| Author | Message | ||
     Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3840 Registered: 12-2001  |
Also glad to be participating in the Avenue Players next monthly installment of new play readings this Sat. at the Main Library downstairs. Two new plays with writers in attendance and the opportunity to help them by giving feedback, so come on down. Starts at 8pm and won't go past 9-9:30. Should be a good time. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3878 Registered: 12-2001 |
Belated thanks to those that attended the reading for the Avenue Players last weekend. It was interesting to note the various reactions to the pieces. Most intersting perhaps, was the discrepency between authors, one who seemed to view their piece as finished, and the other who seemed to think there was room for growth and change. I found that particularly interesting as someone who is just now learning to be "done" with a piece. But knowing when it's done is important as well. Plus it is always great to meet more maplewood folk, no matter the event, venue, or circumstance. It makes living here ever so much more palatable. | ||
| drewdix Citizen Username: Drewdix Post Number: 816 Registered: 7-2001 |
My mother is a painter, work that can also defy a sense of completion. Heck, you can always change a hue, add tree branch, etc.. I'm not sure she can put her finger exactly how she feels something is finished. Sometimes she'e just tired of looking at it! The theatre always presented itself as a continuum for me- that is, the show isn't "finshed" until it closes. Whether a run is 3 days or 3 months, there is a continual discovery that serves to polish the meaning of the work until the strike. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3884 Registered: 12-2001 |
Exactly Drew, so that on closing night everyone is saying.. NOW we are ready to Open.  | ||
| drewdix Citizen Username: Drewdix Post Number: 817 Registered: 7-2001 |
yes indeed! On the oposite side of the spectrum I often wondered what it was like to do a Cats-like run (years). Just another day at the office? I understand, the roles are cast replaced & recast along the way, but a few folks hang on. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3885 Registered: 12-2001 |
Dude.. YOu had the opportunity to ask the other night!!! The gal who played Denise in Avian Way (forgive my short term memory loss) toured in the National company of CATS with my old room mate Natalie Toro for years. She can tell ya first hand. She's been doing JCS for a while now as I recall. OR Ask Davis Gaines who, I think, still holds the record for most performances on Broadway in the same role for Phantom at something over 2000 perfs. adios | ||
| drewdix Citizen Username: Drewdix Post Number: 818 Registered: 7-2001 |
I know Bethany well. She's been reading with Ave Theatre since the beginning (Oct. '03). At least on a tour there's a change of venue & house...I guess Davis' example is more what I'm curious about. Is he local? Wow didn't know there was a mutual friend in the mix- small world. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3890 Registered: 12-2001 |
Davis is not Maplewood, but NYC. He is always somewhere doing something. I met him only once when he was doing Robert in Company in Boston. Went out to dinner with the cast after the show and we chatted briefly. He seems like a decent sort. And, if I remember correctly, we share the same birthday, though his is a few years before mine. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3906 Registered: 12-2001 |
Got another play. And get this. Playing a 60's Jewish intellectual. I know I know what you're saying... How on earth would he ever get cast as an intellectual. Well thats what I asked myself at the audition. But I will do my best. As for the Jewish part... I HAVE NO IDEA IN THE WORLD. But it is a great part in a GREAT play. I am playing Sidney Brustein in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" by Lorraine Hansbury. Who, though she died of cancer at 34, brought the theater some great plays beyoned the one she is best known for, A Raisin in the Sun. This should be quite an undertaking as it is a small company and we have 6 rehearsals to tech. Thats not much. Oh, how I long for the days of doing Taming of the Shrew in 9 days. GASP. Anyway..twill be fun I am sure. And details will follow. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3943 Registered: 12-2001 |
The Reader, which has screened around town in a couple of different incarnations is finished. Not only that, it was accepted to the Garden State Film Festival and will screen April 9th in the 1-3pm block. It was quite gracious of them to schedule it so that I could be there. They certainly didn't have to go out of their way to make it so I could come, having a shows that weekend in Wayne, but no matinee that Saturday. Gives me hope for more fests. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3966 Registered: 12-2001 |
I am looking out the window. It is SNOWING. I am reminded of one of my lines in the play I am doing... "In fact I no longer believe that Spring will come at all, or that if it does, it will bring forth anything more poetic or insurgent than the winters dormant ulcers." Please...50+ degrees....no snow on the ground. I want to plant my garden. I want to hit a baseball to my son. I want to not have to sit behind idiot drivers on Route 46 in the snow any more. Music, must have good music. Off to play some guitar. the ole six string valium. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 3981 Registered: 12-2001 |
Another openin Another show. Off we go. The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. Lorraine Hansberry's second play. A portrait of the western intellectual standing before the flames of revolt in the early sixties in Greenwich Village. Helluva play details for those who want to go to Wayne NJ to see a remarkable play. Here are the details for show time and tickets | ||
| drewdix Citizen Username: Drewdix Post Number: 866 Registered: 7-2001 |
thanks Duncan Break a Leg- we should be able to come the 3rd weekend. No show tonight (Fri.?) Are you in rep with something else Come check out Psychopathia tonight if you're free | ||
| thegoodsgt Citizen Username: Thegoodsgt Post Number: 778 Registered: 2-2002  |
Hey Duncan, I'm a bit late chiming in here, but congrats on being accepted into the Garden State Film Festival. I thought about you last night as I started watching the new season of Project Greenlight. Hope all's well. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 4011 Registered: 12-2001 |
Thanks Sarge.. been an interesting time since we had coffee. Schizophrenic career careenings. But the play seems to have been well received and that might just help fill some seats. Ledger Reveiw of Sidney Brustein's Window I was really worried Peter would title it "The Sign in Sidney O'Brustein's Window" | ||
| thegoodsgt Citizen Username: Thegoodsgt Post Number: 779 Registered: 2-2002 |
Nice review. I can certainly see you as a "dreamy man-child"! Still hoping you can make me a famous scriptwriter. Maybe when the schizophrenic career careenings are a memory. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 4042 Registered: 12-2001 |
WHAT LIVE THEATER CAN DO! I had an almost surreal experience last weekend after the Sunday matinee of The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. It was one of those things that reminds a cynical old fart like me why theater is such an important and electric artistic tool. A young woman from Columbia (the country, not the HS or university) stumbled on the fact that there was a theater near her in Wayne and, she said, since there was no theater in her home country to speak of, she was thrilled to come see a play...any play. What she wasn't prepared for was her response to it. WARNING SPOILER AHEAD>.... At the end of the play Sidney's sister-in-law, a very high glass hooker kills herself by overdosing on pills while Sidney lies dead drunk on the floor next to her. Well this moment was devastating to this poor gal from Columbia because her sister had just done the same thing. Was a prostitute in Columbia, being harmed and harassed by her "boss" (she was not, like Gloria, in the "aristocracy of the profession") and had killed herself by overdosing and left behind her children. After the play this woman, with what appeared to be her grandmother in tow, stood at the bottom of the stairs leading off the stage weeping quietly. When one of the other actors went to leave she recounted the story of her sister and how powerful a play this was and what a shock and how she had wished that her sister had had someone like Sidney to come to her defense. And that the last lines of the play (“Yes, weep. That is the first thing, to allow ourselves to feel again. Then tomorrow we can make something great of this sorrow”) had hit her like a truck. It was the first time she had allowed herself to acknowledge the pain of the loss and she wanted to thank me (though I suspect in reality Lorraine Hansberry) for helping her weep. It was truly one of the most intimidating/exhilarating experiences I have ever had after a show. Most times people have something nice to say about a performance but rarely, in fact I can not recall an instance like this in the over 80 plays I have been in professionally and in college, where the impact was so personal, intense, and cathartic. She asked me to sign her program, which I did willingly, and then she was gone. I do a lot of comedies that bring laughter to people. Many of them tell me that it is good to laugh cause something is going on in their lives and its nice to have the escape for 2 hours. But this young woman had experienced something supremely personal as a result of our little production and it had helped her move through her grief. If the theater remains empty for the rest of the run and not a single person sees it, I will do the show every night out of the memory of the impact it had on one life. This is a truly magnificent play. I knew that going in. I didn't know we would have the chance to help change someone's life. COOL | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 4085 Registered: 12-2001 |
Last weekend for Sidney. 20 Bucks and a half hour drive to see a fantastic play. As one reviewer said, don't wait for the Broadway revival there hasn't been one in 30 years and the one currently in Wayne is worth the trip. I think his exact phrase was.. "Is it worth the time and effort? Yes, yes, yes. And it closes on April 10, so no procrastinating, please. " If you're waiting for a Broadway revival, forget it. There hasn't been one since 1972. Moreover, artistic director Barbara Krajkowski and company have done it justice. That's more than enough reason" | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 4091 Registered: 12-2001 |
Just back from Asbury Park and the Promenade Theater and Convention Hall. Man what that place must have been like in its heyday. First trip there and it just makes you go...what that f*&K happened here that it all just rotted away. Some magnificent architecture of the 20's - 50"s (I'm guessing here) that is just abandonded and, well, dead. The film festival was well attended and the buzz was great around it, so I don't understand what happens to a place like that. All I could think of were all the ghosts of the people who had played the Promenade and how they would be amazed at the state of the town now. Props to Springsteen, Devito et al who are trying to revitalize, but from what I saw, it is a ton of work. Some condo's going up right on the boardwalk, but they looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Sad too, cause it was so easy to picture what it must have been like at one point in time. Ghosts of Tom Joad nothing... That town has Ghosts all its own. Oh, and the film seemed to go over well which is nice too. Off to the theater now. Am having one of those days I have to remember when "between jobs" where I got to go see my film in a major festival and then go to the theater and play a major role. Sort of a dream day, but hard to see it while its happening. Hopefully I will remember this in a week, when Sidney Brustein is closed and nothing is immediately at hand. | ||
| Duncan Supporter Username: Duncanrogers Post Number: 4092 Registered: 12-2001 |
Well I'll Be Damned. The Reader, screened this weekend at the Garden State Film Festival just won Best Homegrown Short beating out over 40 other shorts from NJ based production companies. My first filmmaking award. Cooooool. now what?? |
