Swimming to Sarasota

 

 

A long overdue blog for my four loyal readers!  I haven't had a lot to write about this year, and now that I finally have stuff to write about, I've been way to busy to sit down and write. I still wonder about this format.  Maybe I should become a middle-aged white man cliche and just start a podcast. But I think I'll stick with this until blogs come back into fashion, then I'll move on to another dead medium.

Anyway, I am working at Asolo Rep. in Sarasota, Florida.  The people here are lovely and kind (in the theatre that is, jury is still out on the people of Florida).  There are so many talented artists in every aspect of making plays here.  Directors are brilliant, the designers are unbelievable, the actors are terrific, the grad students are amazing, the crew are all wonderful, and we understudies are fucking killing it, too!

I am understudying two shows.  I'm covering Father Jack in Dancing at Lughnasa, and Bob Sarnoff in Goodnight, Oscar.  And the two actors I am covering are not only terrific actors, but two of the best people I've met.  It's honestly an honor.  And it's not like I love understudying.  I think I'm good at it, I have a skill set that is perfect for it...I'm a quick study, I remember everything, and I've gone on so many times in my career with little to no notice, that I don't have any stress if I am thrown on.  So, it excites the technical part of my brain.  That left side which learns lines and absorbs information quickly.  But, artistically it's not super exciting.  If I do go on, it will be because something bad happened to someone I really like, and even if I crush it to the best of my ability, it will turn out to be a very under rehearsed performance which will be half baked.  But that's the job, and I'm definitely glad to have a job at this point.  

After getting back from Utah Shakes last fall, I couldn't find work anywhere.  Not in theatre, and not even stocking shelves in Target.  It was rough.  Fortunately, I was able to start booking those Vertical Format Shorts, which at least got me on set and kept me from the soup line.  I booked this gig last summer at Utah, so I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm finally allowed to announce that I will be heading back to USF this summer!  I'm super excited and so grateful that they are bringing me back.  

The plays here couldn't be more different, and that kind of makes this experience awesome!  Dancing at Lughnasa is perhaps one of the most beautiful productions I've ever seen.  For a play in which nothing happens, it is fucking gorgeous!  We outside understudies got here a week before opening, so we weren't part of the process at all, and yet the cast and SM crew made us feel so welcome.  It was like jumping onto a moving train in the worst possible way, but also exciting to know that I could survive that and could have been ready if needed by previews.  There's this thing that happens for me when I'm understudying, or don't have much rehearsal time for a play I'm doing where it seems incredibly daunting.  I am a quick study, as I mentioned, but that is largely because if I do a scene a couple of times it just sticks in my head.  However, when I don't get to do the scenes, but rather have to watch and then learn lines off an app or by rote, it is very challenging.  And yet, in my career I've had to learn parts in as little as two days and I've always risen to the occasion.  Those days are hell, but it happened.  

Oscar had just started rehearsal when we got here, and although we were mostly watching Lughnasa, we felt a little more part of the process with that.  And for me, the process is the best part.  Performances are the final part, but building a world together is the work that delights me most.  

I titled this blog Swimming to Sarasota as an homage to the late, great Spaulding Gray.  His work was such an inspiration to me, not only in doing my own one man show, but in navigating this world when I think too much and feel too much.  Knowing I wasn't alone in that was a comfort...until he committed suicide that is.  But his one-man show, Swimming to Cambodia changed my life.  He articulated so much that was in my mind, and he also presented me (or everybody, but I don't know what anybody else takes away from such things) the idea of finding perfect moments.  I've been obsessed with this idea since I first saw that film in 1997 at the Edinburgh Film Festival.  

I've had two of them here, both in the rehearsal hall.  One for each play.  The first was sitting and watching an early rehearsal of Goodnight Oscar.  Max Roll, who plays Oscar Levant brilliantly, played Rhapsody in Blue during a run for the first time and I nearly wept at the beauty of his performance and that piece of music, and knowing it was happening for the first time here.  There are so many moments in rehearsal that we actors get to witness the first time that simply take our breath away.  And every time he plays it, it enrapts the audience in the same way I experienced it that first time, but I was two feet away from him when it happened that first time.  

The second perfect moment happened for me earlier this week in a brush up rehearsal for Lughnasa after a week off.  Again, just watching these brilliant actors come together after a week off and run the play and enjoy one another without the need to perform or project.  Just to see their undeniable chemistry and love for one another as the eased through the daily life of that play was unbelievable special and it felt like a gift.

As for Sarasota, I haven't seen anything but the theatre, rehearsal halls, and grocery stores.  But I have definitely seen lots of the person known as "Florida Man."  He is everywhere and wow it's not a myth.