Date of Run: August 10-September 2, 2018
ROLE: Officer
Photos by Eric Chazankin
My first Shakespeare show in seven years. I finally managed to be cast in a work of the Bard, even if it was a small role.
In 2018, I auditioned for the general auditions at only one place, and only because I never had done generals at that location. The reason why I went nowhere else was because I had auditioned at several generals in years past and I could still count on my fingers on one hand how many times I had actually been called back. Feeling it would be a waste of my time, I skipped out and waited to see if anyone would do separate auditions for shows. Which came very quickly.
I saw on the Facebook page that 6th Street Playhouse was looking to fill the role of Antipholus of Syracuse, needing someone late twenties to early 30's, around 6 ft tall, somewhat athletic and have good Shakespeare and movement skills. Almost a perfect fit. I emailed requesting an audition and was scheduled for the following afternoon. Fortunately, I had a (short) comic Shakespeare monologue from A Midsummer Night's Dream that I had used years before. With a little prying into my memory, I was on it in no time.
For the audition all I had to do was that and read a short monologue from Comedy of Errors. The director said he had a couple more people to look at so all I could do was wait. He didn't say when he'd be seeing them though, so I didn't know how long it would be. Before this I had auditioned for many shows, but a number of the directors of those shows never contacted me if they didn't cast me, so I had come to expect that that does happen and then it did again.
OR DID IT?
Though I didn't get that role, I didn't walk away empty handed. Three weeks later, after I figured I didn't get the part, I saw another audition posting on Facebook for more roles in this show. I contemplated telling him that I was still interested in reading for these roles, but he beat me to the punch. Not two hours later he called me and asked if I'd be interested in playing the role of Officer/Jailer. I said yes right away. A week passed and I heard no further information about anything. I began to get worried that maybe he changed his mind. Then exactly one week later I got a second call definitively offering me a role and all I had to do was sign the contract.
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| An Officer/Jailer |
The rest of the cast included Ariel Zuckerman, Arabella Harrison, Sam Coughlin, Jared Wright, Eyan Dean, William Brown, Guy Connor, Sam Coughlin, Heather Gibeson, Jessica Headington Kit Grimm, Allison Paine, Julia Sakren, Caitlin Strom-Martin, Jill Wagoner, Stefan Wenger, Conor Woods, Jared Wright, and Eric Yanez.
William Brown, an equity actor, was the one who nabbed the role I originally went for, and I could see why, even from the first read through. The way he spoke the lines was not how you'd expect to hear Shakespeare's words. Not the pristine serious way people often speak when reading it, with no change in their voice other than speaking louder on the emphasized words. He spoke the lines with a certain lilt, if you will, and his acting choices and vocal tones were stellar. And such excellent delivery.
Sadly, we lost the woman playing Adriana before rehearsals even began. I don't know what happened (I think she opted to do a different show instead), but someone stood in for her a couple rehearsals and then Jessica Headington was hired by the end of the first week to replace her. Which suited me because I never thought the day would come when I'd appear in a show with her.
Rehearsals didn't begin until July, four weeks before opening. They took place in the rehearsal room at 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa, a room with ceiling fans, but no air conditioning. It was hot in there, being a well-insulated room, and for actors who moved a lot, the end result would be a lot of sweat, especially from Ariel.
I was called 3-4 times a week for most of the rehearsal process, though I was only in four scenes. Halfway through I finally got to be in a fight choreography rehearsal. I was excited that the choreographer was Marty Pistone, mainly because I loved it when something didn't go right, he'd start talking in another language. On the night we did the scene I was in and it was so much fun. Poor Sam and Jared though; Their characters (the two Dromios) get beaten up a lot and as such, they bore the brunt of the physicality, getting tossed around and ending up on the ground a lot. And yet surprisingly, they sweated less than Ariel did. But then, no one sweated as much as Ariel did.
When Jared told me how old he was (in his forties) I thought there was no way that could be true; he easily fooled me with how much he was knocked around on stage. He certainly could take a punch.
For my part I had to chest bump Sam, knocking him to the floor and then later grab Ariel's feet while he was on top of Sam on the bench. Jill's arms were around my waist, Scott's around hers, then we'd pretend to pull Ariel, while in reality he slid himself down the bench and the three of us did a fall back onto our butts, while Ariel's face ended up at Sam's butt.
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| Pre-show fight call- After chest bumping Sam |
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| Before Ariel's face went to Sam's butt and we ended on ours |
It wasn't until three days before opening when we finally got to go outside to work on the actual stage for tech rehearsals. We couldn't do that before because another show was using the space and closed the weekend before we opened. More time might have been good on the space, but I don't think we did too terribly. The first night, toward the end of a run of the show there was a strange bright green light that flashed one second and then it was gone. I don't think anyone knew nor figured out what it was. There was one minor setback when we started tech.
One of the main reasons we could've used more practice was because of the chase scene that happens in the second act. It was one thing to run it in a small room with a flat surface and in comfortable clothes and shoes, but another thing entirely on a large set with steps, levels and in character shoes and costumes. We had to run that repeatedly for timing purposes. Unlike the rehearsal room where everyone could pause when they got to one area, there were moments where some of us couldn't run right away because other actors took a while to get to where they needed to be.
We lost the actor playing Second Merchant a few days before opening due to health problems. But luckily, Jared found Carl to step in for the role. Even more luckily, he was retired and had lots and lots of time to get the lines. On our last rehearsal night, after we ran the show, we did a couple runs of his main two scenes, the last one of which I was in, so I had to stay later. It seemed to go on forever because the other actors kept messing up and missing lines. My main aggravation was that I hadn't eaten since noon, and it was ten by the time we were released. In short, I was starving.
The last rehearsal night was anything but perfect. There were lots of line flubs and mistakes and a set malfunction with one of the doors. Christmas lights were put around the edge of the door and on occasion at least one light could get caught in the crack and jam the door. And there were some injuries too. Julia's finger got smashed at another door and when it came to my chest bump with Sam he missed and jabbed the underside of my forearm. Both of Julia and I could still feel it the next day.
That same night Jared asked me if I would help bring the concessions to and from the cannery ruins. I agreed and basically it was loading and unloading the car of the person running the booth. I soon came to regret that decision because the woman was very chatty, distracted and unfocused. Not to mention her car was quite cluttered so it was a bit tough fitting everything in.
Opening night was so hot. And worse than that, in the opening scene, the sun was still out uncovered and anyone standing on the stage right side had to face it. Just a little lower and it would have been behind a tree. And since I was wearing a black suit, I could feel sweat dripping down my back. It didn't even get cooler when the sun went down nor when it was dark. I don't think anyone in the audience bundled up that night.
The second night was much better. The weather was cooler and slightly breezier and to top that, the audience was bigger and much more responsive. I almost fell off the stage when the gunshot noise that started the chase scene happened, but other than that nothing out of the ordinary.
The third night was freezing. Kit had the worst of it because he appeared only in the first scene of the show and the last scene of it. He spent a lot of time sitting backstage in the cold, in a heavy jacket. I had a fairly lengthy break after the first scene since I didn't reenter until the second act. To top it all for this performance, the door of the abbey got jammed from the Christmas lights again, so much so that people gave up and went around the door rather than through it.
The start of the second weekend was neither warm nor cold, but the sun was particularly bright in the opening scene. We had problems with the door again. After that night, the lights around the door were moved over a little and taped down.
Our stage manager, Jenna, was sick the second night that week and wasn't there. Neither was the concessions lady, which meant her car wasn't there to load things in. Luckily, my mother was in attendance that night and I borrowed her car, which had a large trunk area and was very clean with nothing else in there. It was chilly that night, but that didn't bother me because I noticed that on cooler nights the sun didn't seem to be so blinding in the opening scene.
Like the first Sunday, the second one was the coldest night of the weekend, as evidenced by the mist that began settling toward the end of the performance.
The third weekend was chilly all weekend, especially the first two nights and it was this weekend when it began to get darker a bit sooner. I definitely noticed the sun was lower during the opening scene. The second night was cold, but the worst was the last five minutes when a breeze started and didn't let up at all. The third night was tough for me because the concessions lady was gone again, but this time I didn't have a big car to save me. Strangely it didn't seem too cold at the end of the show.
The first two shows of the final weekend were hot in the beginning and then they cooled off. Which still meant the sun shining brightly in the opening scene. The last show started cold and breezy and only got colder. And to top it off, Ariel's body microphone stopped working that night. Of course, it couldn't happen to somebody with few lines, like me, but one of the main characters. Luckily, Ariel had an exceptionally good speaking voice that could get out to the audience, especially when he faced the wall of the cannery ruins where the sound could bounce off.
After the show ended most of the cast gathered for a party at Ariel's, wherein we were greeted by three dogs, one of which was a Great Dane. Big doggie. But oh, so cute!
A good Shakespeare show to do after not doing it for seven years. I could only hope that it wouldn't be that long until next time.
