Greenroomess.

 

Greetings from Apprenchin!

For my first post I thought I’d share some greenroom antics from Dracula perfomances. Enjoy!

Closings and Openings

Hey! TheatreGnat here!

So Midsummer Night’s Dream closed Saturday night. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to become best friends with everyone in the cast I was proud of the fact that I got to know them all well. After Dracula got out for the evening I went to Intermezzo to have a drink and celebrate the closing.

I got a bit melancholy saying goodbye to the visiting actors. Most of them will be going back to NYC. It won’t be the same here when they’re all gone. Most of them gave me great little gems of wisdom, like: “Look me up on Facebook!”, “Humana will kick your butt, have fun!” and  ”You’re part of an Apprenti/Intern Fraternity, your stuck with us whether you like it or not.” These pearls all cheered me up, oddly enough. Through Facebook I can keep contact with all of these extremely talented people, and when I move back to NYC I can hopefully meet up with them again and do more work.

Humana will kick my butt, but I think the core of that piece of wisdom, is how lucky we all will be when we’re working on one of  the Nation’s largest new plays festival. I’ll meet dozens and dozens of talented, wonderful people I can add to my Facebook contact list.

And then, there is always the wonderful fact that I and all the other apprentices and interns from this year will, and forever, be inducted into the wonderful fraturnity that exists because of the work we all did at Actors Theatre.

Midsummer closed, but the opportunities I’ve had in meeting these people have only opened a wide range of possibilities in the future. I can’t wait.

–TheatreGnat

A Surprise Visit…

It’s days like today that remind me that I’m actually here, at Actors Theatre of Louisville, working at one of the premiere regional theatres in the nation.

This is DAppleMan, signing in for my first post. I’m one of the new voices promised to all you readers out there, one of many from which you’ll soon hear. I and 21 other young theatre artists are here as apprentices, working in various departments around the theatre, such as in the scene shop, marketing, or the costume shop. In our spare time (haha), we rehearse, perform, and work backstage on shows. It’s a busy life, but I’m loving every minute of it.

Anyway, today we were fortunate enough to host a special question-and-answer session with none other than Sam Shepard, the Pullitzer Prize-winning American playwright.  Anyone who has taken Theatre 101 has read at least one of his plays, and you could make a compelling argument that he is one of the top five playwrights in American history. And he called us, the apprentice/intern company, out of the blue, to see if he could come and talk to us about playwriting.  Needless to say, we were happy to oblige.

He walked into the Victor Jory Theatre with Marc Masterson, Artistic Director, sat down at center stage, and without introduction began taking our questions.  We asked him all about his process in writing plays, what particularly attracted him to theatre, his film and stage acting, which writers he admires.  Shepard was very direct and to the point — he was plain with his words, and elucidated his answers precisely.  He writes all his text on typewriters, and doesn’t deal with computers at all; I find it ironic that he’ll never know I made this blog post.  He might not even know what a blog is.  After the session ended as abruptly as it began, I went down, shook his hand, left, and that was that.

When you can shake the hand of one of the movers and shakers of American theatre, as part of your everyday job…I’m constantly amazed at how lucky I am to be here.

~ DAppleMan

Life is a cabaret!

Well, for one hour on one night, we can at least pretend life is a cabaret.

Tomorrow night, after the Dracula and A Midsummer Night’s Dream performances, four Actors Theatre apprentices will perform selected songs at Intermezzo Cafe (the restaurant in Actors Theatre). If you join us, you’ll hear the lovely voices of apprentices Alexis Bronkovic, Brandon Chinn, Brittany Parker, and York Walker as they cover a variety of works from contemporary musicals.

Some people sing for their supper…well at Actors Theatre, we sing purely for your entertainment! (Though we won’t say no if you care to buy us a drink…) So make plans now to be here at 10:30pm tomorrow night for an evening of FREE songs and entertainment.

Free music, good company, and good drinks. See? Life really is a cabaret.

Tonight: A Chance to Show Your Support

Eleven years ago today, Matthew Shepard, victim of a brutal hate crime, lost his life.

This past weekend, tens of thousands rallied and marched in Washington, D.C. to show their support for GLBT rights.

And tonight, Actors Theatre will become a part of history as well, joining over 150 theatres worldwide to take part in a stage reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later.

8:00pm. Tonight. Free of charge (though all donations are appreciated and will go to the Fairness Campaign and the Matthew Shepard Foundation). We’ll be there. We hope you will, too.

When it’s good to be late…

You know what–a gray, rainy, cold Friday is still a Friday, so I’m not going to complain. Too much.

Besides, not only is it Friday, but it’s a LATE SEATING Friday! What’s Late Seating, you ask? “Um, where have you been?” would be my (somewhat snarky) answer, but because I’m also a nice person (somehwat), I’d follow that reply up with this: The Late Seating at Actors is a fantastic night of entertainment that features new work by local artists in performance, music, art, and video. Plus, there’s a cash bar. And entry to this awesome evening will only cost you $10.

Tonight’s Late Seating will bring you work from artists like Adventure, Carlos Gamez de Francisco, George Parker, William Morrow, and Actors Theatre’s own Sean Daniels, to name just a few.

So, stick a $10 bill in your pocket and join us at Actors Theatre tonight at 10:00. You won’t be disappointed. And when others ask you about Late Seating, you’ll be able to say, “Um, where have you been?”

Ten Years Later, Laramie Remembers

It’s been over 10 years since Matthew Shepard lost his life to a brutal and incomprehensible hate crime in Laramie, Wyoming. In the immediate aftermath of Matthew’s murder, Moises Kaufman and members Tectonic Theater Project set out to create what would become The Laramie Project, a play that examines the reactions of various Laramie citizens to the crime that threw their city into the national spotlight.

10 years later, Kaufman and others returned to Laramie to conduct follow-up interviews and explore the long-term effects of Matthew’s murder on Laramie, and how the city has changed in the last decade. The result of this second journey to the small Wyoming city is The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later. There will be a stage reading of the play in New York at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and over 100 other theaters in all fifty states, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, Hong Kong and Australia.

We here at Actors are honored to announce our participation in this world-wide reading, and we invite you to join us. Actors Theatre’s reading will take place Monday, October 12 (the 11th anniversary of Matthew’s death) at 8 p.m. Jump over here for more information, and join us as we remember Matthew Shepard and Laramie.

Another Blog Transition.

Hello Actors Fans!

I am posting today to let you know that the blog is about to change… AGAIN. And this time, believe me when I tell you that it’s going to live up to everyone’s hopes and dreams for what a great theatre blog should be. Yes, your blog-reading dreams are about to come true.

Get ready for multiple voices, varying perspectives, and insider information you won’t be able to find anywhere else.

But please, bear with us if it takes a minute. While you’re waiting, you can always tell us what those blog-reading dreams are so we can be sure to keep up our end of the deal…

Thank you, and, as always, GET EXCITED.

Join us for a Shakespearean jam session.

It’s getting colder outside, I’m wearing a scarf today, and our season is just MOVING ALONG! This week, Louisvillians will begin to have the opportunity to jam along with Shakespeare in the Actors Theatre production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. That’s right, MIDSUMMER opening is just a few days away!

And yes, I said “jam along with Shakespeare.”

This production of MIDSUMMER is unlike any other you’ve ever seen (or so I assume). So, if you are like me and can read Shakespeare with your eyes closed, don’t think you’ll be bored by this show. And, if you are just not really a Shakespeare person, don’t think that this show is not your style. If you like to jam (and who doesn’t?), this show is for YOU.

We all know Shakespeare has been called timeless, and I am here to tell you that MIDSUMMER fits into the 60s so well, I’m kind of upset with myself for not making the connection earlier. I mean, “love potion?” Hello, hallucinogenic drugs. Just saying.

Take a look at these rehearsal pics and then tell me this won’t be SO MUCH FUN.

And don’t forget to play your Sex Pistols record while you’re getting ready for the show – you’ll feel such a connection with Puck if you do.