Allison Darby

We have another response! This is, I'll admit the one I was most looking forward to receiving, if only because I've been wanting to catch up Allison on things in general. Also I knew Allison would be able to fill us up with what she calls "nonsensical theater jargon. " and I wasn't disappointed.

I'm trying to think back to this show so I can post some useful and somewhat intelligent commentary. It's definitely a play that benefits from physicalizing your research/character study as much as you can. I definitely tend to be a very heady actor, and so I remember this play being a nice challenge for me. It requires you as an actor to know your physical comfort level and then consciously push yourself beyond that point. The part I played wasn't the center of the play by any means, but there were lots of great moments, and all of the actors playing "floties" should concentrate on contributing to a very strong ensemble. You can't afford to be the kind of actor that only acts when he/she talks. A lot of my work as Frapper consisted of investing in each person I was on stage with...and in a positive way. What specific things do I LIKE about the boutros brothers? About Margueritte? About Father Flote? This is not a character that rolls around in complexity. The people in her group are bound to her by love. She tolerates what she doesn't like and LOVES all the great things about each of these people. And, as always with acting, specificity is key. Don't just say to yourself, "I like the way father flote leads us" what about him in front of you in the moment do you respond to? I just remember this play being very visceral, very tactile. The Bells character made me feel very warm and pink, the Pope made me feel like I was standing still in ice water, Father Flote made me feel like there was a horse galloping at the end of a rope tied to my rib cage.
~Also, Frapper is very connected to language. It always seemed to me that the puppet was as crucial to Frapper as a hearing aid is to a deaf person, as glasses are to the severely myopic. That puppet on the end of my hand was a medical (only in this case, faith based) device that I REQUIRED to SPEAK. I as a person really love language, and so I could really invest in the barren existence of someone unable to speak clearly. Frapper has no learning disability; there are all these ideas in his head; but before the puppet, there was no way for them to come out. There's no way for her to communicate, to relate to another person. The puppet really is a miracle on the end of her hand, its another body, another tongue that isn't plagued by the stuttering disease. Because I put a lot of investment into the puppet, some nice moments came out in my performance. The most memorable, to me, was, when we are all exectued at the end of the piece, I had the puppet silently screaming towards the audience. Being where my soul lived, it held onto life a little longer than I did.
I hope that helps, and isn't too full of nonsensical theater jargon.

Good News, Bad News

Today, Finnally, we recieved approval from the UIL office to do our script of Red Noses. Unfortunately, (I know you'll app be dissapointed) they have specifically told us to cut pp.25-31. If you'll check you're copies of the script, you'll notice they aren't there. That is becasue these are the 6 pages of orgy. I know, I know: "what a let down", right? I'm just afraid there's nothing that can be done about it now. Alas.

Here for Networking

Officers (or anyoneelse reading this): I think taht we should start now finding a network of parents and other people not directly involved in the show that will be able to help us in fabrication of props and of costumes, to take the pressure off of us and my father, and off of the last minute frenzy we tend to findourselves in. This website has many very good photos of the play, showing costumes and a general 'feel' for the production. I'm not sure how gritty dad will be going for, but I think this is a good reference. Belles, in particular will have a very inticate costume and will need to rehearse in it a good deal. However we cannot begin designing or sewing the costume until we at least know whether is is a boy or a girl, and even then who, exactly it is. For the meanwhile: Ask around, find out who can sew, who has free time, and who is willing to help. We will not only need seamstresses (or seamsters) so make note of anyone willing to help.

Then There Were Three

~I've gotten replies back from Morgan and Kiley, though not as immediately helpful, it's kind of fun to hear from them. Morgan credits the "genius" of their production to my dad and to Jason Patrick, who despite having so many hits on his name on google, is dispairingly difficult to find contact info on. I do have his parent's home address in town, which is something, I suppose. I also have an email address for Greg (which apparently is not his first name, which caused me troubles) and I've sent note to Cece whom dad says worked with Jenny on dancerly movement. I've got good leads on Jennie, Justin, and Seth still, but haven't acted on them.
~If you will please divert your attention to the nav bar of this page, you may notice that I have created and added two new Bloger accounts. Both are general; one for the cast and crew of Red Noses in 1998 and one for the cast (soon to be announced, no dad, you cannot bet on it) and crew of 2006. This way I won't have to add everyone's personal blogger account as contibutors, and you don't necissarily have to have a blogger account to contribute anyway. If you are some one who will use these, please contact me for the appropriate logins and passwords. I also set up Audio blogger, so that we can post from phones. The calls are going to be long distance (san francisco) so besure you know whether or not you'll be charged exhorbitant amounts of money for these, and if so if your parents will care. Again, I have the login info for that but I'm not going to post it.

TJ Colligan

This is the first reply I've gotten back (a mere 6 hours or so, not bad) it's from TJ, who as he says played both the Pope and Scarron. He offers his ideas for character studies for this year's go-around.

As far as Red Noses, I'm glad to hear it's being done again. It was one of my favorites. Don't know what help I can offer. I was doing both Scarron and the Pope, so my greatest concern was not to be recognized as the same person. I don't know if these parts were double-cast this year. I would say that the new pope is definately a better character study for the role than the last one. Not a gentle pontiff, he is the face of a vengeful and cold god, rock solid in the belief that he is god's voice. Scarron is an animal, reduced to survival instincts. Scarron, actually, is the embodiment of the plague, itself. Being in such close proximity to death and disease has made him immune to it. And since he follows the disease, and feeds off its wake, he is essentially becoming one with the Black Death. The Flagellents (do I remember that name correctly?) are easy to understand in light of recent global events. Everyone you hear in the media preaching about God destroying NewOrleans and Indonesia because of the sins of the world is a Flagellent. As I remember, Jason Sands understood that Father Flote must always be bursting with overwhelming joy and sadness for the world. It is much more than he can contain. But his attempts to share this joy are futile to so many of the characters because they cannot understand it. It is not a language they speak. Flote might as well be constantly trying to explain higher mathematics to four year olds, for as much as the others understand his joy.

Ultimatum

Honestly, if everyone isn't off book by the second week of rehearsal, I mean this too, there will be hell to pay. For some of us, we won't get another chance, let's give this one our best effort. And no goofing off in the wings!

Ancestors

~I just spent the last hour or so on the phone with my sister. For those of you who don't know, my sister, Veronica, graduated eight years ago. The competition one act that year was Red Noses, the first time around. For the last hour I've been getting the names of the cast from '98, and searching them online, with any hope, they can be tracked down and may even contribute to this blog. Incidentally, I need to create a generic account for our cast so that those without blogger identities can post. But that's beside the point. The point is: Here's the list.

Father Flote...........Jason Patrick Sands
(Sister) Bells..........Jennie Mast
Tulon....................Todd Walker
Marguerite............Andrea Weres
Frapper.................Allison Darby
Viennet..................Morgan Epps
Pope & Scarron......TJ Colligan
Boutros Brother.....Justin Mueller
Boutros Brother.....Brian Welles
Krez......................Chris Grierson
Le Grue.................Greg Bailey

Crows...................Stuart Smith, Valerie Teague
Flagellants............Eric English, Kiley Rester


~I am confident that these are the names of all of the cast members; I am just as confident that some of the roles are a little different, because I know that Stuart Smith played the fellow who runs off to the mountains. At any rate, out of these, Jason Patrick Sands has been on Broadway, in the movie Kinsey and The Producers (bit parts, but hey, he's got an IMDB page) Allison Darby has performed professionally in Dallas, TJ Colligan at one point hosted a radioshow/podcast called 'Fanboy Radio' which was also at one point produced by Morgan Epps, both of these I have My Space addresses for, and you can listen to their podcasts. Justin Mueller is Seth's older brother, Jennie mast has a sister our age who is in college in Chicago, but I frequent her live journal. Basically all of these (save, perhaps for Jason) I feel confident I can get in contact with one way or another, for their perspectives their memories of the show.
~Remember that Red Noses advanced all the way to (I believe) Region. These people have the experience under their belt. We would all do well to learn from what they learned doing the play before we did. They know what worked, they will now where we will run into problems.
~The names that I did not mention are ones that I haven't gotten sufficient information on online, or don't know to have any personal connection with and cannot get in touch with. However, I can only assume that some of the people I can get a hold of might have connections to them still. Which, albeit is no guarantee that they any of these people will want to have anything to do with remembering their good ol'days of OAP, (particularly Jason who has moved onto much bigger things) But I'm still going to ask all of them I can. Several, I know, have enough loyalty to my father that I think I can recall them, and even if not, there's always my sister. She's already confirmed some stuff with me that we'll have to watch out for and told my dad some others.
~So I'm about to get on the horn and get in touch with as many of these as I can. Oh, I forgot to mention that one of the understudies was Ross's older brotehr Aaron, who just returned from Madagascar, so that's another connection to explore. Soon I'll have a generic account for people who are not regular bloggers, but that won't be an issue till we get a cast. IN the meantime, please please don't forget that we are going to be working harder on this show than we ever have before. Keep the play in mind; I'm also going to look for a video of last time. But do not forget to keep resolve, just always keep Red Noses simmering somewhere in the back of your mind. Dad says cast list will be up Tuesday; Ross wants to take bets,
~We’ll see.

This is Our Sport

One Act Play season is upon us. I thought it would be an interesting.. er, 'thingy' to have a blog for our One Act Play. The idea here is that anyone from the cast and crew will be able to post at any time. After rehearsal,s on bus trips to and from etc. I plan on a great many of these to be phone posts, (just as soon as I ask people how to do that). As you can gather from the Title of the blog, our play this year is Red Noses by Peter Barnes. Auditions are this Wednesday and Thursday (Jan 11 and 12) after school. More information to come. I'll probably employ little web demons of you out there to help make this more, interesting.