Date of Run: September 28-October 14, 2012
ROLE: Officer and ensemble
Production photos by Eric Chazankin
My second summer show of 2012 was The Elephant Man. It was not the play by Bernard Pomerance, but instead was an adaptation of the 1980 David Lynch film. Scott van der Horst, the director, had worked with Jacquelyn Wells, a Sonoma county actor and writer in adapting the film into a play. Auditions were in June with the play going up in September. Scott wished to do this version of the story, rather than the original play, because he wanted to convey the emotional power the film had onto the stage. The lead, John Merrick, the Elephant Man, was pre-cast with Peter Warden.
Around the same time, I was also auditioning for The Threepenny Opera. I feared I wouldn’t be able to do both and also a job, but as I found out, rehearsals for Elephant Man would not begin for some time, allowing me to do The Threepenny Opera.
The play would have a rather large cast. It included my friends Lito Briano, Charles Fanucchi, and Lenny Improta. I will list the final cast in a moment because people dropped and entered much later after the first casting. As the period of waiting between casting and rehearsals passed we did lose a few cast members.
First two of our main characters left the show to appear in another one in Santa Rosa. As such, the roles had to be recast immediately. The first role, Treves, was fairly easier to fill and was filled by Richard La Rosa. The other one, Mothershead, on the other hand was more difficult. Scott searched everywhere and cast and then lost a couple women before Dana Frank assumed the role about a week into rehearsals. Then we lost Katie Kelley, who was playing Anne Treves, but, thankfully, a few days later she was able to rejoin.
More ensemble players joined shortly after rehearsals began, but we lost a few of them too. We did not have near enough after the first casting. Also, the part of the boy assistant to Bytes, Merrick’s owner, was not cast. It was several weeks before Alex Morgan was cast. He was the final person to be cast in the show. The final cast, in addition to those previously mentioned, included Arnie House, Bruce Carlton, Diane Dearmore, Dene Harvey, John Erskine, Zora Franicevic, Lauren Alexa, Bonnie Gamble, Tika Moon, Dusty Corderman, Anthony Darlak and Dane Beatie.
The show would take place in the black box theatre at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center, but we didn’t move in right away. A couple rehearsals were at Scott’s house, then the theatre. I was not called to every rehearsal, due to the few scenes I was in and because Scott detested rehearsals where people sat around doing nothing.
I had to learn an English accent for this show, speaking in proper English. I’d also have to learn a few phrases in French, since there would be one scene that took place in France. Though Scott never said I had to, I spoke in as close to a cockney accent as I could in scenes where I was a bar patron. But I quickly learned that learning how to do all this was the least I had to worry about.
My main role in this show was the policeman. I appeared as that in the first scene and later, a little more than halfway through the second act. In fact, I began the show and was only that character for about a minute, but I found in spite of the size of this role, it was going to be my most difficult and challenging to play. I had to be scary, intimidating, and even forceful and I am none of those things. One description Scott used to describe him was “someone who had killed puppies for fun.” He wanted me to practically yell my lines. It was difficult at first and I made only very little progress at a time.
It was tough at first because I had no one to play with. The cast wouldn’t be down there and I had nothing. Arnie was the only one who provided assistance. He’d act like different people for me to shoo off, but that was about it. Scott demonstrated what he wanted from me, embodying the character. We hammered through my entrance and my lines repeatedly. He said to me at one moment that if I didn’t feel I could do the role he could have me switch with someone else. For a brief moment I wanted to have him do that badly. But then I remembered that if I did that I would be onstage in the freak show, improvising for fifteen minutes and I can not do that for that long. So I said nothing. It seemed like every rehearsal we’d start with that scene. It was pure torture and I kept thinking “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you torture somebody else tonight and cut me a break?” Arnie, who played Bytes, one of the antagonists, and who was the person I was talking to in that scene, said that every performance I was getting better and better. I felt I could've done better if I didn't have to have the accent. It just seemed to get in the way.
As the set began to be built it was becoming too clear that it was going to be very complex. Since this was adapted from a film, there were several scenes taking place in many locations and that required several furniture pieces. Scott wanted a rolling wall for several rooms outside Merrick’s hospital room. And it had to be decorated at times. Also, for a scene at the theatre the pods would be brought out, flipped around and they’d become the royal box. It was not going to be easy dealing with all that. Some pieces of furniture, such as a loveseat and chairs for Treves’ home did not arrive until a week before the show began. Some of these set changes would take a couple minutes and some after very short scenes. The most fascinating part about the set was a door right in the middle that divided Merrick’s first hospital room and an office. For the second act the door would be pushed into the wall to make Merrick’s second hospital room. When Scott first showed us this it took us all by surprise.
Also, as if the set were not enough, some actors (mostly some of the leads) were having trouble remembering lines and could not remember where they were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing in scenes. It was frustrating waiting while they redid the scene, and sometimes not making any progress. Due to personal difficulties and schedules, we rarely had a night, if any, where the entire cast was present. There was always at least one missing.
Scott nearly changed where intermission would be. In the script he and Jacquelyn wrote, it was exactly halfway through the show, but he wanted to make it much later after a climactic scene. After we ran through a timed performance of his first act, with the entire set, we saw that the first act would be two hours long. Then the second act would be about a half hour. We took a break. Diane, Dene, Katie, Peter and I huddled and agreed that we could not do that no matter what. The audience would have our heads for making them sit for two hours, have intermission and come back for only a half hour. Diane and I made our case to Scott and felt that the original intermission was perfect. He relented.
With the difficulties with the actors still having memory trouble and the clunky set changes, the show was very shaky. And it only improved at a glacial pace as time went on. We never once had a full run without stopping at least once until probably opening night. I was very scared for opening, thinking “Oh shit! This is gonna be really bad” and I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Scott even asked how many of us were thinking it. At least half of us raised our hands. I began to think I was trapped on a sinking ship. Opening night was very shaky, but as time went on we became more efficient at the scene changes.
For this show I got a make-up rendering of how I should look. The make-up designers, Lani and Janelle Basich, made them for everyone. They were probably the best makeup people I ever worked with. I learned about shadowing and highlighting my face.
During the freak show the freaks and the other show attractions had a porter who went around talking to the audience and trying to get money from them to see the freaks. Lenny was Bonnie’s porter and every night they got at least one dollar. They collected the most money. My mother even gave a dollar to them. She asked Bonnie “Would my son ever get married?” Then she picked a card, I forget what it was. Bonnie’s answer was that “he will or he won’t, but whatever he does he’ll make the right decision.” I could’ve answered that question for nothing.
After most performances I stayed behind and helped Kristen, the stage manager, reset the stage for the next show. I did not have too many shows where I had friends attend so I decided to help. It didn’t feel right to have only her stuck doing it. The only nights when I did not help were when my parents attended and the last Saturday performance because on that night, I had several friends attend.
When I watched Lito do his monologues during the boardroom scene I saw something I did not usually see in an actor. Lito possessed the ability to use his hands while acting. His arms never hung at his side. They were always moving. I wonder how he could do that, and I wished I could do that. One night he slammed the table and it genuinely shocked me and I jumped. Lito suggested I keep doing that because he felt it was brilliant.
At the strike those of us who moved the wall and the pods took great pleasure in destroying them. They were a pain for all of us to maneuver on and off stage. I feared every night that the wall would fall over. I still believe they were a bit much. All we really needed was the furniture and lighting; the audience would’ve picked up that we were in different locations.
I can honestly say that this was not one of my favorite shows to do. Though I did have good conversations with the cast, I didn't feel as though I really bonded with this cast as much as I did with others. I was glad to be done with this show and truthfully, I think everyone in the cast was ready to be done with it. With this show done I looked forward to the next one I did which opened two and a half weeks later.
Or if you wish to see a video of highlights of the production, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vvoe52Juw0
One of my best moments is at 7:03.
My second summer show of 2012 was The Elephant Man. It was not the play by Bernard Pomerance, but instead was an adaptation of the 1980 David Lynch film. Scott van der Horst, the director, had worked with Jacquelyn Wells, a Sonoma county actor and writer in adapting the film into a play. Auditions were in June with the play going up in September. Scott wished to do this version of the story, rather than the original play, because he wanted to convey the emotional power the film had onto the stage. The lead, John Merrick, the Elephant Man, was pre-cast with Peter Warden.
Around the same time, I was also auditioning for The Threepenny Opera. I feared I wouldn’t be able to do both and also a job, but as I found out, rehearsals for Elephant Man would not begin for some time, allowing me to do The Threepenny Opera.
The play would have a rather large cast. It included my friends Lito Briano, Charles Fanucchi, and Lenny Improta. I will list the final cast in a moment because people dropped and entered much later after the first casting. As the period of waiting between casting and rehearsals passed we did lose a few cast members.
First two of our main characters left the show to appear in another one in Santa Rosa. As such, the roles had to be recast immediately. The first role, Treves, was fairly easier to fill and was filled by Richard La Rosa. The other one, Mothershead, on the other hand was more difficult. Scott searched everywhere and cast and then lost a couple women before Dana Frank assumed the role about a week into rehearsals. Then we lost Katie Kelley, who was playing Anne Treves, but, thankfully, a few days later she was able to rejoin.
More ensemble players joined shortly after rehearsals began, but we lost a few of them too. We did not have near enough after the first casting. Also, the part of the boy assistant to Bytes, Merrick’s owner, was not cast. It was several weeks before Alex Morgan was cast. He was the final person to be cast in the show. The final cast, in addition to those previously mentioned, included Arnie House, Bruce Carlton, Diane Dearmore, Dene Harvey, John Erskine, Zora Franicevic, Lauren Alexa, Bonnie Gamble, Tika Moon, Dusty Corderman, Anthony Darlak and Dane Beatie.
The show would take place in the black box theatre at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center, but we didn’t move in right away. A couple rehearsals were at Scott’s house, then the theatre. I was not called to every rehearsal, due to the few scenes I was in and because Scott detested rehearsals where people sat around doing nothing.
I had to learn an English accent for this show, speaking in proper English. I’d also have to learn a few phrases in French, since there would be one scene that took place in France. Though Scott never said I had to, I spoke in as close to a cockney accent as I could in scenes where I was a bar patron. But I quickly learned that learning how to do all this was the least I had to worry about.
My main role in this show was the policeman. I appeared as that in the first scene and later, a little more than halfway through the second act. In fact, I began the show and was only that character for about a minute, but I found in spite of the size of this role, it was going to be my most difficult and challenging to play. I had to be scary, intimidating, and even forceful and I am none of those things. One description Scott used to describe him was “someone who had killed puppies for fun.” He wanted me to practically yell my lines. It was difficult at first and I made only very little progress at a time.
 |
| My first scene |
When the house opened Scott wanted there to be an actual freak show and there was, with a fortune teller (Bonnie), a juggler (John), a “knife thrower” and his assistant (Lito and Dene), two street whores (Diane and Katie) and four freaks consisting of a bearded lady (Tika), the elephant man, the four-legged girl (a girl names Sophia) and Siamese twins (Lani and Janelle, twins yes, Siamese no). The freaks were in two “pods” separated into their own compartment. The audience would enter and either interact with the cast or sit down. This would go on for fifteen minutes. Then a cast member, Zora, would enter, be shown the elephant man, scream and run to the entrance where’d I’d be waiting. I’d inspect the elephant man, be repulsed, order the show to be shut down and even shoo people off.
It was tough at first because I had no one to play with. The cast wouldn’t be down there and I had nothing. Arnie was the only one who provided assistance. He’d act like different people for me to shoo off, but that was about it. Scott demonstrated what he wanted from me, embodying the character. We hammered through my entrance and my lines repeatedly. He said to me at one moment that if I didn’t feel I could do the role he could have me switch with someone else. For a brief moment I wanted to have him do that badly. But then I remembered that if I did that I would be onstage in the freak show, improvising for fifteen minutes and I can not do that for that long. So I said nothing. It seemed like every rehearsal we’d start with that scene. It was pure torture and I kept thinking “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you torture somebody else tonight and cut me a break?” Arnie, who played Bytes, one of the antagonists, and who was the person I was talking to in that scene, said that every performance I was getting better and better. I felt I could've done better if I didn't have to have the accent. It just seemed to get in the way.
 |
| Me as the policeman |
I couldn’t improvise or ad-lib in this show anyway. I was not good at it if it involved talking and in this show it was impossible. Any person I was partnered with made it impossible to do this because they just kept talking and talking and yammering and yammering, not listening to anything I was saying, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
As the set began to be built it was becoming too clear that it was going to be very complex. Since this was adapted from a film, there were several scenes taking place in many locations and that required several furniture pieces. Scott wanted a rolling wall for several rooms outside Merrick’s hospital room. And it had to be decorated at times. Also, for a scene at the theatre the pods would be brought out, flipped around and they’d become the royal box. It was not going to be easy dealing with all that. Some pieces of furniture, such as a loveseat and chairs for Treves’ home did not arrive until a week before the show began. Some of these set changes would take a couple minutes and some after very short scenes. The most fascinating part about the set was a door right in the middle that divided Merrick’s first hospital room and an office. For the second act the door would be pushed into the wall to make Merrick’s second hospital room. When Scott first showed us this it took us all by surprise.
Also, as if the set were not enough, some actors (mostly some of the leads) were having trouble remembering lines and could not remember where they were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing in scenes. It was frustrating waiting while they redid the scene, and sometimes not making any progress. Due to personal difficulties and schedules, we rarely had a night, if any, where the entire cast was present. There was always at least one missing.
Scott nearly changed where intermission would be. In the script he and Jacquelyn wrote, it was exactly halfway through the show, but he wanted to make it much later after a climactic scene. After we ran through a timed performance of his first act, with the entire set, we saw that the first act would be two hours long. Then the second act would be about a half hour. We took a break. Diane, Dene, Katie, Peter and I huddled and agreed that we could not do that no matter what. The audience would have our heads for making them sit for two hours, have intermission and come back for only a half hour. Diane and I made our case to Scott and felt that the original intermission was perfect. He relented.
With the difficulties with the actors still having memory trouble and the clunky set changes, the show was very shaky. And it only improved at a glacial pace as time went on. We never once had a full run without stopping at least once until probably opening night. I was very scared for opening, thinking “Oh shit! This is gonna be really bad” and I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Scott even asked how many of us were thinking it. At least half of us raised our hands. I began to think I was trapped on a sinking ship. Opening night was very shaky, but as time went on we became more efficient at the scene changes.
For this show I got a make-up rendering of how I should look. The make-up designers, Lani and Janelle Basich, made them for everyone. They were probably the best makeup people I ever worked with. I learned about shadowing and highlighting my face.
 |
| My make-up design |
Our one review panned us. He attended an early performance when everything was still shaky and did not hold back. He blasted the long set changes and many short scenes, saying that it ruined any momentum and he'd later call it the biggest theatre disappointment of 2012, but he praised Peter's performance, calling it "memorable" in a forgettable show. The audience sizes were not as big as we would’ve liked except for the last Saturday show. All of this didn’t matter too much because at every performance we usually had at least once audience member who cried. Also, at every performance the audience booed Arnie and John, who played the night porter, the other antagonist. It showed that they were into it. Months later many people who saw it told me that they liked the show and one person went so far as to say that the critic could "go fuck off."
During the freak show the freaks and the other show attractions had a porter who went around talking to the audience and trying to get money from them to see the freaks. Lenny was Bonnie’s porter and every night they got at least one dollar. They collected the most money. My mother even gave a dollar to them. She asked Bonnie “Would my son ever get married?” Then she picked a card, I forget what it was. Bonnie’s answer was that “he will or he won’t, but whatever he does he’ll make the right decision.” I could’ve answered that question for nothing.
After most performances I stayed behind and helped Kristen, the stage manager, reset the stage for the next show. I did not have too many shows where I had friends attend so I decided to help. It didn’t feel right to have only her stuck doing it. The only nights when I did not help were when my parents attended and the last Saturday performance because on that night, I had several friends attend.
When I watched Lito do his monologues during the boardroom scene I saw something I did not usually see in an actor. Lito possessed the ability to use his hands while acting. His arms never hung at his side. They were always moving. I wonder how he could do that, and I wished I could do that. One night he slammed the table and it genuinely shocked me and I jumped. Lito suggested I keep doing that because he felt it was brilliant.
 |
| The Boardroom scene |
There were a couple changes in the freak pods concerning two different freaks. One night, Tika could not be there to be the bearded lady so Chuck stepped in, wearing a dress and wig. The last show one of the twins could not be there because of work so instead, Dusty put on a Mr. Tumnus (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) costume.
At the strike those of us who moved the wall and the pods took great pleasure in destroying them. They were a pain for all of us to maneuver on and off stage. I feared every night that the wall would fall over. I still believe they were a bit much. All we really needed was the furniture and lighting; the audience would’ve picked up that we were in different locations.
I can honestly say that this was not one of my favorite shows to do. Though I did have good conversations with the cast, I didn't feel as though I really bonded with this cast as much as I did with others. I was glad to be done with this show and truthfully, I think everyone in the cast was ready to be done with it. With this show done I looked forward to the next one I did which opened two and a half weeks later.
Or if you wish to see a video of highlights of the production, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vvoe52Juw0
One of my best moments is at 7:03.
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