acting again

Our first rehearsal for Penelope's Daughter was this morning. The author, Laurel Corona, is fantastic, as is the director, Katie Rodda! And Casey and Sonia who will share the stage with me are awesome too. It felt really good to be blocking and reviewing lines.

We'll be kicking off the San Diego City College International Book Fair. This literary event is a multi-media extravaganza, with Greek music and mythological images to be projected on the backdrop, dancers and actors giving life to the story, scholarly lecture to introduce the show, and a very lively author to narrate the evening. I have just 10 lines, but they're great lines, spoken as a half-goddess, sorceress, who is (I'm told) powerful, sexy, and fabulous!

emma's child

Our final performance in Katie Rodda's acting class was Thursday. Here we are on the Saville Theater stage as Jean and Henry, working through some very challenging adoption details, in a scene from Emma's Child. That's me clutching a teddy bear and Jeff clutching his head. Really, sometimes I'm so unreasonable!

awesome

We performed our second monologue in Theater class and my husband was played a very convincing (and gritty) Film Noir character, with a meditation bell cigar! Now we're on Spring Break at Mission Beach... gathering ideas for our post-Easter performances.

I'm loving all this time with our twenty-year-old friends, watching them gain confidence and opening up to new things. They are awesome!

the Zen of acting

Ben Kingsley was interviewed in the newspaper this week about his upcoming role in the Scorsese film "Shutter Island" and talked about how every detail of his character’s costuming is important, because if he looks down at his own shoes (even if they’re never seen by the audience) and they’re not appropriate to the character, or period, or conditions, his performance would suffer. It is an enormous investment to think through all the personal choices his character would make, but through the process, I absolutely understand that he comes to know his character, to become intimate with him, and we all benefit from the richness of his investment. He says that before every take he goes “to zero. Then I’m ready to receive all the energy of the set, the lighting, especially completely open to the other actors, uncluttered, no preconceptions, know my dialogue backwards. I find that a very gratifying and joyful way to work.” Man, I love him for saying that! Is there any better way to be in the world?

High School Acting

Twenty-some years ago, I was a high school actor. Totally immersed in it, doing rehearsals three times a week, acting as president of the "Theatre Arts Club" with the French influence coming from me...we had been the Drama Club until I came along. Ah, oui! Chris was the butler in this shot, and Joel played Bullshot Crummond. My mom made the green dress with lace trim.


And here is the venerable director George Cuyler. He played a big, impressive King Lear. He was equally kind, reclusive, odd and creative. I liked him very much.


We did a performance once that was a medley of scenes from Shakespeare, with can-can dancers to open the show. I remember Mr. Cuyler calling us "Madame Tinker and her roving streetwalkers", which cracked him up. Lori, on the far right (stage left), is now married to my cousin Greg.