PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: "Previews"

Each week, Paden Fallis poses one question to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds. Our goal is not to demystify the work of the actor or explore their careers, but to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working process. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: “PREVIEWS” Previews. Sometimes they can last for weeks or months. Sometimes you get one night. The bigger the show, the better chance you have of previewing in different cities before setting foot in the Big City. More often, you get a handful of previews in the theatre between dress rehearsal and opening night.  But what do previews mean to an actor? Is there a distinction from preview to performance, even though an audience is in attendance for both? Is your prep different from preview to performance? So, I ask, how do you approach previews?

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WORD: Sniffing Out Inspiration

(screen grab of Synesthesia)

I like subscribing to things that send me on a path of discovery and thinking, inspiring my work and life. Put another way, I like stuff that completely derails what I’m doing and that is preferably not Facebook. So in an effort to put you off the tracks for a bit, check out A Very Short List.

Started in 2006 by Kurt Anderson (of Studio 360), this “delightful e-mail that shares cultural gems from a different curator every day,” now has over 100,000 subscribers.

Here, I’ll get you started by making you read the VSL post from a few days ago and you’ll soon be eating a bag of jelly beans, learning why Scotch smells like Band-Aids, and discovering if you are afflicted with synesthesia!

ART: Urban Cross Training

Bast

Ok. I urban cross train. What? That’s when you take a stroll with your camera and get exercise and visual stimulus all in one clean swoop.

So I set out around the neighborhood and dropped some calories recently. At the end of this post is some of the art that caught my eye.

The streets on the North Side of Brooklyn have gotten very active during the past decade. Many from the street have gone on to gallery representation. Bäst, Faile, Neckface, Swoon, Skewville all got up strong in the neighborhood.

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PERFORMANCE: The Actors' Roundtable: "In Character"

In our new Actors’ Roundtable series, Paden Fallis poses one question each week to a group of professional working actors from a variety of backgrounds. Our goal is not to demystify the work of the actor or explore their careers, but to dig a bit deeper into their artistic working process. ACTOR’S ROUNDTABLE: “IN CHARACTER” In John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, Quisa says to her husband that she fears turning the young hustler Paul, who had entered their lives, into a “punch line you’ll mouth over and over for years to come.” She fears becoming a “human jukebox.”  I think of this when I think of how actors speak of their work. I feel that we “mouth over” things we’ve read, been taught and conditioned to say. It becomes rote. And when it becomes rote, then we become “human jukeboxes.” Specifically, I think of this anytime I hear this phrase… “I was in character.”  In character. In character?

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Coney Island Mermaid Parade Celebrates 30th Anniversary

(2010 Mermaid Parade. Photo: Flickr user any.nyc)

This Saturday, June 23, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade celebrates its 30th anniversary with its annual parade down Surf Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. Led by Queen Mermaid Annabella Sciorra and King Neptune Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling, the parade is self-proclaimed the “nation’s largest art parade and one of New York City’s greatest summer events.” 

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