Here’s a link to another interview I participated in recently for our hit production of Chris Durang’s sublime Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Asolo Rep. This one centers on the comic potential to be mined from sibling rivalry–something with which almost every family can identify.
I’m told tickets are selling fast, and that the remainder of our run is expected to sell out based on the rave reviews and the great word of mouth our show is generating. Links to the reviews are coming soon!
Well, it’s here already. The past two nights we’ve had great previews, and now tonight at 8pm, we’ll officially open Asolo Rep’s production of Chris Durang’s wonderful, Tony-winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by the inspired and inspiring Peter Amster.
I am beyond thrilled to be playing Vanya with this director, cast, designers, and theatre. And judging by the audience responses to our preview performances, the audiences are going to love this production. This play has all the offbeat, wacky humor you’d expect from Chris Durang, but it also has an undercurrent of deep feeling that is taking us all on an amazing journey. And for anyone who grew up during the 1950’s in the U.S., the play will have an especially strong resonance.
I have been advised that this production is expected to sell out its entire run; if you’re in the area and planning on coming, please do buy your tickets soon! You won’t want to miss a couple of hours in the company of this zany and lovely cast of characters. You will leave feeling very good, indeed.
Congratulations, all!!
We’re halfway through Tech rehearsals now, and we’re on schedule to open Chris Durang’s wonderful Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike this Friday evening at Asolo Rep. Even as we add Ann Wrightson’s elegant lighting, Jennifer Caprio’s witty costumes, and Matt Parker’s playful sound design to Ray Klausen’s beautiful set (which already feels like home), we’re digging deeper into the play and its quirky and all-too-human characters. New discoveries continue for all of us as we play in our new space. We have preview performances on Wednesday and Thursday night, leading up to Friday’s opening.
Here’s an interview with me, Anne-Marie Cusson (Masha), and our director Peter Amster, from the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Enjoy! If you’re in the area–come see the show; it’s funny and zany, with a big heart underneath. We will run in rep through April 13th. You can read about the whole season and see the performance calendar here.
We’re now in Tech rehearsals for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by the brilliant Peter Amster, and our official opening is this coming Friday, January 24th. Even Tech is fun for this show! Here’s a little teaser that the clever folks at Asolo Rep have just released for the show (if the image doesn’t load, try refreshing this page in your browser):
Well, it’s here at last! Tonight I make my formal Asolo Rep debut as we open Frank Galati’s eloquent production of Brian Friel’s early masterpiece, Philadelphia, Here I Come!
Working with Frank has been a quiet revelation. His rehearsal room is a nurturing environment for organic collaboration; all ideas are given genuine and gracious consideration, and notes to actors are provided with generosity and supportiveness. Not since working with Peter Amster (as Fate would have it, Frank’s partner, and dance consultant on this production) have I felt so respected and appreciated as an actor. I firmly believe that Frank and Peter should be leading Master Classes for young directors on how to get the best out of actors, and scripts.
Frank’s perspective is remarkable: he does so much homework, and simply knows so much already; yet right up to yesterday’s final rehearsal with the company, he was still revisiting and rethinking, exploring and honing moments even further with the innocence of a wise child, conferring with his actors every step of the way. The performances he has drawn from us all, and the seamless, cinematic storytelling he has created, are nothing less than extraordinary.
Frank has also had the support of a host of superb artists to bring our version of Friel’s mythical town of Ballybeg to life: Russell Metheny (set design), Mara Blumenfeld (costume design), Paul Miller (lighting design), Kevin Kennedy (sound design), Michelle Hart (wigs & make-up), and Patricia Delorey (dialect coach), as well as Asolo Rep’s superb resident tech and costume teams, and dramaturg Lauren Sasso–not to mention Stephanie Klapper Casting and Simon Casting! Our Stage Manager Patrick Lanczki has guided us all through rehearsals and tech with grace and assurance, ably aided by ASMs Lauren Batson and Mary McElroy. The list is a long one. And the result of all this collaboration is nothing less than magical.
I don’t come on until near the end of the play, so on the night of our first preview earlier this week, I was able to tiptoe out and watch most of the performance from the back of the audience. The work onstage by my fellow performers was so lovely I had trouble tearing myself away to make my entrance! Laughter and heartbreak go hand in hand in our Ballybeg.
I am honored to be Canon O’Byrne in this beautiful production. Happy Opening to all!
Happy Holidays, everyone! Here I am with the wonderful Michael Donald Edwards, the Producing Artistic Director of Asolo Repertory Theatre, who is acting as “Santa” to over 60 talented performers and musicians this season by providing us with employment in live theatre at one of the finest institutions in the country!
I hope wherever you are, you are with loved ones, or busy making new friends, and creating new happy holiday memories.
Well, my goodness. Time is just flying by! I’m in rehearsals for two plays now, but I’m happy to report that the folks at Asolo Repertory Theatre make sure that all of us out-of-towners feel included when they take time out for holiday festivities.
Last week there was a very entertaining Alice in Wonderland-themed holiday party in the lobby of the Mertz Theatre; I was impressed at the creativity on display–and by all the tasty foods and beverages, appropriately labeled “Eat Me” and “Drink Me,” respectively. And given that I’m a major Lewis Carroll fan, it was all kind of perfect.
There was also an extremely silly and fun high-tech “photo booth” where we all took turns lining up for random group photographs, and then all the people in the photograph had to agree on a suitable background to be applied to the image.
Here’s one of me with Michael Donald Edwards (Producing Artistic Director and also Director of our upcoming The Grapes of Wrath), Peter Amster (Director of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike), and Jefferson McDonald (Spike in the aforementioned comedy). We went for a superhero intergalactic feel:
And here’s another of Peter, Jefferson, and me with Anne-Marie Cusson (Masha in the aforesaid comedy) in a more play-appropriate pastoral setting:
And here is a photo of me with Tyla Abercrumbie, who plays Cassandra (in that certain afore-noted comedy!). We found a traditional red curtain backdrop that suited us both:
Missing from our Vanya “family photos” were Peggy Roeder (Sonia) who was upstairs at a wig fitting, and Tori Grace Hines (Nina), who was hard at work in another part of the building!
I was also one of the actors interviewed for a sweet article by journalist Carrie Seidman in this past Sunday’s Sarasota Herald Tribune about what it’s like for performers to spend the holidays away from their loved ones. Unsurprisingly my focus was on the fact that my husband Tim will arrive on 12/26 for a visit. That’s what will make my holidays truly complete. But in the meantime, we had another unofficial (and very fun) holiday party last night, and Christmas day I may well spend on Lido beach with some of my new friends.
I wish you all the happiest of holidays. If you’re not with your loved ones, be in touch with them, and seize the opportunity to make new friends and “family” wherever you are. Enjoy.
Today, we had our first run-through of Philadelphia, Here I Come! directed by the amazing Frank Galati, at Asolo Rep. This production is wonderful; funny, truthful, and utterly heartbreaking. Frank works so quietly, so unassumingly, and so openly. And the result is such an organic, richly-textured depiction of a rural Irish community that at three separate times I was holding back tears watching the work of my fellow actors. This production has all the humor you could want, but also the deep ache of reality and recognition. The communication–or lack of it–between all the characters is painted so believably that it hurts. Brian Friel is an extraordinary playwright, and Frank is bringing Friel’s world to life so vividly that it’s taking my breath away. I only appear in one brief, comic scene toward the end of the play, but even more than on the page, in doing our first run-through today, I felt how much that humor is needed by the audience before Friel delivers the final family scenes, which are quietly devastating. I think the audience is going to be blown away by this production. And this after a first run-through?? Amazing.
And then tonight, we had our first read-through of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike directed by the fabulous Peter Amster. I am so happy to be working with Peter again; doing The 39 Steps remains one of my best theatrical experiences because of his expert guidance and collaborative generosity, not to mention his wicked wit. After hearing this brilliant play aloud with this cast, all I can say is that my fellow actors are sublimely well suited to their roles, and I am thrilled to be in their company. This is a tricky play: quirky, zany, dark, sad, sweet–you never know what the next moment is going to be. But underneath it all beats a surprisingly beautiful and passionate heart.
I watched a Dramatists Guild video of an interview with playwright Chris Durang, and when asked what makes his voice unique, he said he is drawn most strongly to comedy that comes from pain. It’s going to be an interesting challenging finding that delicate balance of comedy and real pain, something that resonates especially richly with my character, Vanya. It’s going to be quite a journey! I’m so grateful to be on it with these wonderful people.
Small World Department: I’m really excited about this bit of news: Once again, the magic of Lewis Carroll makes itself felt in surprising ways. As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Lewis Carroll, and even recently served for four years as President of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. Currently, I maintain the blog on the web site I built for them. Recently a composer named Carsten Braun from Germany contacted me with a link to a beautiful musical setting he made of a holiday poem that Carroll wrote, performed (in English) by talented actor/singer Bastian Korff. If you’d like to watch their musical holiday clip, click here.
I enjoyed the music and the performance very much, and struck up a correspondence with Carsten. He told me that Bastian has also performed the one-man show I Am My Own Wife, which I did a few years back at Vermont Stage. Last week, Carsten told me that he and Bastian were actually going to be performing some music gigs at various locations in Berlin–including at the Grunderzeit Museum, where I Am My Own Wife takes place! Carsten had been to the museum once before, and mentioned that they have a gallery of photos of U.S. productions of the play in the museum. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind finding out how I might submit a photo from the Vermont Stage production.
Carsten and Bastian just returned from their successful musical trip to Berlin, and it turns out a photo of me is already on display at the Grunderzeit Museum! They must have found my web site and chose one of the pictures from that production. Doing that particular play meant an enormous amount to me for both personal and professional reasons, and I am so honored to have that production recognized in Berlin where Charlotte von Mahlsdorf started it all. I have been talking with a couple of other theaters about doing another production, so I hope that I will have the opportunity to play Charlotte and all 34 other characters again sometime soon. And then the absence of “Vermont” after my name will mean I have played the role in multiple states. In addition to Vermont Stage, I also wish they could have given credit to the directors–mine was the remarkable Sara Lampert Hoover. But in the meantime, I am so thrilled to be on the wall at the Grunderzeit Museum. And I’m so grateful to Carsten for sending the photos and letting me know about it! As Charlotte might have said (though probably in better German): Ich bin Ihnen sehr dank bar!
I’m very excited to announce that the full pilot for the Terminal B sitcom I worked on earlier this year is now available online! This project was a lot of fun, and I hope it will raise enough interest and funding to allow us to make at least a full season with these great characters.
The new web site for the production is: http://www.terminalbshow.com
The site includes case photos and bios, as well as a history of how this project came about.
The producers are releasing the pilot in a couple of ways. You can watch the full pilot in one sitting on Vimeo, via the main web site. There is a $1 24 hour rental, or for just $2.99 you can download the whole pilot and watch as many times as you want. Why is it not free, you ask? Because any funds raised this way will go toward making future episodes. So I hope you can chip in $1 or $2.99 to support this indie, fully self-funded project.
You can also watch individual episodes for free on YouTube. However, as a fundraising incentive, the YouTube series does not include the last 8 minutes of the pilot. As you can imagine, those last 8 minutes are important, and yes, I’m involved. If you can support the project so we can make more episodes, the Vimeo approach will give you better quality and a smoother viewing experience. Otherwise, you can at least see most of the pilot for free on YouTube.
This was a great bunch of people and I have high hopes for the future of this project. Check it out, support us if you can, and either way, let me know what you think!
