Model Minority

Logistics.  Boring.  But it’s got to be done.

Gears are shifting and groaning under the weight of inertia as we move head first into the spiked brick wall known as auditions.

I’ve been on both sides of the table when it comes to auditions.  And I can say that with a lot of people there is a justified and wholly legitimate reaction to stress, panic and fret about the prospect of displaying your dramatic/comedic wares in front of a judgmental director and production staff.

My own personal accounts are hardly noteworthy except to say that I scared thunderbird theater back in 2000 when in my cold reading of a Gerald Ford character (typecasting I know), I decided to add a prat fall off a chair and off a stage to simulate our former President & Football player lack of shall we say…grace.

Unfortunately, I didn’t warn them of this ad lib nor was I at all versed in the arts of stage combat or physical comedy.  Yet that did nothing to deter my enthusiasm much to annoyance of my then director/fight choreographer and currently good friend.  He seemed to worry that my ability to hurl myself fearlessly into walls and off-stage was off-set by my lack of safety concerns.  Guy wouldn’t let me have any fun.

So in the next two weeks before audition day arrives, I’ll be talking with hopefully our talented costumer who has had the dubious distinction of sticking his hand down my pants…yes I said “his” and yes…I said pants.  It was very confusing and I’m still trying to sort it all out.

Then there’s what I hope to be our fight choreographer.  No pants diving here…just a good guy and all around professional. 

Rounding off the bunch will hopefully be our music composer & art designer.  I don’t know the former at all but the latter is the paramour of a childhood friend.  The man is also a fierce artist which is why I’m trying to pilfer his abilities for my own selfish purpose.

But the best news is the viewing of our rehearsal space.  Thankfully for me it’s conveniently located in downtown.  Good amount of space and plenty of storage and thus not requiring transporting ridiculous amounts of props and costumes as was the case in EVERY DAMN SPURN PRODUCTION.  I have carried, hefted, and tolled in cabs, subways, buses, taxis, double parked cars on over 2 dozen occasions for that comedy show.  I miss many aspects of my NY show…slave labor was not among them.

Okay.  That’s it for now.  Weekend is here and I need to work out some rage brought on by the NY Appellate Division…I’ll relay the transcript of that ridiculous conversation some other time.

I’ll end by saying that in my attempts to get off to a good start as director, I have asked my talented acting friends, what their pet peeves are as far as directors.  I was hoping for some technical or stylistic comments.  Surprisingly, the overwhelming remarks were more along these lines:

Don’t yell.

Don’t talk down to me.

Be on time.

Don’t ignore me.

Don’t touch my ass.

No spitting.

Don’t sleep with my mother.

I guess the secret of being a good director is not being an asshole.  Oh well.  It’s that last one that’s going to be tough.

This BLOG was brought to you by The Be Good Tanya’s “The Littlest Birds”

Random Sang Trivia: Sang hates

Colorado

because he was involved in a freakishly horrible FunHouse accident at age 11.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.