I had a great Friday 13th–I was cast in a scene w/Mark Ruffalo in a new film directed by John Carney (“Once”). The cast also includes Keira Knightly, Adam Levine, and Hailee Steinfeld. My scene shoots one day this week in NYC. I also had a great audition for both Scrooge and Marley in a production of “A Christmas Carol”. A good day! http://www.imdb.com/title/
You Never Know Where I’ll Turn Up Next
I had to laugh the other day. Well, I laugh at some point pretty much every day, but this was for a particular reason. My friend Beth Hylton, a fellow UNC-Chapel Hill PATP graduate, and co-star in the recent Maltz Jupiter Theatre production of The 39 Steps, sent me an e-mail to let me know I was “on the wall!” She explained by elaborating that she had just arrived to rehearse a play at the Public Theatre of Maine, only to find a photo of me in their production of The Foreigner featured prominently on the theatre’s wall. She was kind enough to take a snapshot and include it with her message so that I can share it with you.
You never know where I’ll turn up! Thanks again, Beth, for sharing this–I had a great time at the theatre, and the photo of the wall is a hoot!
New Trailer for The Hunting of The Snark!
Here’s an adorable trailer for the upcoming claymation feature film inspired by Lewis Carroll’s immortal nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark. It’s written and directed by Saranne Bensusan. I’m not featured in this trailer, but I contributed the voice of the Judge to the Barrister’s Dream sequence. After all, who could turn down an appearance in a Lewis Carroll project? Not me! Enjoy.
The Hunting of the Snark – Official Trailer from From the 3rd Story Productions on Vimeo.
The Violet Hour Opens Tonight!
“The Violet Hour” opens officially tonight! Don’t miss this remarkable play in its first NY revival. It’s a beautiful production and only runs through 3/25! I am thrilled to be working with such a superbly talented cast (John P Keller, Cheryl Freeman, Lincoln Thompson, and Heather Lee Harper) and director (Nathaniel Shaw) and stage manager (Kerri Lynch) on such a surprising, funny, and thought-provoking script. I think it’s Richard Greenberg’s best play. Join us!
Click the image to read more about the play and buy tickets online. Remember: we only run through 3/25 and you don’t want to miss this production!
The Violet Hour Begins Performances Tonight!
This is it! Tonight is the first performance of The Active Theater’s production of Richard Greenberg’s amazing, surprising, and humane play The Violet Hour. We open officially on Monday, 3/12, then run through 3/25. Click the image on this post to see more information and to buy tickets. I’m incredibly excited to be a part of this production and hope you can join us for an evening of intimate, beautiful live theatre. The production stars John P. Keller, Cheryl Freeman, Lincoln Thompson, Heather Lee Harper, and yours truly. Kerri J. Lynch is our wonderful Production Stage Manager, and Nathaniel Shaw is our inspired director.
If you like parties, there are still tickets available for Monday’s Opening Night performance. Any donation to The Active Theater that night will entitle you to join us at the opening night party! I encourage you to give freely, and join us. This is a theatre group well worth your support.
Special Note to fellow members of Actors Equity Association: remember that if there are still seats available, you can see the show for free if you stop by right before a performance with your AEA union card.
New Cast Photo and Fundraising Video for The Violet Hour
Here’s a great photo of our five-person cast: Cheryl Freeman, John P. Keller, me, Lincoln Thompson, and Heather Lee Harper. Not pictured are fabulous director Nathaniel Shaw and stalwart production stage manager Kerri J. Lynch.
Click the photo to see a cute little fundraising video The Active Theater created for this production. They asked us all (including the designers) for words to describe this wonderful play. The variety of answers is fantastic, and should give you some idea of the complexity of this beautiful script. If you can help Active fund the costs of the production, they would be very grateful, as would I–every little bit truly helps, and their fundraising deadline is our opening night, Friday March 9th.
Again, if you’ll be in town anytime between March 9-25, I urge you to come see this beautiful production. The play is remarkable. It’s a mystery to me why it wasn’t a massive hit on its 2003 debut, and why there isn’t already a movie of it. But then, I think part of its magic is that some of what happens simply wouldn’t be as magical in a movie; you need to see it happen live right there in front of you. The show is beautifully cast and directed. And tickets are very inexpensive.
If you are or know casting directors or Off-Broadway producers, urge them to catch this show, and to arrange for their tickets soon! The house is small, and I’m told tickets are already starting to sell nicely. This one’s a gem, and the people who see it will be talking about it. Don’t let it slip by!
If you’re industry, please click here to request tickets for the date of your choice.
You can see the performance calendar, and if you’re any other audience member, you can order tickets, right on The Active Theater’s web site.
See you there!
Get Your Tickets Now For The Violet Hour!
We have just finished Week Three of rehearsals. I continue to be inspired by the job director Nathaniel Shaw is doing with shaping our production of Richard Greenberg’s beautiful play The Violet Hour. It’s a very ambitious script, and it calls for all five characters to go through the emotional wringer in the course of the story. It’s a genuine tragicomedy–hilarious one minute, almost like something out of a period comedy, and then heartbreaking the next when reality and fate rear their ugly heads. Yet by the end, it’s also healing and even hopeful. In short, Greenberg is working some pretty potent and challenging theatrical magic, and Nathaniel has his eye out for every connection, every realization, every surprise.
I told Nathaniel this week that he’s my favorite kind of director–he picks a fantastic script, hires wonderful actors, and brings a lot of ideas to the table from the first day. Yet at the same time, he’s completely open to the ideas we actors bring to the table, and to what happens spontaneously in the rehearsal room. He creates the perfect respectful playspace (ably set up and overseen by our production stage manager, Kerri Lynch), so that we can just throw ourselves into the story and see what we bring out of each other.
Showcase productions don’t always come together so beautifully; this is an exceptional script and an exceptional bunch of theatre artists, all working at the top of their game. Sunday we have our costume fittings with designer Bobby Pearce, Tony nominee for Broadway’s Taboo. Then we run through the show again. Monday, they bring in the office set designed by D. Craig M. Napoliello. Tuesday, we go into Tech Rehearsals, and add Mike Inwood’s lighting, Jacob Subotnik’s sound design, and David Ojala’s special effects. (I can’t say any more here without giving away some major plot twists!)
This is the most ambitious production The Active Theater has ever done, and it’s also the most expensive. The set has been built by one of the best pro shops in town, and there are period costumes to be provided, not to mention some surprises. If you can help support this production in any amount, click here to visit IndieGoGo and contribute. As of this writing, the theatre still needs to raise another $6300 before our opening on Friday, March 9th! Even small amounts add up fast, so please do pitch in if you can.
If you are a casting director, or producer, please make your reservations to see this show by contacting Virginia the Active Theater right away to reserve your industry comps. The performance venue only has 65 seats, and tickets are already selling for this first NYC revival of this remarkable play.
If you are an audience member, I encourage you to buy your seats now, as they are going quite quickly. Click the image on this post to see more about the production and to buy your tickets. This is a production that will move you. And it deserves to move to a larger venue for a longer run, too.
We open a week from tonight. Join us at The Violet Hour to see for yourself, and help us make that move happen!
The Violet Hour Rehearsals Are Looking Great!
I’m getting extremely excited about this production of The Violet Hour. The more we explore Richard Greenberg’s dazzling and intricate play, the more funny, heartbreaking, and profound it seems to become. This is a beautiful piece of writing that deserves to be a major hit. And I have to say, this production is looking like a winner. All that’s needed is a perceptive theatrical producer to catch this production during its limited run and move it to an Off-Broadway venue for an extended run. Yes, after two weeks of rehearsal, this revival is already looking that good. My fantastic fellow performers are John P. Keller, Cheryl Freeman, Lincoln Thompson, and Heather Lee Harper. Kerri Lynch is our resourceful Production Stage Manager, and Nathaniel Shaw (co-founder and Artistic Director of The Active Theater) is our insightful and inspiring Director. All five roles are incredibly challenging and equally rewarding. And Nathaniel is weaving everything together beautifully.
The basic storyline is simple: It’s April 1st (note that date), 1919. The Great War to End All Wars has just ended. The world is starting to hope again. In Manhattan, John Pace Seavering, a young man from a wealthy family, is trying to launch his career as a publisher of great literature. But he can only afford to publish one book, and can’t afford to make a mistake or he may be ruined before he starts. Should he pick the sprawling, unwieldy burst of genuis from his less privileged college friend Denny? Or the pure, uncluttered autobiography of Jesse Brewster, a beautiful, mature, self-made black celebrity? When he can’t bring himself to make a choice, Fate steps in, and the game changes in ways that no one could have seen coming.
The Violet Hour has not been seen in New York since its 2003 Broadway premiere, and now that we’re in the thick of rehearsals, all I can say is that it’s more timely and thought-provoking than ever. I love a play that makes me laugh, breaks my heart, and makes me gasp. The Violet Hour does all of that, and more. It will challenge you to take another look at the world around you. It will surprise you. And isn’t that sorely missing in a lot of the theatre you’re seeing these days?
You can see more about the production and the team by clicking the image on this post to visit The Active Theater’s web site. From there, you can also see the performance calender and buy tickets. The show plays March 9-25 at the Workshop Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, 4th floor, NYC. I urge you not to miss this production. One performance is already sold out. If you’re a casting director or anyone in the entertainment industry, you will want to see this play and these performances. People are going to be talking about this one.
Free Man Film Screened in LGBT Festivals Around the World
Back in 2010, I played a small role in an independent short film by Kathryn Rotondi entitled Free Man. I appeared in the opening scene as a well-meaning Funeral Director who finds himself caught between a grieving mother and her late son’s partner in the planning of a memorial. The script was beautifully written: simple, and powerful. When the hero loses his partner of 13 years, he finds that without the proper legal protections in place (such as those guaranteed by the right to marry a same-sex partner), he has no say in carrying out his late partner’s last wishes. Instead, the mother does what she believes is best, even though it directly contradicts everything her son actually wanted. The film is a heartbreaking cautionary tale.
I’ve learned that the film has been playing to great response at some LGBT festivals around the world, including the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, Out in Africa, and Canada’s Inside Out festival. And I’m thrilled to see that the film now has a distribution deal in Canada as well!
I hope the film continues to receive attention around the globe. The message is a sobering and timely one that many people still need to hear.
First Look at the Living Skeleton Character I Voiced
I recently contributed my voice to an animated short film being created by the very talented writer/director/animator Alexandra Huzsvai. The piece is called Majnun’s Dream Theater Shadow Show, and I play the role of The Living Skeleton, a mysterious character who appears before the heroine when things look bleak. I’m delighted to be able to share this conceptual rendering of my character, courtesy of (and copyright by) Alexandra.
When we went into the studio to record the Skeleton’s lines, Alexandra noted that she sees him as someone who was possibly a jazz musician when he was alive. And in all her renderings, he still sports a lit cigar, so I suggested that perhaps the smoking was what killed him! She wanted to make sure he came across initially as a character whose motives were unclear, and I suggested that sounded a bit like the Cheshire Cat, an association she loved. Yet ultimately, he reveals himself to be something of a spirit guide for the heroine. So I had great fun working that all into my vocal interpretation of the Skeleton’s lines–cool, oblique, raspy breath, playful, yet ultimately kind. Voiceover work can be so liberating for an actor–you can’t be “typed out” of a role because of your own height, weight, age, gender, etc. Instead, the only limitation is your own vocal imagination. It’s a blast.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I think the script for this short film is terrific. It’s surprising and intriguing, and underneath there’s a strong message about the importance of recognizing and leaving an abusive relationship. The script is particularly effective in the way Alexandra uses visual metaphors to depict the heroine’s gradual awakening. I’m delighted to have been part of the project, and can’t wait to see the finished film later this year! My thanks again to Alexandra for permission to share this sneak peek at my character well ahead of the film’s release.
After the recording session, Alexandra and I chatted briefly, and conversation revealed we both originally hail from New England. Even bigger coicidence: it turns out we were both born in the same hospital in Cambridge, MA, and grew up in towns right next to each other! I love “small world” discoveries like that. It’s a good omen.