Tireless people, no time to lose.

I am realizing how little time I have to mount this production of MILLIE at the New London Barn Playhouse! This is good-old-fashioned summer stock with the kids (known as acting interns) doing sceneshop/tech work in the mornings, rehearsing a new show every day for five hours in the afternoon, then performing whatever show they’re in that night. I haven’t met anyone up there yet, and already I am filled with admiration and awe at what they are doing. I never did receive training like that, and maybe I should have at some point.

As an actor, I was very lucky to get hired for a show almost immediately out of college. I never did work a summer at a theme park, or a summer theatre program, or even a cruise ship. Looking back on it, I think I may have felt somewhat less entitled had I actually worked that hard for a summer. Not that my work ethic is or was ever lacking, but there’s something about the hardened stamina one develops from those kinds of jobs. Everyone I know who was ever a Kid of the Kingdom at Disney World or who did months of a Jean Ann Ryan production on a ship, or came out of the Pittsburgh CLO ensemble or something similar seems to think nothing of knocking out eight shows a week on Broadway or gearing up for any audition.

I think that was something I eventually learned how to do. It wasn’t until I joined the cast of THE FANTASTICKS at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in ’93 that I truly began to appreciate how important developing and maintaining performance stamina was all about. I had done FOREVER PLAID for over three years previously, and while I never missed a show in all that time, I feel like I rarely gave it my full artistic attention. I think I took a lot of that show for granted and coasted with it, until I realized I was getting bored and unfulfilled and wanted out. With THE FANTASTICKS, I was given a chance to really shape a character, and I was blessed with that wonderful material to work on every night. I couldn’t hide behind three other men on stage and if I happened to be tired, let them carry the vocal energy of the show. I had to step up as Matt and deliver. I began taking better care of myself and if I was ever starting to feel stale in the role, forced myself to go back to the script and work on refreshing it for me. I cultivated a stamina and work ethic of my own that, at the risk of sounding sanctimonious, has carried me through to this day. I just now apply that sense of stamina to my directing. I feel that up there it will come easily. I understand that the actors are very excited about doing MILLIE which will only bolster my enthusiasm of working on it with them.

It’s that excitement and enthusiasm that will be the driving force behind getting all that work done in a very short amount of time! Bring it on!!

Back to the mirror

Getting involved with VANITIES was rather simple, actually. I simply put the word out there that I wanted to work on this project with Judy and it happened. I don’t know if that’s how it normally happens, or if this was a special case or what. This has been the great part of this process so far: everything I have set out to do in the name of directing I seem to receive almost immediate results (and if not results then at least answers or responses). This didn’t seem to happen as much as an actor! Sure, I worked consistently up until a couple years ago – I think once I left the MILLIE tour and did a few regional gigs, but I was hitting that area of being “much older than I looked” syndrome and a maturity level was betraying the age of the roles I was playing…and yet I didn’t look old enough to play the roles for which I was really age-appropriate – and I didn’t have the wherewithal, urge or need to fight it; to convince others that I really should have been considered for this part or that role. It wasn’t laziness. It was acceptance. I was ready for something else, I just didn’t know what it was and I had felt this coming for a long time. So the more I wanted to direct, the more think I may have tapped into a source of power and determination. At the risk of sounding a bit new-age-ish, I must say that it certainly feels like the universe is responding to what I’m doing. The choices I’m making certainly resonate within me. But then I still ask the question: “Okay, then, how do I make a living at this?” I think the answers will come.

I recently received some great advice from my friend Diane, an agent who represents actors as well as directors. I asked her not to represent me as a director, but just to give me some clues as to what the hell I should be doing (Yes, there are guidebooks and handbooks out the butt for this sort of thing, but I learned very early on that it’s a uniquely individual process) – and she simply said, “Just start telling people that you’re a director. See what happens.” Man, was she right. It made me recall a like from a Neale Donald Walsh book that basically said to act as if you were in that situation and the universe will respond and you will have created it. Hmmm…

Who am I today?

As I write this I should really be preparing for two presentations today of a reading in which I am performing: GHOSTS – THE MUSICAL. It is telling that, as fairly easy as this material has been to work on, I have gotten quite frustrated this past week whenever the reading rehearsals and homework have gotten in the way of any prep work I have been trying to accomplish for THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. I had to end a ninety-minute phone call to the set designer in order to get to GHOSTS rehearsal on time. We could have easily talked for another hour, sorting out how to solve the problem of fitting a large, multi-setting musical that is MILLIE into the small space that is the New London Barn Playhouse. After this evening, I can focus that much more on MILLIE and I will be the happier for it. This is not an expression of ingratitude for having been asked to do this reading, I just would rather be on the other side of the table!

That being said…I’m off to sound check for GHOSTS…more about VANITIES tomorrow…

How I joined VANITIES

So I should give some background on VANITIES. In April of last year, a little after my production of GREASE had opened at Westchester, I had read an article about Judith Ivey signing on to direct VANITIES. Now I had met and worked with Judy in FOLLIES in 2001 and we became fast friends during that show. We had kept in touch and gotten together whenever we could over the years, which wasn’t very much, but we remained in contact nonetheless. I decided to email her and ask her if she needed an associate director for the project. I figured I needed to learn more about the process and what better way to do it than to jump on board a Broadway-bound musical? She immediately answered by saying that not only did she want me on board, but that she was about to ask me be her associate…how’s that for synchronicity? We are both Virgos, after all…

Over the year there were a few readings involved, mostly for backers and the like, then there were cast changes and auditions and then a two-week workshop last month…and I’m so ready to get this show on its feet – as is everyone else. In fact, we just recorded a demo of some of the songs the other day and it was blissful to be with all these people once more – if that sounds naïve then so be it. It’s been a joyful process, and I am learning loads…

So - every now and then I’ll reach back and recount some moments of VANITIES casting sessions, production meetings, note sessions, and rehearsal instances and what I learned from them, or just offer my observations – so expect to see those dropped in from time to time. More later! Or sooner.

Prep Work

The pressure to sound refreshingly eloquent and use those wonderful long words that I find in crossword puzzles is too great, so I will do my best to ignore it and treat this as if I was emailing a friend on a day-to-some-other-day basis.

That being said, I am making this transition from actor to director and I want to document it here for me and for anyone else who might be interested.

Sometime in the fall of 2005 while I was playing Gus in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES at Westchester Broadway Theatre, word got out that the theatre was going to produce THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE the following season. Given my history with the show, I was hoping they wouldn't ask me to be in it only because I felt like I had done all I could with the role of Jimmy in previous productions. My dressing roommate, Bill Bateman, turned to me one day backstage and said to me pointedly "You should direct it." I immediately dismissed the idea, not wanting the responsibility. How did I know how to do it? Besides, the theatre probably had at least ten directors in mind for the piece.

But Bill had planted something that grew, and I couldn't ignore the impulses and questions and voices that kept popping up and finally urged me to think about how I would direct that show. I had seen what worked and didn't work from the three vastly different productions I had been in, hadn't I? I knew how the show had to move, where the laughs were, where more could be found, and where extraneous ones could be omitted. I knew where the touching moments were and how to get to them; I knew how to tell the story.

I made an appointment with the producers, told them why I wanted to direct it and how I could make it work in their space and they hired me right then and there. Well, that was easy! Just say you're a director and BOOM: you're a director! It was a little like winning the lottery, I think. I don't know if I had ever gotten an acting job that easily. Anyway, a few months of prep work went by and my choreographer and I had put together (on paper and in our heads) a very tight, fun show.

Then the day came when the producers called me and said they had both Bad and Good News for me. The Bad News was that after seeing that the show was selling rather poorly for other regional theatres they had decided to pull it from their season. The Good News was that they still wanted me to direct a show there - it just happened to be a show I was appearing in at that very time: GREASE. I was very disappointed at losing MILLIE, but very quickly came around and started work with my choreographer on GREASE. And that was how I became a director. And I loved it. But that show ended and I was back to being an actor once again. I did a showcase in New York, an off-Broadway show, then another regional gig, but I was really finished with doing eight shows a week, especially in shows I wasn't very happy in.

I'm not done being an actor, necessarily. But I am done trying to fight the "in-between" years. The meaty leading man roles are still a few years ahead of me, and I'm so tired of playing the younger guys anymore. I know, I know, boo-hoo, boo-hoo. But I am tired of it. The challenge of an actor should be to keep finding new things, always learn from and grow in the role. However for me the challenge lately has been to just get through eight shows a week, let alone one performance of a poorly-written character in a poorly-written musical. But I digress.

I really like directing, plain and simple.

So in this blog, I will attempt to document the following processes (for now):

• Associate Directing VANITIES, A New Musical (this summer and fall)
• Directing THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (this summer - FINALLY!)
• Meeting composers, librettists, writers, producers and trying to work!
• and the occasional rant or rave, review, comment, observation, etc...

So, here goes...