Never Show them the High C...

A day off from rehearsal yesterday.  Badly needed, actually, because my voice was a bit on the raspy side after five hours of music rehearsal on Sunday.  Back in the saddle today, however, so I need to start working on the music again. 

The ensemble in this piece does a lot of singing.  As of Sunday, they had just finally found a really good tenor (the music in the piece is incredibly difficult for the ensemble) and then the next day the baritone had to leave the cast for personal reasons.  So now a search is underway for his replacement.  Oy.

Hopefully, all of that will be dealt with today. 

I was thinking yesterday that I've heard Ron (our director) say out loud on several occasions that we need to 'serve the play.'  I'm terribly pleased to hear comments like that.  He also said the major job, in his opinion, of a director is to simply correct any mistakes made in the casting.  I liked that comment, too.  The last play I did involved a director that was intent upon making the entire evening about his directing, text be damned.  Consequently the entire rehearsal process turned into a battle to maintain the integrity of the text rather than move forward and try and present a fascinating story.  Every rehearsal became about trying to keep the director's 'improvements' out of the play.  It was exhausting.

Angie and I had my buddy, John Bader, over for dinner last night and I played a couple of the songs from the show for him.  Although John is not really a musical theater kind of guy, he immediately realized what a monster this piece is.  He also concurred with me in that he thought this was a play I had to do.

So today I put the blinders back on and start on the music again.  Today my goal is to find a way to make it through a long song I sing about a third of the way through the play without peaking too soon.  I'm remembering a rare piece of advice from Marlon Brando in his book, Songs My Mother Taught Me.  I, like many actors, picked the book up thinking Brando would break his decades-long silence about actually talking about his process.  He really doesn't in the book.  But he does, now and again, offer a little tidbit.  One of them is, '...never show the high C.  If you've got a high C, only show them the B.'  Good advice.  In essence he's saying always keep something in reserve.  It's especially apt advice for this show I'm doing now.  It would be so easy to blow out the engines early and show the audience all I've got.  Can't do that, though.  That's a rookie mistake and one I've been in danger of committing lately.

I just finished reading Tennessee Williams' Memoirs and there are several interesting things in it.  One is his assessment of the great Laurette Taylor as she was working on 'The Glass Menagerie.'  He reports that in rehearsal in Chicago for the play, all of the actors were, very early in the rehearsal process, weeping and gnashing their teeth and going for broke throughout the play.  Except Taylor.  She carried the script with her right up to the end, although it became clear she wasn't referring to it.  She kept her voice neutral, her emotions in check and was carefully observing what the other actors were doing.  In fact, he was concerned that her performance would be flat because of it.  But suddenly, as opening night neared, she put the script down and blossomed.  There was a late rehearsal that he recalled, about three nights before the first preview, in which Taylor said, rather off-handedly, 'I'm going to act tonight.'  What happened next, of course, was theater history.

The same happened in rehearsal for 'Death of a Salesman.'  In Elia Kazan's book he writes of his concern for Lee J. Cobb in the role of Willy Loman.  "We couldn't hear him, for one thing," Kazan writes.  "And when we could hear him, it was timid and weak."  But, like Taylor, the veteran Cobb was simply biding his time.  He, apparently, held off even longer than Taylor.  Opening night, of course, he was incredible.  I can't say that I'm a fan of this approach although there's no arguing with success.  I've always been of the mind that what you do in rehearsal you will do in performance.  It's a valuable lesson for young actors to learn, in fact.  However, having said that, I think there's something to holding off on the emotion inherent in this play, The Adding Machine.  In film it's called 'saving it for the close-up.'  In the live theatre, it's just common sense.

So starting today, I hold back.  I mark the 'high C.'  Never show them everything you've got.  The difference is, unlike Cobb and Laurette Taylor, I'll let Alan and Ron (the musical director and director, respectively) know what I'm doing.  I can only hope they'll trust me.

See you tomorrow.

 

Angie's Birthday Weekend.

Angie and I traveled down to San Diego for the weekend to attend her niece's 15th birthday party.  Angie's brother's wife is Mexican and apparently the 15th birthday, in that culture, is a big deal, much like the 13th birthday is a big deal in the Jewish tradition.  There's actually a name for it (starts with a Q) but I can't remember what it is.  In any event, Kenny (Angie's brother) went all out and rented space at the The Hampton Inn, catered it, tons of food and deserts, a DJ playing music that was incomprehensible to me, lots of 15 year old boys and girls dancing the night away.  It was actually a pretty cool thing. 

And as the evening progressed I felt older and older and older.  Usually, Angie and I are considered the hippest of all the adults by our friend's kids.  I suspect this is because Angie has the amazing ability to make anyone she's talking to feel like they're her best friend of all time and I'm always good-naturedly grumpy and tend to cuss a lot.  Kids like that.  But as we sat there in the convention room, all decorated and looking very 15 year old chic, we both felt terribly, terribly grown-up.  We were on the 'suit and tie' side of the room with all the other parents and, like everyone else on that side of the room, were clearly considered the interlopers. 

Kenny showed a slide show to get the evening rolling, a sort of 'this is your life' kinda thing of Sophie (the 15 year old), complete with really wonderful music.  And much to my surprise, right in the middle of it, I sort of got quietly choked up.  It was just so clear how much Kenny, usually a mildly acerbic but hail-fellow-well-met kind of guy, adored and loved his daughter.  I was grateful he didn't play 'Butterfly Kisses' underneath the slide show.  I would have wept out loud. 

Rosemary, Angie and Kenny's mom, traveled all the way from Missouri for the party.  She'd just come back from Columbia (she and her husband Rex are always jet-setting it all over the world, bless their hearts) and is going in for major back surgery in January, so it was a big deal that she'd made the trip.  And if Angie and I felt old, I'm sure Rosemary, who's as cosmopolitan as one can get, must've felt old right along with us.  Even Angie's daughter, Lauren, and her long-time boyfriend, Nate, both in their early twenties, were relegated to the 'grown-up' table.  At least they seemed to recognize some of the music, which is more than I can say of me.

So we had to scoot out of San Diego early Sunday morning because I had a marathon music rehearsal for The Adding Machine at noon. 

I came into the rehearsal, once again, highly prepared.  I'd been working on one of my songs that was scheduled for the day like a maniac.  It didn't help.  I was quickly overwhelmed with the music.  About halfway through this particular song are a few high Fs.  I found that as I 'acted' the song, I tend to get a little keyed up physically and I'm not really a trained singer so my throat had tightened up as the song progresses.  It's a long and comprehensive and emotionally draining song, kind of along the lines of 'My Boy Bill' or 'Molasses to Slavery to Rum' and I musjudged my ability to pull it off.  I have to learn how to sing it and show great consternation without letting my throat tighten up.  Real singers do this with ease.  Not me.  Consequently I have to re-think the whole thing.  The troubling part of it all is that it caught me off guard.  I don't like being caught off guard in rehearsal. 

Also, the librettist, Jason Loewith, was there for the first hour or so to answer questions and explain the genesis of the piece, the trials and errors of its first production, etc.  Jason is clearly a tremendously talented guy and very, very smart.  He impressed me.  He's been in Chicago for a long time now and we know a lot of the same people, although we'd never personally met there.

The funny and cool thing about this show is that I'm surrounded by world-class singers and musicians.  I was astonished at how quickly they picked up this really complicated, difficult music.  It was the first time we had all been together in the same room and it quickly became clear that I would have to work twice as hard to keep up with them.  So be it.  When it comes to theatre I don't believe in excuses.  Whatever it takes, even if I have to hire a private vocal coach, I'll keep up.  Allen, our musical director, is quite possibly one of the best I've ever worked with and I'm guessing I've worked with about 30 or 40 musical directors in my time.  He's kind and encouraging and yet it is abundantly clear he will settle for nothing less than perfection.  I like that in him. 

I leave every rehearsal a little overwhelmed.  Actually, a lot overwhelmed.  Good.  It's been a long, long time that I haven't felt completely in command of the material at hand.  It's good for me.  Keeps me humble.  I have a great deal of work on it ahead of me today before our next rehearsal later on in the afternoon.

Angie's birthday was yesterday.  She turned #%$@*&^.  (Okay, I'll say it, 48.)  Angie, aside from a lifelong fondness for very good wine, has lived a ridiculously healthy lifestyle and consequently looks far younger than that.  Good for her.  Me, I've lived like a nihilist with a death wish and look about ten years older than I am. 

This Thursday, Thanksgiving, we're heading over for our annual get-together at the Lipps household, Tammy and Mark.  Tammy turns out a spread as though cooking for the King of Siam every year and it promises to be a culinary event.  Maybe, like last year, I can get a spirited game of 'Celebrity' going after the turkey.

So...a little more coffee and then I'll don the headphones and start on the music again.  Oy. 

See you tomorrow.    

...that score.

I love the music to The Adding Machine.  It is brilliant and confusing and soaring and dissonant and melodic and worrisome and, ultimately, genius.  Yesterday's rehearsal was all music.  I actually had the hubris to think I was ready for it.  I've been neck deep in it for a week now.  Listening to it over and over, counting it out, tapping my pencil on the desk as I sang along with the soundtrack, completely absorbed by it.  I sashayed into rehearsal thinking, "Well, at least I'm prepared."  I was wrong.  I was not prepared. 

It vascillates from 3/4 to 2/4 to 6/4 to 9/4 (I don't even know how to COUNT 9/4!) and then starts all over again.  It goes along fine and then suddenly and without warning veers into atonal stuff that makes it nigh on impossible to find a pitch.  After less than an hour with the music director (an astonishingly talented young man who's done the show before in Cincinnati) my eyes were rolling into the back of my head and I was staggering around holding onto my music stand in order to stay upright. 

Just when I thought I had a good, healthy chunk of it under my belt, I was proven absolutely wrong.  Now, I love a good challenge, generally speaking, but good god, this stuff...

After a bit last night, Alan (our musical director) looked at me and said, "You play an instrument, don't you."  I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.  I've played sax all my life."  He said, "I can tell because even though you're not actually counting this stuff out, many times you're instinctively doing it right...it's because you've read music all your life and something is bypassing your brain and just doing it.  People who play musical insruments do that."  Frankly, I think he was being kind.  At one point I just stopped the proceedings and asked for a break.  I told him during the five minute pause that after doing this play-acting thing for over thirty years, I knew very well when I was inside my area of expertise.  This was definitely not one of those times.  To his credit he just laughed and kept encouraging me. 

I actually had math dreams last night. 

After a few hours, the young singer/actor that plays the character of Shrdlu (real name) came in.  He's got a master's in music theory.  Beautiful tenor voice.  Extraordinary vocalist.  Within half an hour he, too, was spinning in confused circles and asking for a break.

I wish I could re-print just a page of this stuff for you, Gentle Reader, to see.  It's mind-boggling.  I finally told Angie last night that the best I can hope for at this stage is to simply do it and do it and do it and maybe hope for a draw.  I've done some tough music in my time...Edwin Drood, Company, etc.  But nothing like this. 

One thing is clear: if we pull this off it will be an amazing evening of theatre.  The trick, like everything else, is to get it inside me.  Become so familiar with it that someone could shake me out of a dead sleep at 3am and I'd wake up singing it.  Repitition is the soul of art, as Sir Ralph Richardson once said.  Just do it and do it and then do it again.

Oy.

Off to San Diego today for a family thing with Angie's family.  Should be fun.  Haven't been to San Diego since 1984.  Visited the famous San Diego zoo back then.  Won't have time to do that today, but it's a lovely city and one that I've always adored.  We're holing up in The Hampton Inn for the night and then shooting back here for rehearsal tomorrow at noon and another long day of music theory.  And I thought Sondheim could get complicated...he's a girl scout compared to Josh Schmidt (the composer of The Adding Machine).

But don't mistake my whining for dissatisfaction.  I love it.  I love every moment of it.  I live for these kinds of challenges.  I'm almost hesitant to leave for the day, just so I can get back to work on it.  But I'll be blaring the CD in the car all the way there and back.  Putting it inside me.  Making it a part of me.  Training my muscle memory, making it mine.

See you tomorrow.

Table Work.

I have, in the past, blogged about my frustration with 'table work.'  Table work is when the actors sit around a table and read thru and discuss the script in chunks, say, five pages and then talk, another five pages and then talk, etc.  That's what we're doing now in The Adding Machine.  It's a perfectly viable approach and I have many friends, actors whom I respect mightily, that love doing it.  For me, it's frustrating though.

When I first started coming up in the business, near the turn of the 19th century it seems sometimes, I essentially, for many years, did two types of theatre:  Fast, rotating summer repertory and grass root, original plays in small houses in NYC's off-off Broaway scene.  In both cases the key, the very essence of the work was about putting it up fast and furious.  It was all about necessity.  In stock, you had to do it, cause they's all the time you had...two weeks, up with Funny Girl, opening night, next day first readthru of South Pacific, two weeks rehearsal, put it up, slip it into the repertory with Funny Girl, one day off, read thru Camelot, two weeks to put it up and get it into the rotation...and all this time you're performing the shows at night and rehearsing 6 to 8 hours in the day.  That's how it worked.  I'm not even sure if that's how summer stock works anymore, haven't done it in ages.  As for NYC's off-off scene, the rehearsal space rates were so high it was impossible to rehearse a show too long.  Economical considerations alone made us work fast.  We simply had no choice.

So the question for me then becomes, is a play better served with an extended rehearsal period?  Maybe. 

I remember some years ago doing a play called 'Born Yesterday' at a large, Equity theater on the East Coast.  I was in the 'hired gun' phase of my career and spent most of my years literally skipping from one city to the next doing plays back to back to back.  Great times, and utterly exhausting.  There are very few major theaters on the East Coast in which I didn't work.  Anyway, so this director doing Born Yesterday loved to hear himself talk, loved to do 'table work,' loved to pontificate.  I specifically remember one day sitting around that table, well into our second week of sitting there, and listening to him draw comparisons to the Vietnam War and the rather slight, but well-written play Born Yesterday.  My eyes were spinning.  We rehearsed that play for five weeks and ran it for six weeks.  Drove me crazy.  I was ready to perform it after two weeks.  Was my performance noticably better with the additional three weeks of rehearsal?  I don't think so.  Was it more 'layered,' more comprehensible, more palatable for the audience?  I don't think so.  My job is to say the words loud enough for the guy in the back row to hear.  To get too much more complicated than that is, well, bordering on the senselessly self-indulgent, really. 

Now, The Adding Machine is different, granted.  It is a tremendously complicated piece of writing and honestly deserves some table work.  Nonetheless, it still makes me a little bonkers.  And yes, it is important for the actor to know what he's saying (although I'm of the opinion it is less important than most).  And the source material, Elmer Rice's play, like Sondheim's Sweeny Todd, does not, at first glance, readily lend itself to musical theater.

I like gearing up for a rehearsal, almost like a prize fight.  I nap, I eat the right things, I do my homework, and by the time rehearsal is ready to start I'm focused, I'm ready to be shot out of the cannon. This, no doubt, comes from my early years in stock and off-off.  And the simple truth is, not everyone likes to work that way, which is perfectly all right.  I'm reminded of the old Russian director, Boleslavsky, I think it was, that insisted on at LEAST six months of rehearsal.  I think I would have just fainted dead away.  

Today I have a few hours flying solo with just the musical director.  Looking forward to it.  The dialogue in this piece poses no threat to me.  I'm not the least bit concerned with it.  But the music is tremendously complicated.  And today is all about the music.

See you tomorrow. 

First Readthru.

First readthru, Equity meeting, vote for the deputy, all that stuff last night.  Meeting the other cast members, working through all the scheduling stuff and taking a tour of the labyrinth facilities.  A typical first meet of a new show.

There are nine in the cast, five men and four women.  Needless to say, everyone comes with a solid theatre background, it would appear.

Last night was simply a table read so we could hear the material out loud.  However, we didn't use the music.  Which is a tad awkward because the show is musically driven, to say the least.  Ron Sossi, the director, wisely chose to steer clear of discussing the 'meaning' of the piece.  The play upon which this is based, Elmer Rice's groundbreaking The Adding Machine, was cutting edge material at the time of its release in 1923, exploring Hindu reincarnation while mixing it with Judeo-Christian views of 'morality.'  This aspect of the play is fairly cut and dried.  Instead, Ron chose to simply offer images and preliminary ideas about how to physically play this stuff.  The old 'cart before the horse' approach, which, fortunately for me, is exactly the way I like to work.  At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what we, the actors, think the play is about anyway.  This is true of all artforms, not just theater.  No, Ron, again wisely, was more interested in pushing us toward an eye for performing this thing.  The inherent message in the play, which is there regardless of our efforts in performing it, is for the audience anyway, not the artists.  This is the underlying truth of any allegorical material.  So I was oddly relieved that he chose not to open a forum about 'what we're trying to say.'  That is self-evident, and if its not, well, the rest is for nought anyway. 

However, we didn't have the extraordinary score to guide us last night.  A couple of the cast members hadn't heard it yet, in fact.  I can only imagine what was crossing their mind.  It's not a good 'read.'  Ninety percent of the plot and theme are in the lyrics and music.  So to simply read them out loud as dialogue can be incredibly misleading in a piece of this sort.  I, of course, have listened to this score ad nauseum already, and each time I'm impressed all over again.  Imagine having the first table read of Sweeny Todd without that magnificent music to lend credence and weight to the evening.  Same thing.  So as I looked around the table last night, I could see that a couple of the cast members simply didn't quite grasp the scale and gravitas of the piece.  Which is okay.  They'll catch up soon enough when they listen to the score and we start hearing that angry, twitching, soaring music in rehearsal. 

The complex itself is really quite amazing.  The Odyssey is really three seperate theaters.  All three are state-of-the-art houses in one building.  Essentially it's a live theatre cineplex.  We were taken on a comprehensive tour of the houses.  Very impressive.  The theatre, incidentally, celebrates its 41st year of continual operation this year.  Again, very impressive.  The average shelf life of most smaller, non-profit theatres in this country is more along the lines of ten years.  Forty-one years is somewhat of a minor miracle.

Today I plug this incredibly difficult music in and start to work.  I've already, during the protracted audition process, listened to it quite a bit, so I'm somewhat prepared to begin work on it in earnest.  I had a few ideas last night as we were reading through it, nothing in concrete, just a place to start.  Gotta start somewhere.  Sometimes one has to go back and start over a few times, but I've discovered it's best to at least make a beginning. 

So there you have it.  First day down, back in today to begin the long 'nuts and bolts' part of the journey.  I am uncomfortably aware of how far the journey is, too.  Because of the inordinant challenges in this particular piece, we've been given a far longer rehearsal period than is usual.  I'm glad of that.  So very much to do.  So very much to learn.  It is, to my way of thinking anyway, the most beautiful part of the process...the clean, white, uncluttered, bare stage in front of us.  The exquisite moment when nothing exists until we make it exist.  Admittedly, the nightmare moment for some actors.  For me, my favorite moment.  The moment of endless possibilities.

See you tomorrow.

The Adding Machine, A Musical...The Odyssey Theater. 2011. Be There or Be Square.

So I haven't had a chance to really sit down and blog because, well, I've been too busy.  I love being able to say that and write that.  I've just been too friggin' busy.  And it's all been career oriented. 

After a marthon audition process (about 7 or 8 hours total over three days) The Odyssey Theater Company, arguably the most prestigious and respected and award-laden company of its kind in Los Angeles, offered me the leading role of 'Mr. Zero' in the award-winning musical, The Adding Machine, last night.  Even though there were other offers on the table from other venues, I immediately accepted.  And the reason was simple: it's a brilliant piece of theatre.  Roles like this for fifty year old guys come across about once every ice age.  Not counting my own play, Praying Small, it is quite possibly the best role I've been offered in a couple of decades.  It fell in the midst of a whole slew of other roles, some much more lucrative, but the moment I listened to the music last week, I knew this is the one I would do.  The score itself is the best I've heard since Sondheim's Assassins.  And to my knowledge, this is only the fourth incarnation of it and the first on the West Coast.

Every now and then in the actor's life a massive thing like this comes along and afterwards lots of things change.  So, for a moment, let's call a spade a spade.  The uncomfortable truth is this: even though my Idaho-sized ego sometimes would like to think differently, the bare truth is no one on the West coast knows or cares who I am, professionally speaking.  And the only way to change that is for something like this to come along.  Yes, I could go out to Palos Verdes or Manhattan Beach or wherever and do another Oscar Madison or another Tennessee Williams play or take a large role in one of my own pieces, but really, that's just sort of figuratively spinning my wheels in the long run.  Those options are sideways movements for me, not loping steps forward. 

Years ago I was working with the brilliant actor and my NY mentor, Michael Moriarty.  Now, Michael has certainly had ups and downs in his career.  He's been to the mountain top and he's also scrambled for roles worth doing.  It was late Spring, as I recall, and I'd been offered a number of roles for the summer in various regional theaters around the country.  One of the offers included a buttload of money but some mediocre roles in a highly visible venue.  Another offer included a string of challenging roles, real ball busters, in a venue that no one of 'importance' would ever see and the money offered was quite literally about a quarter of the other one.  And at that time in my career I really needed the money.  I was torn.  So one day I walked over to Michael's beautiful, huge, apartment on 58th street to ask his advice.  And he told me something I'll never forget.  It was so simple.  He said, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, "Clif, you've got your whole life to make money.  And you will.  You'll make it hand over fist one day.  But if you turn down Hamlet for a buck fifty for Guildenstern at a hundred bucks you're a fool."  I was remembering that yesterday when I accepted the role. 

I will attempt to chronicle the long journey I'm about to take in these blog pages over the next few months.  I know, deep down, when something has completely captured my imagination like this role.  I woke up this morning wanting to start work on it immediately.  I wanted to start putting that beautiful, haunting, genius and angry music inside me already.  I wanted to instantly start working off the many images coming to me.  Alas, I'll have to wait until 7:30 tonight when the entire cast is assembled for the first read-thru.

Additionally, this is a piece that comes to me with absolutely no preconceived notions about how to play it (aside from the recorded soundtrack, that is).  Some actors shriek defensively at the very thought of seeing someone else do a role they're about to do themselves.  That's horse hockey, as far as I'm concerned.  I'm guessing that's some sort of practice that originated in academia.  Steal, steal, steal, is what I say.  I steal unabashadly, I don't care if it's Brando or Ralph Richardson or Meryl Streep or Buddy Hackett.  If it's good, I'll take it.

But I can't do that with this piece.  It is too new.  To my knowledge, it's only been done in Chicago (2008), New York (2009) and since then only Minneapolis and Cincinnati (2010).  I've heard that Seattle Rep tried to acquire the rights earlier this year but it fell through.  I can only surmise (I don't know this for sure) the owners of the piece are being very protective and decided instead to let a theatre like The Odyssey do it; a theatre with a forty year history of doing cutting edge and highly acclaimed work.

In any event, it has landed here in Los Angeles.  The Odyssey is down the street from The Geffen over in Westwood.  It's a beautiful, three-theatre complex that has been lovingly and expertly transformed from an old warehouse.  Ron Sossi, the director of this piece as well as the artistic director of the theatre itself, has a long and stellar reputation as being one of the best in Los Angeles.  He will certainly have his hands full with this property; it's as layered and complex as one can imagine.  The role itself, the one I'm doing, is the quintessential 'anti-hero.'  That is to say, a character not terribly likable at first glance, an 'everyman' of sorts, just struggling to get through life the best he knows how with his limited intellect and skewered moral principles.  I adore playing characters like that.  It is the Willy Loman of the musical theater.

So.  The journey starts tonight.  And it's been a long, long, LONG time since I've been so eager to take it.

See you tomorrow.

Tennessee Williams, Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant.

Had a read yesterday for A House Not Meant to Stand, Tennessee Williams' last full-length play before he died.  I don't know that play.  I believe Gregory Moser did it at The Goodman in 83 right after Williams died, if I'm not mistaken.  In any event, it was a quick audition, very nice folks over at The Fountain Theater.  I, for whatever reason, have picked up a couple of books on Williams lately.  They are interesting in the sense that they give a glimpse into what it was like to be a successful playwright in the forties and fifties.  The times have changed.  Williams was a bona fide celebrity due to his writing in those days.  One of the books I'm reading is 'Memoirs' by Williams himself.  He was 61 and still eleven years from his death when it was written, although he was a lifelong hypochondriac and was convinced he was dying even as he wrote the book.  The book makes clear one thing at least: his last great play was 'Night of the Iguana' in 61 and Williams spent the next 22 years chasing another great play.  He never wrote one.  Oh, he wrote plays, just not good ones.  His reason for this is interesting.  He claims he wrote at the genius level (1937 to approximately 1960) only when he was desperate.  Desperate in love, in life, in his art.  I'm not so sure about that.  Having read nearly everything he's written, I think he just ran out of stories.  Also I think socially, we caught up with him and he no longer had the ability to shock.  Many, if not all, of his work in that period dealt with issues too sensitive to have a public forum.  Consequently, Streetcar, Cat, Rose Tatoo, even Iguana became antiquated.  And they became that way very quickly because society, Broadway in particular, was loosening up at an alarming pace.  How could Tennessee Williams and his subtle allusions to questionable sexuality possibly hope to compete with, say, Bent or Virginia Woolf?  In addition I think his addictions caught up with him.  Having done a little addictive drinking myself back in the day, I can say from experience that drinking and writing (when done at the same time, that is) don't compliment one another over the long run.  Now, this is not to say he didn't write some masterpieces.  Cat, Streetcar and especially Menagerie are all great, sometimes brilliant, plays.  His personal favorite, oddly enough, is Summer and Smoke.  I did that play in D.C. some years back.  It's not a great play.  It has moments of great writing, but it is not a great play.  But I honestly believe Menagerie and Streetcar ARE great plays.  I've done both.  Menagerie twice.  Cat has all the elements of being a great play and the reason it does is the one thing Williams didn't like about it.  In the time it was written, Williams couldn't write openly yet about Brick's sexuality.  He hated that.  And yet, that is the strongest aspect of the play.  After reading 'Memoirs' another thing becomes apparent, too.  Williams, being a sexual creature at heart, was far more interested in his next 'encounter' than he was in writing the next great American play.  This can be the death of a writer, artistically speaking.  It certainly was for Williams, I think.  There is an energy, a driving force, if you will, behind a writer's work if he's not satisfied on a personal level.  Because of the puritanical times, Williams was clearly not satisfied with his love life.  Consequently there is a trapped and caged quality to his writing as that plays out in his psyche.  Once that quality is no longer there, he simply becomes another writer describing it.  Now, Menagerie is a different story altogether. I think it follows Hemingway's rule that everyone has one great novel or play in them and that is one's life story.  Menagerie is Tennessee Williams' thinly disguised life story on stage.  And it is riveting.  Beautiful, haunted, angry, rageful writing veiled in poetry and southern manners.  I'd give a lot to go back and see Laurette Taylor as Amanda Wingfield in that play.  She must have been luminous.

Gore Vidal once said something interesting about Tennessee Williams.  He said, "His genius is not in his writing, but in his sense of being violated."  I think there's a lot to that.  After 1960 or so, Williams no longer felt 'violated.'

So...thus concludes my master class on Tennessee Williams.  Sorry.

I have been feverishly working on the music to The Adding Machine these past couple of days.  Again, this is simply brilliant stuff.  Josh Schmidt has written a masterpiece of the modern theater.  Everytime I work on it I'm stunned all over again at how good it is.  And I'm here to tell you, this is hard shit.  Although not a musical theater kind of guy, really, even though I've done about 60 musicals or so, I do have a sense of this kind of thing.  But this.  This is really tough stuff.  I'll be working on it all day.

I have a very interesting television read tomorrow.  It's for National Geographic, of all things.  More on that as it develops.

And finally, Angie and I Netflixed 'North by Northwest' a couple of nights ago.  Angie had never seen it, oddly.  And I'm here to happily report it's as good as I remember it.  Hitchcock was amazing.  Simply amazing.  And Cary Grant...well, after seeing it again after many years, I was once again reminded why Cary Grant was a great movie star.  Nobody did Cary Grant like Cary Grant.  He's just such a joy to watch.  The very definition of 'effortless.'

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to refill my coffee, plug in my headphones, and get back to work.

See you tomorrow.

A Brilliant Score.

I mentioned a couple days ago that I had a very long audition for The Odyssey Theatre, a critically-acclaimed and highly successful theater out here in LA, for a musical based on the Elmer Rice classic play, The Adding Machine.  I hadn't read The Adding Machine since college, to be honest.  I'd sort of even forgotten what it was about.  The lead character of Zero (the role I'm up for) is a fifty year old, not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer, kind of guy who gets fired from his job after 25 years.  In a moment of rage he kills his boss and is set to be executed.  He discovers that none of it is 'real' and...well, I don't want to spoil the end.  Anyway...

So it was a long audition, relatively speaking.  And Sunday I go back in for another marathon session.  They gave me a couple of the songs and the CD of the piece, so I could learn the difficult music a bit.  Sunday I assume I'll be reading opposite some of the women under consideration as well as working with the Musical Director to see if I can handle this score.

This score.

Yesterday, after zipping around for a few more auditions, I finally got down to listening to it for the first time.  I was in Chicago when the wonderful actor Joel Hatch was doing it and I remember it was getting a lot of press then and ended up winning a number of Jeff Awards.  Subsequently it traveled to NY and made a big splash there as well.  This production will be the West Coast Premiere.

This score.

Angie was futzing around in the kitchen preparing another astonishing dinner when I plugged in the headphones and started listening.  I won't sugar coat it.  This is the single most brilliant piece of music for the musical theatre since Sondheim was at the peak of his powers.  It's sort of like if Stravinsky and William Finn had collaborated on a piece.  It's absolutely overwhelming in its power and audacity.  It reminds me a great deal of Sondheim's Assassins, one his most overlooked gems. 

Within ten minutes of plugging in and listening I was hopelessly hooked.  Completely involved.  Just sort of staring off in the distance listening to this genius-level stuff.  It's that good.  I called Angie in and took the headphones out and had her listen to some of it.  We were both just sort of standing in the middle of the room letting this incredible score wash over us.  After a bit she turned to me and said, "You have to do this. This is the role of a lifetime."  Angie has exquisite taste in theatre and I'm learning to listen to her instincts.  She's right.  It's one of, if not the, most powerful role I've run across in many, many years. 

I've not been cast in the play yet, and frankly, I don't know if I will be.  I have to learn the two songs I was given and show them what I have on Sunday.  But I can say this, I haven't wanted a role so badly since...well, I can't remember since when.

The music is set perfectly within my range.  There are a few high Fs and a G or two, but as an old friend of mine from New York used to say, a professional opera singer, "You don't have to live up there, just go visit now and then."  The really interesting thing is that the character of Zero is not a great singer, doesn't have to be and clearly not expected to be.  But he's surrounded by characters that DO sing beautifully.  Consequently, when he sings there is a significant and purposeful difference.  It is first and foremost an acting role.  Nonetheless, notably, he sings throughout.

I don't believe in 'jinxing' a role by writing or talking about it.  If I get this thing it will be because I worked hard for it.  And I have every intention of doing that over the next few days.

I have a couple of other big stage auditions coming up today and again Monday.  I will, of course, go to them and give it my best shot.  But in the back of my head is this mammoth role and this extraordinary opportunity.  One of the shows I'm reading for pays a hell of a lot more money.  But roles like this come up very rarely and sometimes you have to go with your gut.  Sometimes money is secondary.  Not often, but sometimes.

I also trekked over to Hollywood yesterday for a PSA audition for an Alzheimer's television spot.  Good Lord.  What a circus that was.  The producers didn't put the 'sign-up list' out until the last second and when they did it was pandemonium.  Seventy year old ladies pushing and shoving and talking trash to each other trying to get their name on the list.  Eighty year old men nearly coming to blows.  I stepped back and watched all this and waited until the fuss blew over.  It was astounding.  Crazed, old actors and actresses turning into wildebeasts and elbowing each other just to get their name a little higher on 'the list.'  Turns out the joke was on them, though.  After about a half hour, the monitor came out and started calling us in based on the time that was previously set up.  The 'list' had nothing to do with the order of the audition.  I looked around.  Lots of geriatric, shame-faced people.  This is SUCH a weird business sometimes.

So spending the morning getting into my Tennessee Williams mode.  That's the read I have today.  Thinking of jonquils and magnolias and gothic guilt.  Nobody did it like Tennessee.

See you tomorrow.

Four Broadway World Nominations for FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST announced.

So last night I get home around 10:00 after a very long and arduous audition with The Odyssey Theater Company's The Adding Machine, a west-coast premiere of a new musical based on the classic Elmer Rice play, and I've gotten an email from a friend telling me my play, From the East to the West, has been nominated for four Broadway World, SoCal Awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Ensemble and Best New Play.

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Voting_Opens_for_2010_Broadway_World_Southern_California_Awards_20101109


There's the link.
 
How it got nominated and by whom, I have no idea.  But there you have it.  Now, I have to admit, I've never heard of the Broadway World Awards, but I'm told by another friend that they're a fairly big deal.  That the online zine is the largest in the world of professional theater on the web.  Hm.  Well, okay, then.  I'm pleased, of course, just a little confused.  It was a short run, and even though we filled the house for the entire engagement, I hardly expected anything from it.  It was, however, enormously successful in terms of the positive feedback we and the play received.  It took place this past Februrary and mostly it was done to convince the producing director of that theater to consider it for a full run.  He didn't like the show, ultimately, however and I assumed that was that.  He said, "It would be a grave disservice to you to let anyone see this."  At the time I was a little dismayed by the comment for a couple of reasons.  First, he'd never actually seen the production, but was repeating what a friend of his had told him and second, because the play was getting standing ovations and incredible feedback from people who HAD, in fact, seen it.  Nonetheless, I moved on thinking that was that.  I ended up submitting the play to another theater in Chicago and getting the go-ahead for a world premeire production there.  And now this. 
 
Needless to say, I'm delighted.
 
If one goes back and looks at the day to day blogs from that time, it's easy to see how excited I was at that time for the play.  Tremendous cast: Nickella Moschetti, Chad Coe, J.R. Mangels, Alex Robert Holmes and Malcome Devine.  All young actors that attacked the script and just blew it out of the water.  Particularly fine work from Nickella, who just made the role hers.
 
In any event, the award, apparently, is sort of a 'People's Choice' type thing for the theater.  So click on the link and cast your vote!  The real honor, as I see it, is from the nomination itself.
 
I talked to my co-founder of theGathering Theatre Company last night about it, James Barbour, and we both agreed perhaps we should consider mounting From the East to the West in our first full season after these nominations.  Not a bad idea.
 
The Odyssey Theater Company is one of the most highly respected theaters in LA.  My agent submitting me for the lead role in their mounting of a new musical called The Adding Machine (yes, based on the Elmer Rice classic piece).  So I went there last night and did a little singing and a monologue and they ended up keeping me there for about two hours reading different stuff in the script.  They gave me a CD and some sheet music to learn so I can work with the musical director on Saturday.  I certainly haven't been cast in the role yet (it's the lead) but things look good.  So today, needless to say, is all about learning that music.
 
Today I'm up for a PSA spot on Alzheimer's.  An extremely well-paying print ad type thingee.  I told Angie if anyone has a shot at that, it's me.  I look addled half the time anyway. 
 
Tomorrow, a read for the Tennessee Williams play, A House Not Meant to Stand at The Fountain Theater.  Another critically acclaimed venue here in LA.  And again, the lead role of Cornelius in that play. 
 
And as I mentioned before, Monday I'm up for The Norris Theater's production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.  The role of Oscar Madison, a role perfectly suited to me that somehow has escaped me for many years.  I love doing Simon's work.
 
So a fine day yesterday.  And a few fine days ahead.  Wish they could all be like this. 
 
See you tomorrow.

Another Pleasant Valley Tuesday.

My agent was in a flurry of activity yesterday.  He set up 4 or 5 auditions in about six hours.  Everytime I'd hang the phone up, he'd call back with another time-slot for me.  . A rare and wonderful day, really.  Wish they were all like that.  Of course, the rest is up to me now.  When it rains, it pours, as they say. 

I had the opportunity, speaking of auditions, to sing a bit for the highly regarded Blank Theatre Company yesterday, too.  Finally got to meet the driving force behind that group, Daniel Henning.  Very nice guy.  They're remounting a milestone play from the 30's, first done by the legendary Group Theatre, if I have my facts correct, called The Cradle Will Rock.  Not sure I'm exactly right for anything in that show, but it was fun to sing for them in any event.

Sunday's staged reading of Bachelor's Graveyard was enthusiastically received, to put it mildly.  My five wonderful actors, Rob Arbogast, Benjamin Burt, Adam Silver, Carmine Dibenedetto and Otniel Henig all came through with flying colors.  In the middle of that play, there is a ten to fifteen minute monologue about Muhammad Ali that is sort of the centerpiece of that writing.  Rob Arbogast tore into it with relish.  Tremendously exciting work from Rob.  The monologue builds to a fever pitch with jungle drums and vocal reaction from the other actors and just when the audience thinks it can't go any further, it does.  Just stellar work all around.  I was very, very pleased. 

The comments and reactions following the evening were all satisfyingly positive.  In the final analysis the entire night was a complete success.  A small step for our fledgling company, theGathering.  But an important one.  Our first public exposure.  Such a very, very long ways to go.  So many possibilities ahead of us.  But a great first step.  We'll take a break, of sorts, through the end of the year and then rev back up to full speed in January with another reading of a new play of mine called The Promise.  It's already cast and the very talented Larry Cedar will be directing.  Same bat-time, same bat-channel, same bat-theater.

Today I'm doing another little bit of singing for another stage production coming up.  A couple of contrasting songs and a monologue.  I haven't had to do a monologue for auditons in many a moon.  Sort of looking forward to it, actually. 

It has gotten delightfully chilly in Los Angeles over the past few days. It won't stay that way long, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it while it lasts.

Next week I've been asked to come in for a reading of Oscar in The Odd Couple, a role that has somehow escaped me over the years. It's a decent Equity Contract in a theatre that's a little far away for my taste, but do-able. Neil Simon, a playwright that has been unfairly maligned over the years, mostly in academia, is one of my favorites. I've done four or five Simon plays over the years and always enjoy myself a great deal saying his words. It's funny, when actors talk about 'timing' and 'pacing' they're usually referring to people like Mamet or Sorkin. But Simon, in my opinion, is the king of that sort of thing. There's usually only one or two ways to say a Simon line, he doesn't leave a lot of room for error. His work, at its best, is a textbook example of timing and pacing. And he makes me laugh, most importantly. Even his dumb stuff, like FOOLS, a play I did a few years back, is out loud funny in spots. And I vividly remember reading his play, Rumors, some years ago and literally putting it down now and then as I convulsed in laughter. I'm a huge fan of Neil Simon.

I've done The Good Doctor, Plaza Suite, They're Playing Our Song, Lost in Yonkers (6 times) and Fools. I've probably left a couple out, in fact. But the upshot is, every single time I've had a really, really great time doing his stuff. And of course, there's a reason he's the most successful of all modern playwrights: he's funny. The audience eats him up. He's just funny. And The Odd Couple, arguably, may be his funniest.

Also up for Tennessee Williams' last play, A House Not Meant to Stand. I haven't read it yet. Somehow it's that rare Williams piece I never got around to reading. But even bad Williams is usually better than most other plays.

So about to start a whirlwind period of auditioning. When I first came to LA I sort of rolled my eyes, figuratively speaking, at having to do all this auditioning again. I had reached a place in NY and Chicago in my career where I didn't have to audition any more. Not the case here. Now, however, I'm beginning to enjoy it, strangely enough.

And finally, an amusing thing happened a couple days ago.  My wife, Angie, has been a casting director in this town for over twenty years.  Without going into too much detail, she has hobnobbed and become close friends with the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Richard Dreyfuss, Hal Holbrook and many, many others.  Now, we're talking 'come over for dinner and hang out' type friends.  Unlike myself, celebrity doesn't really give her even a moment's pause.  Me, I'll always be a small-town guy from Missouri deep down and every time I see someone recognizable I always get a little thrill.  Angie could care less about that stuff.  So we're driving through West Hollywood a couple days ago and all of a sudden Angie nearly runs the car off the road.  She yells in my ear, "OH MY GOD LOOK!"  She's pointing at the sidewalk.  I sit up quick and start looking around.  I'm thinking maybe Obama is walking down the street.  Maybe Jimmy Hoffa.  Possibly O.J. has escaped and is running down the side of the road.  Back story: Angie, inexplicably, is hooked on Dancing With The Stars.  I hear it droning in the background every Monday and Tuesday as I work in my office, getting occasional updates on the performances of Jennifer Grey or Gary Coleman or Andy Griffith or Fatty Arbuckle or Mark Spitz or whoever happens to be dancing this season.  So the car is veering from one side of the street to the other as she cranes her neck to see.  It's Derek Hough from that show.  Uneventfully traipsing down the street carrying a bag of yogurt.  Me, I wouldn't know him if I were locked in a jail cell with him.  Angie has been breathing heavily now for two days. 

And there you have it.  Los Angeles in a nutshell.

See you tomorrow.