Opening Night!

Its been a while, but I am back and in full effect.

So first off I would like to just say - wow!

This process will have special meaning for me for a long time. Since it has been a while I will start off from about a week ago. We started to build the set - I haven't done tech work in about four years so it was nice to get a drill and screws back into my hand. From the beginning I knew this was going to be something special but it didn't really hit me until I went to Boston Playwrights' Theatre for the first time and saw the most breathtaking sight i have possibly seen in my life...(dramatic pause)

ARTiculation is on the MARQUEE!!!

Outside of the theatre, we are literally the only thing on the marquee, and in that moment I realized just how big of a deal this is. When you're 18 and you say "this is what I want to do," whether it is college, a job, a career, or in my case a production, and about four years later you are standing in front of your name lit up in lights - it's pretty cool.

Now back to the set. Myself and Nik Walker had an unspoken agreement that our work on ARTiculation doesn't end with the words or rehearsal but it continues into all other areas. That's one of the things that I love about the people involved with this production - it's not about vanity or who has the most lines or who gets paid the most - it's about the family atmosphere. I love the fact that I can leave a 6 hour rehearsal and show up at the theatre an hour later ready to put up lights , sweep floors, and run errands side by side with the same people who I share the stage with. So, long story short, the set has been built and it looks amazing. Like I said in an earlier post, it is a sidewalk playground on steroids filled with poles and grates and just a lot of cool scenery.

We had our first dress rehearsals this week and they felt really good, with the exception of one where I froze and completely forgot MY LINES! I'm pretty positive it was noticeable and I was so down on myself about that because I don't forget lines! But anyway, at one point while I was sitting backstage halfway through the opening where Nik Walker is delivering "Dinner and a Conversion" I realized that we truly have a show on our hands. We have always had a performance, but we have never had a production, and this ladies and gentlemen is a production. It is the absolute best version of ARTiculation and I cannot wait to open officially in about 5 hours!

More post-opening,
Tory

Hello again beautiful people. Tory here back and in full effect.

So we are wrapping up our first full week of rehearsals and WOW we are moving really fast. The week started off last Monday when we began to read through the final draft of the script. After that, we began to do what us Theatre folk call "putting it up on its feet". We played around with a lot of different staging ideas and wordplay, and what developed through the rest of the week was the beginnings of what will be the best ARTiculation show ever!

It's kind of funny because i'm just so excited about every aspect of this process from seeing the new postcards, to seeing pictures of us on the C1 web site, or even taking a glance a our brand spankin' new trailer that you'll all see on YouTube very soon. We also got a little glance at our costumes for the run and all I can say, while keeping it under wraps, is a LOT of color. The set can only be described as an emo playground on steroids - I will be the first to say it: Terri D. will hurt herself on this set. It is written.

In addition to adding a lot of new production elements we are also adding a LOT of music - we have turntables, acoustic guitars, lots of singing, electric bass, and tons of movement. This is definitely taking people out of their comfort zones, but it's also opening us up to things we never even thought about performance-wise. THANK YOU LOIS ROACH!

Ok guys and gals that's it for this time around. Good write, good night.

-Tory

ARTiculation Begins

Hello beautiful people out there in internet world. This is your master of ceremonies, Duke of Linguistics, Commander of Funk, and all around good guy, Tory Bullock. For the duration of these first ever ARTiculation blog entries I will be playing the part of your poetic flight coordinator, weaving you through the ins and outs of the production. While I come with many titles, the one that I am most proud of is "co-founder of ARTiculation". For those of you who don't know, ARTiculation was founded in the steamy hot summer of 2005 by cast members Danny Balel, Terri Deletetsky, Simon Moody, Adobuere Ebiama, Nik Walker, and yours truly. Along the years we have shifted and shaped to form many different variations of which I am as proud of as the one we are currently taking. This is our first mainstage performance run of ARTiculation with four of the original founders performing. Danny, Terri, Nik and I, and new members Mike Cognata, Marvelyn McFarlane, Liz Rimar, and DJ Reazon, will be coming to you guys with 13 powerhouse shows, and we hope you're ready (i.e we hope you all have gone online and purchased your tickets!)

Since I get to talk to you guys well before the show even opens, there will be tons of breaking news (which i will represent by saying *BREAKING NEWS*) about sets, sounds, backstage updates and all of that jazz. Did Nik Walker injure himself in a musical retelling of the grinch that went awry? Did Danny Balel have an unfortunate tongue twister poem accident that resulted in him having to be sidelined for a show or two? These are the juicy gossip details that you will only find here at the C1 blog.

Enough of the small talk - here comes the juicy information that I know you all are dying for. We had our last script / production meeting last Sunday and let me just tell you all how EXCITING it was! We were sitting in our director's apartment, and just looking around the room gave me this intense feeling of "wow, we are really going to have an amazing show." For those of you who are in the dark, this run is, in part, a culmination of four years of tweaking, performing, touring, work-shopping, and testing, so I compare this run to a person who has been training for the Olympics for four years and then finally gets the chance to step onto the world's greatest stage.

That is exactly whatʼs going to happen in January when we set foot on the Boston Playwrights' stage, backed by Bostonʼs most creative and innovative Theatre company, Company One, all the while standing next to great friends who have been building this piece for years. It is going to be amazing, and I look forward to taking everyone through the process with us.

More soon...
Tory

Voyeurs Opens!

Well hello all you lovely, curious folk who have stumbled across the Company One Blog! My name is Marvelyn McFarlane (you can call me marv) and I currently play the role of Saartjie Baartman in Voyeurs de Venus. I'm happy to report that we had a great opening weekend, and I especially thank all of you who came out on Halloween night!

Yeah, wow! What a crazy journey this has been. This is my second show with Co. 1 and i just love love them. Summer Williams is such an awesome director and an incredible human...although I thought she was crazy when she called and said I'd love to have you read for the role of Saartjie. And of course in my head i said "who?" and then when I read the character breakdown which said she is "a brown-skinned, voluptuously proportioned African American woman..." i thought . . . umm does she not know me? has she forgotten the lack of curves on my body aside from my forehead? Thankfully, i put all of that aside, went to the audition, and now here i am!

Being part of this project has been such a challenging and exciting process it's really hard to find the words to describe it. From the start I could tell we had a great cast. I could tell that everyone was really chill and incredibly talented. We were zipping right through rehearsals, almost everyone was off book very early on, and together we really began to see the play taking shape.

One of my personal challenges, besides trying to gain some weight so Saartjie wouldn't look so scrawny, was taking on the South African dialect. Somehow, this came easier than expected. Cheryl, our dialect coach, helped out a ton, and I also have a friend from Kenya who lived in South Africa for 10 years give me some direction. So after finding Saartjie's physical voice, the next task was how to tell her incredibly devastating life story without making her seem too sad. Summer would often tell me Saartjie is just stating the facts of her life in this scene. She's already dealt with it. This was so difficult because the more i learned about her life the more sad, depressed, and angry I became, and then I just had to make her seem complacent. Ahhhh! But somehow I've been trying to find the balance that shows her as a whole human being that laughed, cried, was angry, and yes even complacent.

So fast forward to us moving into the Plaza Theatre. We have a cast of eight, five dancers, 38 scenes, a revolving stage, present day, flash backs, and nightmares, crazy awesome lights and music, and yes - Becca - the blood and guts. All in a lil black box. Talk about in your face action! Lydia sure knows how to keep you on your toes. This is play is so loaded with content and questions that you will be chewing on it for days. In a good way, of course.

Ok so if any of you were at the talk back on Saturday you know I can talk for days so i'm gonna stop here with my random ramblings. But don't worry, there will be more to come! Come see the show and tell your friends!

-Marv

A look into Voyeurs de Venus

Ahem. Hi. My name is Becca and I am playing Millicent, George Cuvier's assistant in the 1800s, in Voyeurs de Venus. Voyeurs marks my first occasion to work with Company One.

I must admit to being a titch sheepish composing the first Voyeurs blog post.

So far, my experience working on this show has been exceedingly positive. When I first read the play, my initial reactions were, "Blood! Boobs!", not necessarily in that order. I have to say that I am a huge sucker for stage gore. Knowing that the character I was auditioning for had occasion to get blood splattered it all over herself, stick surgeons tools into carcasses and play with the entrails only sweetened the deal. I was excited. Am. I can't wait. Occasionally we'll hear a direction referencing the location of the various buckets of blood around Cuvier's lab table. I celebrate inwardly at these moments. Buckets of blood! Yay.

Of course this play is about a hell of a lot more than tits and blood. It's about booty too.

Ha. I'm kidding. Kind of.

But seriously, folks, working on this production has pushed me in ways that I have never been pushed before as an actor. It is challenging as hell stepping into the skin of Millicent, into her world, allowing her to see the things that she sees, play a role in what she needs to be playing a role in and allow myself to experience these things as they happen. I find myself still struggling with that piece, giving myself permission to treat Saartjie the way she needs to be treated, the way that is true to the time and the circumstances. Damn, it's difficult.

I consistently find myself answering the question, "How does that feel?", after we've worked through a scene for a while with, "Awful. It doesn't feel good. But I think the more uncomfortable it is, the closer we are to where it needs to be."

The psychological/dream scenes are increasingly incredible to discover as well. I don't know that I've ever had the opportunity to explore the psychological side of a character before, as these nightmare dream sequences allow. One of my favorite directions so far: "Did you ever see that 'Black Hole Son' video? You know the part where their faces melt off? Yeah. Make those faces here." Melty faces. We get to make melty faces in one nightmare scene. Yay.

And the undercurrent for me through this whole experience so far is just a sense of honor. I feel honored to be working on this important and gritty and provocative piece, honored to have been exposed to it in the first place. I look around at all the creative and talented and professional actors and dancers, designers, writers, dramaturgs, dialect coaches, choreographers, stage managers and everyone involved and I'm just thrilled to be a part of it all, to be sharing the stage with them, to be dancing to "Brick House" with them. It's neat.

I can't wait to see how the show is going to evolve in the next week.

Or hell, even after tonight.

There are so so many directions for it to go.

It's exciting.

-Becca

From a Different Perspective

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about his 11 year-old cousin who owns a Mac Laptop computer and an I-Pod Touch. He was telling me about his experience of bringing his cousin to the Museum of Science, a place that used to be considered hip back in ’92 (ancient history!). The 11-year-old cousin, I-Pod in hand, was not impressed. He had one objective: to get back home to connect his I-Pod to his computer for an update.

What kind of connection is this teaching us? If you're reading this blog, you should stop now and buy a ticket for Company One's upcoming production of VOYEURS DE VENUS. Better yet, get that Company Card! I promise you it will be worth more of your time. All this blogging makes me think of Neil LaBute's introduction to his newest play "Reasons to be Pretty." He writes: "I like the person who spends more time working than on Facebook, the person who gets out there and lives his life rather than blogging about it or staring the mirror wondering about anything so damn inconsequential as looks or hair or yesterday. The future is now. It's time to grow up and be strong. Tomorrow may well be too late.”

I think we forget how unique the theatre is. There's this great play by an under-appreciated writer Alexis Clements who sums it up pretty well for me. The play is about a woman who presents a lecture on communication and asks the audience to confess their sins. She says: "Shall we make this a public confessional, a more equal exchange? Everybody loves that nowadays, right? Blogs, video, cell phones, television? But what about here in this room? In front of real, living, breathing people? Anybody want to try?" This public confessional, conversation, debate, discussion is exactly what Company One achieves, perhaps unconsciously.

"Company One redefines the typical theatrical experience by developing, producing, and promoting socially relevant plays and innovative educational programming that appeal to, represent and include Boston’s diverse urban communities." I don't think I understood what that meant when I first started out this summer with ASSASSINS, where I helped out as an assistant to Shawn LaCount (the director) and the rest of the company. I have come to interpret this mission statement as providing an atmosphere for community discussion. This starts in the rehearsal room. I had the unique role as both an insider and outsider to this process because I did not have a defined position like a Assistant Stage Manager or Designer. The most fascinating thing to watch was that Company One really does embrace collaboration, communication, and discussion. They do not fake it. I asked Shawn once “How much preparation do you put into a production? What do you do?” His response, was something like this: "Yeah, do your homework. But let the designers tell you what the scene is really about. And let the actors solve the big question." Shawn’s way of working reminds me of Anne Bogart. He lets his actors find their own way. And he’s not doing it because it’s trendy, he knows it works. Bogart, in recent interview said: “I have no interest in being in a room where people are simply doing what I want.” I think that’s pretty accurate to his process. Shawn (and the rest of the Company) are unique because they embrace disagreement as a vital part of the process and trust their staff. There's been a lot of stir about the timing of this show in the newspapers, on television, and online. But this isn't just good press. This is what Company One strives to do. To strike up a real conversation about things we don't even want to think about. I say that is a good measure of success.

Becoming involved with Company One got me off Facebook this summer. It gave me a way to "connect" to real people and not a computer. There’s a difference between interacting and collaborating. Collaboration requires intense listening. You barely see that in the office setting. I like to work in the theatre because it forces me to confront my fears, assumptions, and prejudices. In rehearsal, it forces me to get over my shyness, find a voice, be decisive, and listen to others. It makes me aware of time and space.

I could have very easily just had my part time job this summer. But I made the choice stop refreshing my e-mail and start communicating. I’m lucky I got to do it for three months. At least our audiences got a chance to really engage in some tough questions with REAL people for two hours. In the words of Mark and Summer in the ASSASSINS pre-show announcement, “Please turn of your cell phones. Not on vibrate. Please turn them off. Trust me, you don’t need them where you are going.”

Thanks again to Shawn, Sarah S., Sarah C., Mark, Summer, Sasha, Mason, the SMs Emily, Ellyn, Jess, and the entire company of ASSASSINS for an unforgettable summer. I can’t wait to work with Company One in the future!

-Greg Josselyn, Asst. to the Director

P.S. For someone who hates blogging, this entry is way too long!

And we return...

Hello all. Been a long time.

I apologize for the lack of of communication. Doing this show six times a week for 5 weeks has made a certain blogger very tired, and as much I love writing for you all, believe me when I say that at this point in the game, if I'm not performing or working, I am most likely sleeping (and therefore unfortunately not filling your lives with blog material).

So this is it. The final performances. This run has been blessed...we've had only ONE not sold out show, and that was a Saturday matinee. The reviews have all been great. Audiences are really responding well, talking to us actors at great length in the lobby of the theater and providing the most interesting topics of discussion at the talkbacks.

I don't know how many of you reading this are actors yourselves, and therefore know the difficulty of a long run, but honestly, the biggest challenge for me has been keeping it fresh. I didn't know what that challenge meant until this production...the longest run of a show I'd done previous to this was three weeks, and there IS a difference. By the end of Week 3, your body knows the ins and outs of the show so well that it is way too easy to check out for a second - physically present, but mentally on another planet. Even with this threat looming, we've been turning in solid shows every night. Things that have been helping me personally keep it together... and please let me know if your experiences have been the same:

1) Reminding myself of scene objectives right before I go on. It keeps me wanting something and from simply existing onstage, which is a problem that I think a lot of us run into from time to time.

2) Connections with fellow actors. Especially in "Ballad of Booth" with David Dacosta and "Ballad of Guiteau" with Jeff Mahoney. Those guys are pros; if I find myself going off, all I have to do is reconnect to their eyes and I'm zapped right back into it.

3) Reminding myself what a privilege it is to be doing this. When I get tired, I sometimes just go "Yo. You're performing in a major Sondheim musical for wonderful sold out houses with one of the best theater companies in Boston, and many of the founders happen to be your mentors. So many people would kill for this, and you need to do your best every time." That always gets me gunning.

And on that note, as this dream of a summer starts winding down, I would like to officially go on record and say that it has truly been an honor. This has been one of the best summers of my life, and I thank every one - my cast mates, crew mates, band mates and all at C1 for this experience. And you, dear blog readers, I thank you all for listening to the mad rantings of me and a few of my friends. I hope you enjoy the show, and that I talk to you in the future.

Thanks.
-Nik