a poor player

Dunkirk NY – Posting has been light because I’m in something of a vacation mode. Since closing The Tempest 10 days ago, I’ve been working to re-orient my daily routine to something more akin to what it usually is during the school year. I’ve been resting, trying to get back on a more normal sleep pattern, eating better, and so forth. I think I’m there just about now. I call this my de-compression routine. I am always a little taken aback at how long it actually takes to re-adjust mental and physical routines. Your body really gears up during a show, and getting that physical and psychological “there’s a show tonight” feeling takes more time than I’d really like it to. Tomorrow it’s off in the car to visit Eric at Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre down in the hills of Virginia. That’s when the real vacation begins.

As a consequence theatre hasn’t been much on my mind lately, even though I have been doing my best to keep up with readings in the blogosphere. I have been taking mental notes on some of the things I’d like to write about, but they will have to wait until after vacation. I’ll give you a preview of those topics, but before I do, here’s some thoughts prompted by a post by David Cote in Time Out New York that got me thinking a bit on the nature of blogging (h/t 99 seats, whose own post was also thought-provoking). Two quotes for context, first from Mr. Cote:

5. Bloggers: Engage/enrage
This item will generate noise (and that’s the point): I wish bloggers would mix it up more. Does it take a Rachel Corrie fiasco to generate heat? The theater blogosphere has been dull, insular and quiet lately. We need more arguments, more dirt, more bloody knock-down-drag-out fights. Not just self-promotion, obscure manifestos and production diaries. And here’s hoping for a new breed of long-form critics worth reading.

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Dunkirk NY -  In the last post I mentioned all the reasons I became an actor. That’s “the rock.” What I think is fair to say about me artistically at this point is that my interest in acting in today’s theatrical climate is waning. If I had to sum it up all in one thought, it is simply that I feel that the theatre, at almost every level, has become commercialized and commodified. That holds little interest for me. That’s “the hard place.”

“Show business” is the reality of the day, and I was not, never have been, and probably never will be a good businessman. As I’ve mentioned before, early on in my career – about three years into pursuing a professional career in New York City in the late 70s and my subsequent failed attempt at NYU – I realized that the business aspects of theatre were going to be my professional undoing. I just didn’t like that aspect of it, and I think if you’re going to be a professional actor you really have to like all that as well as the time you spend on the stage. Hence the choice to become an educator. Continue Reading »

Dunkirk NY – A quick time-out from the “Rock and a Hard Place” series to announce a new project I have always wanted to try and finally got up and running over this week. It’s called Acting in America and it is an attempt to create a space and place on the web for actors to share their stories about their art and craft. I’ve always thought that having actors speak about their careers in their own words is the best means to find out exactly what the situation is in this country as far as being an actor is concerned. I hope a collection of first-person accounts will offer people interested in acting as a career a chance to hear actors speak about their struggles and successes in their own words. For further information, and/or to contribute your story, click right here.  And feel free to spread the word! -twl

Dunkirk NY – Last night we were at the park for our first rehearsal on stage. The rehearsal ended a little early for me and my partner-in-comedy Gerry (playing Trinculo), so we decided to head off to a local watering hole and catch the last few innings of the Yankees-Red Sox game before heading home. Delaware Park is located just north of the “Elmwood Strip” in Buffalo, which is one of three locations in the city which cater to a younger crowd. Gerry and I were fortunate to be able to grab two stools at the very end of the bar in front of the TV which had the ballgame on. Conversation was perforce limited due to the general loud volume of the music and the crowd, but our talk did turn to why the both of us continue to act. Given that the atmosphere was not conducive to any sort of lengthy philosophical response, my in-a-nutshell response was, “It’s the only thing I know how to do.”

For the past 10 days or so I had been pondering this question posed by Leonard Jacobs over at the Clyde Fitch Report:

There is also a deeper question here, and it’s one that Back Stage never really got into sufficiently, I think, during all my years there: Why do actors become actors? Or, better put, Why should actors become actors? Is it to entertain or is it really more for validation — that hunger for acclaim?

I’ve also been reading the various postings and discussions prompted by Isaac’s reporting from the TCG Conference. All of this had gotten me to the point of asking myself where am I headed artistically. It’s taken quite some time to filter all the various issues though my brain, but I think I’m ready to begin to take a stab at some things and work it all through in a series of posts. My working space in my house is far quieter than a bar, and more conducive to philosophical ramblings. Continue Reading »

The Antoinette Perry Award

Dunkirk NY – The Tony Awards will soon be given out. It’s the cap of the awards season that starts at the beginning of the year and goes through a succession of the arts: movies, music, and now theatre. I thoroughly dislike awards in the arts. They glorify one of the things I think has caused the theatre to become disconnected with people – the desire for recognition and fame. They also promote a certain amount of corruption. The objective of some productions is clearly to win some sort of award so as to have it make more money. I think Christopher Guest caught this aspect of human behavior most perceptively in his movie For Your Consideration.

But I shouldn’t pick on the arts alone. I live in two worlds, and I see the same thing in both. Academia is not immune from this process. While there are many academics worthy of recognition for their work, there are also many more academics who like to collect awards as résumé builders and ego builders.

Just this past week I discovered a situation on my campus which defies belief. On my campus we have several types of awards, ranging from local campus awards to awards given by the Chancellor at the statewide level. Some award-winners have been worthy, others questionable. Some probably got their awards deservedly, and some probably because they had the right connections and influenced the right people. In academia, of course, everyone will deny any hint of corruption or influence-peddling (or they will talk about in the hallways), because academia must always defend the perception that it is above the machinations of the outside world, even when such types of influence-peddling reach this level.

We will be awarding the SUNY  Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research and Creativity to a professor on our campus who, during the nominating process, has been “investigated” on a charge of plagiarism. The “inquiry” determined that it had all been just an “honest mistake” on the part of this professor, and determined that while a certain “similarity” may have existed between the professor’s work and that of someone else in the field, the similarity was “unintentional” and can therefore be safely disregarded. Continue Reading »

Fredonia NY – By now I am sure most interested people have taken notice of and read the TCG article AT25: An Eye on the Future. I suppose I could comment on the article itself, but one of the fun things about having a blog is that you can do more than comment – you can contribute. I did appear once and long ago in an American Theatre article as a sidebar, but over the years it’s been proven to me that those comments I made have already become obsolete, since technology has already been co-opted. So rather than criticize the TCG article, here’s my thought on American Theatre 25 years from now. Continue Reading »