their suggestions and got to work.  The next week I presented them The Trophy Case, and was pleasantly surprised by their excitement upon seeing the new script.  Just as we had discussed, The Trophy Case tells the tale of 5 students accused of breaking a prized trophy and their mission to solve the crime.  As we first read it aloud, I watched their faces light up as they saw their ideas come to life on the page.  It was an incredibly rewarding experience for me, and hopefully for them too. 

One of the things I try to emphasize in class is that the art of stage craft is layered.  I think that in order to be a truly good actor you have to have an understanding and appreciation for all of the things that go into plays.  Like most things in life, the more knowledge you gather on something, the better you become at it.  It is a joy for me to watch these talented students work through The Trophy Case each week, and I can’t wait to see it up on stage at the showcase.  My hope is that their involvement in its inception will make it that much more rewarding when they finally get to do it in front of an audience.

Paint, Rattle and Rollers

The powers of paint never cease to amaze me.  It has transformed our living room, jazzed up the library circulation area and has made foam insulation board into countless theatrical settings.  Beginning this semester I am taking on a larger role at the Houghton Movement and Art Center.  After a year of teaching acting, Sarah Badger asked me to come on as a regular employee in the role of assistant director of the studio.  One thing that has sprung out of my increased roles was the idea of giving the studio a new look.  So, last week while HMAC was on break, Sarah and I rid the inside of the building of that minty green color.  (The outside is another story.)  Extreme Makeover: HMAC edition, as Sarah called it, sprung out of a meeting we had several weeks ago.  We were looking at the studio trying to find was to maximize the available space and really get the most out of the building.  Our initial plan was to organize the back rooms, consolidating like materials and making each one a dedicated storage area for different things (including a home for the ever growing collection of props, costumes and set pieces for The Valley Theatre).  As the gears began turning on how best to do this, we started to consider other little improvements:  getting curtains to cover the mirrors in the studio, rearrange the lobby and adding some color.  With the February break looming we decided that would be the perfect time to dive in.  After an eventful trip to thrift and home improvements stores we found a few new furniture pieces and eventually settled on paint colors. 

                When break rolled around we gathered our supplies and a collection of CDs (my retro tunes vs. Sarah's hipster jams) and got to work.  We started with painting so that while it was drying we could work on other things in between coats.  However, we were quickly reminded just how time consuming painting projects can be.  First there is the taping process.  We were working with two colors, so not only did we have to tape around trim, windows and ceilings, but we had to tape the corners of the walls where the paint would transition.  Then we had to fill the holes in the walls.  There were a lot of holes.  This took a long time, a very long time, but eventually we got down to painting.  We finished with the nice dark blue we selected and then moved on to purple.  We couldn’t tape along the blue sections because the paint was still drying so we did as much of the purple as we could then called it a night. We had originally thought we could do this in a day.  That was not to be.  Day 2 we moved on to purple.  In theory this should have taken less time, and I suppose it did, but it certainly wasn’t quick.  Augustus was no help at all.  He just played with his elephant rattle and tried to roll of the couch, leaving all of the heavy lifting to us.  Kids today... Regardless, it was an informative few days.  I learned about Graham's prolific fan-fiction career, the difficulties in getting dark blue paint out of tan carpet, and what passes for snacks in vegan/woodlands creature communities.   

                When the painting was done we were both surprised by what a difference it made.  We knew it would look better, but it made a big impact.  Sarah made the comment that it felt modern and that pretty much sums it up.  Now the studio feels like a vibrant, active place.  Switching the desk and the sitting area helps to delineate the office section from the lounge.  It makes for a better flow when people are arriving for or departing from class.  It looks great, it’s more practical and adds a much needed flare to an otherwise drab building.  Projects like this are rewarding, because they provide so much bang for the buck.  Plus, it was a lot of fun to do.  We never got around to organizing the back rooms, which is ironic since that was the catalyst for this project.  I guess I know what we’ll be doing next break.

Community Swing

It's so great to see the community come together like they did this past weekend. I've been working with the Houghton Community Association for right about a year now and things are really coming together. We've held several successful events including a Picnic in Leonard Park, a Movie Night, a Musical Trick-or-Treat Booth and most recently a community Swing Dance Night. All have been well attended and I think we've gotten a good cross-section of ages and personalities. The swing dance was particularly fun. It was active, it was different, it was just what we needed. Sarah Keeler, owner and director of the Houghton Movement & Arts Center (now Genesee Dance Theatre) is great to work with and a real asset to this town. She was a huge help with the Swing Dance Night and is doing a wonderful job expanding the HMAC into a place for people of all ages. She is so community-minded. I love it. With the HMAC, HCA and The Valley Theatre I feel like things are actually changing for the better here in Houghton. There are things to do and the community is embracing what's happening. I see real potential for the future. Looking ahead, the HCA is working hard to get Leonard Park renovated so that it actually looks and feels like a town park, rather than someone's lawn. One of my personal goals is to get a community building in town where we have gatherings and theatre and things like that. I'm cautiously optimistic.

My Debut as a Playwright

So I've recently started teaching a beginning acting class for the Houghton Movement & Arts Center (http://www.houghtonarts.com/instructors.html). It has been a really interesting experience so far. The students range from roughly 11-14 years old. For the first couple of classes, we discussed theatre and general as well as some of the goals for the class. I've also had them running scenes from shows I've directed. We spent a lot of time on George Batson's House on the Cliff, a show that's near & dear to my heart. We've also used portions from my most recent show Cinderella. It's been a lot of fun so far.
When the class wraps in May there will be a Spring Showcase including dances from some of the classes and a short play starring my class. Find a script for that proved difficult/impossible. I wanted something fresh and age appropriate for the students in my class, but it seemed like everything I found was either really dated or really cornball. I finally decided to sit down and see if I could come up with an original piece. I've wanted to write for a long time, but have never really put any serious thought or effort into it. (Fun fact, my main reason for starting this Blog 5 years ago was to get me in the habit of writing.) Anyway, I was talking about it with one of my student workers (who happens to be a talented actress that I've also directed) and I just typed a quirky little sentence using her name as the main character. It was just a joke. It wasn't a serious attempt to write, but something about that sentence clicked for me. So I wrote a line of dialogue, then another and another and another. An hour and half later I had a funny little 4-character comedy that will work perfectly for my class.
While this may seem like a very minor accomplishment, it actually means something to me. It means that even on a very small scale, I've written something that I'm proud of... something that will be performed on a stage. Obviously this isn't going to win me a Pulitzer, but for better or worse, it's a start. It's exciting.