Category Archives: Bechtel’s Blog

Saturday, June 23rd – Final day

The day started with two presentations on on the Meisner approach to acting – the approach builds a system of habits in the actor similar to playing the piano where the pianist doesn’t think but lest the music flow for the page to his fingers without conscious thought. Meisner stresses imagination as the source of emotion rather than emotional memory – saying it is healthier for the actor. Very few people have enough experience to have an emotion that works for every circumstance the actor might find himself/herself in.

Acting is living (behaving) truthfully (emotional truth) under imaginary circumstances.

Character is found in the point of view (reacting not acting). Listening is a key part.

Don’t do anything until something outside you makes you do it. What you do depends not on you but on the other person.

Keep attention and focus outside you.

Meisner said: 85% of acting could be improved by just picking up your cues faster.

After that we had a session on creating a non profit theater. Not much new.

After lunch, we had a long talk with Anne about the lab and what was happening in theater and what was working for us in the theater and what wasn’t.

One topic was the loss of younger audiences. I said that I’ve heard that for decades. Today the young people are both working are raising families and don’t have the time or energy to come to the theater. I suggested that they would be back when they reached their 40’s. It wasn’t taken well. I don’t know – kind of shoot the messenger or this guy’s too old to know what’s going on.

After the session we had a party then off the to bar for the real party. I got home about ten.

We have a party in Brooklyn Sunday.

More later.

Thursday, June 21st and Friday, June 22nd

Thursday 4 – Friday 4 – June 1st and 22nd

Thursday morning was a group discussion of available director training opportunities. I was surprised how many different programs are out there – short term intensives, resident summer programs, college based long term programs and many, many opportunities for internships, assistant director positions and so on. There are very few opportunities for training that do not cost money.

Thursday afternoon we went back to our rehearsing of the John Guare play. Things went a lot better Thursday. Maybe because we had the pressure of a performance Thursday night. If you forgot (or didn’t bother to read it the first time) the Guare play is A Woman on the Threshold, Beckoning. It is 9/11 based. Anyway, we were given complete freedom as to what we did for a presentation. Some groups did a straight presentation of the play. Our group did an interpretation of how the play made us feel (don’t blame me) we took three sections of the play including one from the beginning, one from the middle and one from the ending. I thought that it came out surprisingly well. It was a movement piece. We did our presentation in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater lobby. The lobby has about a hundred lockers which are available free to put your coats, umbrella’s and packages in during a performance – neat idea. The theater side of the lobby is curved (the seats on the other side of the wall are also curved to match). The lockers are in this wall. Since the theater is 3/4 round the lockers were in a large curve – anyone standing in the lobby could not see all the lockers. We opened all of the lockers. For the middle part of the play we got the audience singing a song (I can’t remember the song right now. It’ll come and I’ll add it later.) Then five of us ran , one at a time around the curve. The fourth person closed the doors as he passed them (very rapidly). The effect was to hear a very loud sound coming towards you, pass in front of you and move into the distance again – to symbolize the falling of the towers. Effective.

Friday – interesting start to the day.

Several days ago Daniel Swee, the Casting Director at LCT was there with someone else. People were directing most of the questions to him and they wanted questions on a different topic. So they promised us a day with just Daniel himself. Friday morning was the time. The problem was that there were just 20 of us there – out of a total of 55. He said that he was offended by the low turnout. Not unreasonable but the presentation after him didn’t have a big draw and the late night partying is getting serious. People come in late. Fact of life.

That said, the up side is that the group dynamic was far different far more interactive with every one participating and it turned out to be one of the better discussion we had with anyone. Here are my notes:

Casting start six months out for a straight play and longer for a musical. Longer for the leads and shorter for understudies and spear carriers.

Directors need to know what they want in a character so they can ask the right questions in an audition and be able to make a decision in a reasonably short time period.

How do you cast spear carriers? With a lot of care actually. Many of the spear carriers also serve as understudies and the requirements may be very different.

He hates having two actors read together. One is always working at a deficit – being overpowered by the other, being upstages, being made to look bad so the other will look better. LCT hires good actors to read to give the actor the most help possible to look good. They use people who can keep their mouths closed afterwards and have an ego that lets them help the other actor look good.

The biggest problem he has with actors auditioning is not knowing the work. Not having read the play and studied the character they are being called for. They usually send out sides (five pages) for the actor to look at. He wants them mostly off book but with the side still in their hands (if they don’t have it, it makes it look like more of a performance so they should have it even if they don’t need it.) It’s hard to do rapid fire dialog if you don’t know the words. Many playwrights write intelligent characters with complex ideas and sentence structure. It’s hards to do without knowing the material.

Experienced actors and “name” actors often won’t audition for a role. They are hired for other (often commercial) reasons.

Law and Order TV show is the best thing that has happened to actors in NYC. They use a lot of new actors and they get seen.

They do open calls as required by the union but most of their casting comes from prior knowledge of the actor. They don’t invite people in unless they are under serious consideration for the role.

Schools are graduating far too many actors who will never work. They just don’t have the talent but the schools need the money. He also said that agents push actors out to get money. Years ago the agents would bring an actor along, picking roles that fit the development of the actors. Now it is all about money and that usually means TV and movies.

He is seeing fewer young actors with great roles under their belts than he used to see.

The rest of the day was spent in small group sessions learning about Grotowski – a famous Polish director. Rather than a character having an arc in a play, the performance is made up of thousands and thousands of individual moments each with its own start, run and end and event. He only directed five plays in his life – the best known was Acropolis. He died in 1999. His last play (which was never performed) was in rehearsal for FIFTEEN YEARS. I wonder what the ingenue looked like?????

We also had as session on fund raising and grants. Money is a big problem for most of these very small theaters. About 5% of us knew much about the process.

Party time afterwards.

Wednesday, June 20th

Wednesday 4, June 20th

Another up and down day. But more on that later.

We had a thunderstorm last night – the east coast kind with bright flashes of light and great rolling thunder. I remembered all the nights in Connecticut, as a kid, watching the flashes and counting the seconds to the thunder to figure out how far away it was. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. . . . Five seconds to a mile. I’d hear it coming closer then move away. What was the minimum time? How close did it get? Funny how something as simple as a thunderstorm could bring back such a specific childhood memory. Didn’t get too close last night – fifteen seconds was the shortest – 3 miles.

Walking to LCT today, I felt like an actor on stage with a good scene partner. Everyday, something about her performance is slightly different, still the same but something changes just a little and it makes it new – like the first time all over again. Each day I discover the city all over again. Not a copy but a re-creation that has changed very subtly.

Last night we had a brown bag dinner about staging opera. I went to Ollies Noodle House and got fried rice. I’ve missed Chinese food. Next week after this thing is over, I’m going to go to Chinatown and pig out.

I wonder how much weight I’ve gained? Probably a good bit.

We had an early morning session on how American Theater works. It was primarily for the foreign directors but several of us sat in on it. Here are my notes:

Most non musicals have three weeks of rehearsal, one week of tech then 4 to 6 weeks of previews. Major changes are made during the previews based in part on how the audience reacts. Actors often find themselves rehearsing a scene one way during the day but performing it another way at night. This is an exhausting grind – twelve hour days. About ten days before opening, the play is fixed and no more major changes are made. About six days before opening the press is invited so they can write their reviews to come out just after opening night.

Shakespeare in the Park does most of its performances as previews – the tickets are free and they always have full houses – and they don’t want the reviews.

New York theater is run by the unions. Things as simple as turning on the lights in a theater has to be done by a union worker and could cost up to $2,000. An experienced director at LCT will earn about $2,000 a week. TV pays $35,000 a week.

93% of the union actors are unemployed at any given time.

LCT has 46,000 members. There is a three year waiting list. They have found that their members are growing older. The young members don’t renew on time and the older ones are right there. Members pay $35 a year and get to buy tickets to a preview for $35 – about half price. When I asked if the members get any other privileges like electing the board of directors. They seemed horrified that a member might actually elect the board. There are no other bennies to membership.

We listened to Ira Weitzman who produces musicals for LCT. Here are my notes:

LCT doesn’t do any work on musicals unless they fully intend to produce it. Over the years about 98% of the ones they start working on get produced.

There was a lot of talk about The Light In The Piazza which got it’s start n Seattle. Bart Sher directed it like a play with music rather than a musical. The difference isn’t obvious but makes a big difference. After Seattle Piazza went to Chicago and then on to New York.. There were a lot of changes to the show between Chicago and New York.

For the last twenty years, every composer and writer wanted to be like Sondheim. Not so anymore. He is seeing young artists (Playwrights, composers, lyricists) doing their own thing.

Music lets you feel the feeling.
A Play lets you think the thoughts.
A Musical lets you feel the thoughts.

“If they’re in love they sing. If they’re making love, they dance.”

Next year, LCT is doing South Pacific. Ira was asked why they are doing an old piece like that. His response was they maybe we don’t know South Pacific as well as we thought we did. The messages of that show are relevant all over again today.

He said that many feel that a musical is a lighter, more entertaining form of theater. They are missing what musical theater can do and therefore make it trivial.

As an aside: One thing that I never appreciated before is the true effect of the 9/11 tragedy on New Yorkers. This is really the single biggest thing that has ever happened here. I don’ think those of us on the west coast, or at least me, have any real idea just how much it affected people living here.

Just before our lunch break, we toured Lincoln Center Theaters. The larger theater, the Vivian Beaumont, has over 1,000 seats depending on the stage arrangement. You can not imagine how big the stage is. It is the third largest stage in NYC after the Met Opera and Rockefeller Center. All of Orcas Center could probably fit on that stage plus there is a great thrust which can serve as the orchestra pit for a musical or be decked over for a straight play. The seating arrangement is really intimate – you would never know there were 1,000 seats – none of them at over 50 feet from the stage. The smaller Mitzi Newhouse is a 300 seat theater which has the acting area on the floor and the seats raked up from there. It is three quarters in the round. It is so quiet in the Newhouse that you could hear a pin drop. A whisper sounds like a scream and can be heard anywhere in the room.

Wednesday afternoon they broke us up into groups to work on “emotion”. It is hard to explain in a few words. But we separated ourselves by how much emotion we want in a play. I ended up in the second group from the top although I thought I should be in the top group. People were fighting to be in the top group and I just gave up and settled for the second group.

We spent the evening trying to figure out how to present the Guare play we had worked on two weeks ago. It was a terrible experience. Enough said. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that we drank our dinner? A first for me – at least at Lincoln Center.

Tuesday, June 19th

Tuesday 4 – June 19th

It hasn’t been my fault I haven’t posted for two days. The great internet computer has been so busy that I haven’t been able to log in.

Interesting walking to LCT. Today the mothers were out in force pushing every size and type of stroller. At one end there are the big units with tires that would fit a car. Some are almost the size of and look like HumVee’s. Then there are the twelve wheel, four axel two seat models. Some older kids have little tricycles with a long push handle on it.

Sight of the morning: A woman comes out of an apartment on West End Avenue with a little dog in her arms. She sets the dog down on the sidewalk and starts to take the dog for a walk. The dog sits down. The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end and starts to walk again. The dog sits again. The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end again and carefully aligns the dog with the sidewalk. She starts to walk again and the dog sits again. The woman picks up the dog and carries it off.

Today was another busy day. Our days are getting even more hectic as our days remaining winds down. We are now having brown bag sessions during the lunch and dinner breaks. These are sessions the group decided to hold so we could talk about common problems.

Our day started off with 90 minutes talking to Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of LCT.

He described the start of the Non Profit theaters in the late 1960’s. At that time theaters were all doing the old standards and new material came from touring Broadway shows. By the 1980’s the regional theaters were looking for new works but most came from playwrights living nearby. In New York, Playwrights Horizons was trying to support all playwrights by giving them support including readings and productions. Playwrights Horizons had fallen on hard times when Bishop took it over. He narrowed the focus and concentrated on the most promising playwrights: Wasserstein, Finn, Durang, Gurney.

He said the diversity of what is happening around the country is truly astounding. Millions of people go to American theaters each year to see new plays. He is not sure the current new play production model is outdated but it may have become too big.

Last season, for the first time in his life, he did not have any new plays or playwrights to work with. They are in school, have commissions to work with other theaters or are otherwise occupied. “I don’t know if I get the play, but I get the quality of the writing”.

The landscape of theater is changing again. Theaters are being forced, in a good way, to open their doors for a new generation of playwrights. He said he expected to spend the rest of his life working with the writers he grew up with.

He said writers get trapped by tying themselves to second rate directors. They have to be willing to cut the string when the time is right. There are many, many, many more plays today so the competition it tough.

LCT has the only thrust stage in NYC. Remember that thrust stages work well for majestic productions not walls and doors.

In response to a question he said that failure is more interesting to talk about than it is to go through. He said he is not certain that writers, directors and producers learn much from failures because a defense mechanism sets in. He said that he thinks the some of their failures were some of the best work they’ve done.

He doesn’t pick a season. He picks work as he finds good material that appeals to him.

American Theater needs good directors as much, if not more than, it news new playwrights.

He said that the best way for a young director to move up is to work with a GOOD director who can recommend them for a job that is right for them.

He said the best thing about drama schools are the friendships that will last for the rest of your life. He said he is leery of directors coming out of schools who have been taught by bitter, out of work directors.

We spent time talking to Ben Cameron in the afternoon. He used to be the Executive Director of TCG – the national organization of the nonprofit professional theaters. A really interesting speaker. The first speaker who got a standing ovation from us. I’m too tired to include all my notes – maybe another day.

We had asked LCT to put aside some time so we could talk to each other about who we were as directors. We did the speed dating thing: Sit across from another director and have 60 seconds to tell them what kind of work you do as a director. Then they get 60 seconds. Then you have 5 seconds to change seats and do it all over again – 60 times. It took 2 ½ hours and the noise level was unbelievable and we were all hoarse by the end of the night. It wasn’t very successful for me because I didn’t have time to write down what the others did.

Long day. Today was even longer but that is for another day.

Sunday,June 17th and Monday, June 18th

Monday 4, June 18th

Ten days till I go home.

I love New York.

I feel guilty because I keep falling behind in my blogs.

Back to the weekend. I finally found that there is human life in New York City. For the first time ever, someone spoke to me on the street. First: how it came about. There are five main streets between 80th and Lincoln Center. On the east we have Central Park West (very seldom take that one). Then moving west we have Columbus (lots of businesses) , Amsterdam (wall to wall restaurants), Broadway (all sorts of businesses including some restaurants), West End (residential) and Riverside (the park to the west, mostly residential to the east). Except that Broadway curves eastward. At 80th Broadway is east of West End Avenue but by 72nd street it crosses Amsterdam and by 65th (Lincoln Center) it crosses Columbus. So I can take a number of walking routes to get to LCT. On Sunday I was walking on West End Avenue – you know just taking in the scenery – human and otherwise – when another pedestrian (a woman) actually looked at me. NO ONE in New York ever looks at someone else. Not only did she look at me – she talked to me. She said “nice hat”. I said “thank you”. I was wearing my straw hat so I probably deserved the compliment but it was totally unexpected. It reminded me of Lopez where everyone waves – just to remind everyone that there is a real live person in this hunk of metal that is approaching you. When I tried to explain it to my friend Hank tonight, he was surprised that I thought that someone in NYC might actually have time to talk to me or even look at me.

Before I get to Sunday, just a minute about today. Today was our day off. I took off at 10 am, walked to Times Square (38 blocks) with a few stops along the way including LCT. I stopped because I wanted to print out version five of a scene that is troubling me. I know what I want out of it but I just can’t seem to get there. Anyway, LCT has a computer lab that we get to use. I wasn’t sure they would let me in but there was no problem. I think I was the only person in the whole compound. I printed out the latest version of the scene. It still doesn’t work. By the time I get to Times Square, it is noon so I try the Olive Garden – I have my usual (in Washington) – soup and salad. I particularly like the Toscana soup but it is very bland. That is my take on food in New York – it is all bland – except hotdogs from the street vendors – they are really good. During lunch I worked on the scene – still not there.

Then I went down to Bryant Park – a nice park – New York has a lot of very nice parks. Worked on the script. The reason I went there is that I had a 4 pm party for an English director who had to leave a week early to start work on a play she is directing next week. Not her choice. I had come to know her and think a lot of her. We’ll here from her later in life – although maybe in England.

My social life is getting busy. Today I had the going away party at 4 pm, dinner with Hank at 5:30 and a birthday party for another lab director at 8 pm.

Now back to the reason I’m here.

On Sunday we had another session with David Grimm on play writing. When we left him on Saturday, he asked us to think of the worst thing that could happen to the character we developed Saturday. I wrestled with lots of things but when I was walking to LCT on Sunday morning (just before the lady complimented me on my hat) I passed a residential home for those with Alzheimers. I decided that would be the worst thing that could happen to her. When I was writing the scene, the salty language turned out to be an early indicator of Alzheimers. Nice closure.

Anyway, David took all the stuff we had typed up from Saturday and selected stuff that we will present on Tuesday. He picked two of the thing I had written. I’ll share them with you someday.

After lunch each playwright (remember that we are really directors) cast his or her play from the other directors. I was lucky. Of the ten in our group there are seven women and three men. Of the three men, I’m the only one with English as their first language. Matteo is Italian and Michel is from The Netherlands so I got cast a lot. We will read them Tuesday.

Matteo is a cool guy. He wears black. Black suit, black shirt, black tie. But he pulls it off. It really looks good on him. Michel is a composer of music. Both really nice guys.

David Grimm is a guy we need to get to Orcas.

So much for the last two days.