THIS SUNDAY - THE HOLIDAY BRUNCH

The Holiday Brunch!

It's the most wonderful time of the brunch. Once again the playwrights of Youngblood turn their jaundiced, eggnog-soaked eye to the holidays. Five brand new plays about family, togetherness, charity and good cheer!

ONCE THE HOLIDAYS ARE OVER AND
EVERYTHING SETTLES DOWN
by Meghan Deans
directed by Nelson Eusebio
with Devere Rogers and Patricia Randell*

THIS CHRISTMAS LAST

by Angela Hanks

directed by José Angel Santana*

with Shyko Amos* and Shawn Randall

THE KID WHO'S FRIENDS WITH THE FAMOUS TREE
a new musical by Eric March
directed by Carlos Armesto
with Jake Aron, Brian Hastert, Eugene Oh and Dan Ziskie*

AND RICHIE'S STILL AN ELF

by Christopher Sullivan

directed by Jamie Richards*

with Steven Boyer, Jackie Chung* and David Gelles*

AND THEY MADE LATKES
by Emily Chadick Weiss
directed by Colette Robert
with Britt Lower and Joe Petrilla

* member of Ensemble Studio Theatre

Five brand new plays, plus our fabulous BRUNCH BUFFET of pancakes, eggs, bacon, pastries and our fiscally irresponsible open bar - all for just $18! Special holiday beverages may be had!

Reservations are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!
just email here: boxoffice@ensemblestudiotheatre.org
or call (212) 247-4982 x105

Sunday, December 5, doors open at 12:30pm for the buffet (food goes fast so get there early!) show starts at 1pm.

PLEASE NOTE: We usually have a waiting list, so any reservation not picked up by 10 minutes before curtain time can NOT be guaranteed.

Ensemble Studio Theatre
2nd Floor
549 West 52nd Street (bet. 10/11)

If you like Youngblood, go "Like" Youngblood on Facebook!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THANK YOU BILL REILLY

THANK YOU BILL REILLY, AS BEST A FRIEND AS ANYONE COULD EVER HAVE.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THE NEW BUSINESS OF ENTERTAINMENT

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

"CHARACTER" IN THE PERFORMANCE OF EVERYDAY LIFE OF THE "SUCCESSFUL ARTIST"

In the video clip referenced below (yesterday's post), from "char•ac•ter," Sidney Pollack talks about how the "Independent Activity" is the key that opens all the doors to acting and directing actors, I mentioned too (below) how the Mamet memo has its roots in the "Indpendent Activity." In the above clip, shard with me by Risa Bramon Garcia Master Class and Coaching, Kevin Spacey talks about the "character" of the successful artist, like an actor nailing down the "character" of the "successful artist," in terms of the "what," the "why," the "urgency," in show business the "where," - the elements of "Independent Activity" of the successful actor in the performance of everyday life.

Oh, and what the heck, this is: SHOW BUSINESS!

"Real Dreams" by Trevor Griffiths

The Other Stages August 8 - August 18, 1984

José Angel Santana and Kevin Spacey: credit Bob Marshak

From Trevor Griffith's "Real Dreams" clockwise in the rear Nina Bernstein, Scott Burkholder, Lucinda Jenny. - Williamstown Theatre Festival, 1984.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY

Disclaimer and in full disclosure: I do not know, have never met nor spoken to the makers of the documentary "char•ac•ter".

From the last recorded interview with Sidney Pollack from "char•ac•ter" produced and directed by Drago Sumonja.

Greetings everyone,

Not long ago I posted about the documentary "char•ac•ter"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/10/character.html

Today, a very well regarded, highly respected, and fine actor colleague friend of mine sent me this email note after I recommended and he watched the movie documentary "char•ac•ter". He wrote:

"The film is wonderful, especially the supplemental footage.
Tell me, Pollack was fascinating about the "Independent Activity."

Care to elucidate?"

It would take volumes . . . to really get into it, but the questions raised
by Pollack's segment about the "Independent Activity" reverberate through Mamet's notorious "MASTER CLASS MEMO"

http://working-with-actors.blogspot.com/2010/03/david-mamets-master-class-memo.html

Which is to say that the "Independent Activity" impacts writing, directly, and acting in a most powerful way. It's a technical term and approach to expressing, finding and portraying the inner life of a character at all phases of the creative process.

It's actually a lot more than that too . . .

Sometimes questions are better than answers.

Good morning,
José

Note: The only issue I take with this otherwise extraordinary and essential documentary "char•ac•ter" is that it's devoid of a feminine perspective on the subject of acting and directing. This thus opens the door for that doc, that has yet to be made.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

JILL CLAYBURGH'S UNFORGETTABLE "UNMARRIED WOMEN"

Jill Clayburgh as Erica in "An Unmarried Woman" in 1978.

Clayburgh’s Unforgettable ‘Unmarried Woman’

An Appraisal
By Janet Maslin

Published: November 7, 2010

In the most famous scene in Jill Clayburgh’s most influential movie, her character reacted to the news that her husband wanted to leave her. Ms. Clayburgh’s Erica responded with such naturalness, confusion and wounded pride that she captured the imagination of a generation.

“As Miss Clayburgh plays this scene,” Vincent Canby wrote about “An Unmarried Woman” in 1978, “one has a vision of all the immutable things that can be destroyed in less than a minute, from landscapes and ships and reputations to perfect marriages.” But she proved that a reputation could be made in less than a minute too.

Has any actor’s career ever been more powerfully affected by a prefix? It was the “un” in “Unmarried” that established Ms. Clayburgh’s creative power. Women’s roles had been changing irrevocably, and a new assertiveness was being established and understood. But the usual story lines of that era followed female characters’ quests for independence and authority. Heroines rebelled. They picked themselves up and moved out. They took action. They weren’t acted upon.

Their roles were often sharply defined, but Erica’s was not. Paul Mazursky, the writer and director, had a divorced friend who described herself as “an unmarried woman” on a mortgage application. Extrapolating from that, he envisioned the story of a Manhattan wife set adrift. But Ms. Clayburgh’s shaping of the character was utterly and unmistakably her own, just as surely as its impact on female movie audiences was universal. And the unaffected nature of the performance became its most distinctive feature. She didn’t have the tics of Diane Keaton, the steel of Jane Fonda, the feistiness of Sally Field, the uncanny adaptability of Meryl Streep. She simply had the gift of resembling a real person undergoing life-altering change. In her signature role, that was enough.

“Mr. Mazursky has written a marvelous role for the actress, so I suppose it’s not unfair of him to depend on her to carry the movie,” Mr. Canby wrote. Carry it she did.

Ms. Clayburgh, who died at her Connecticut home on Friday at 66 after living with chronic leukemia for 21 years, had been on stage and screen for a decade before giving this definitive performance. But she could be awkwardly miscast and at first often was. She was blond, willowy and beautiful, but she was about as much like Carole Lombard as James Brolin was like Clark Gable (“Gable and Lombard,” 1976). Without “An Unmarried Woman” she might never have found her niche.

But once she did, she began a streak. She went from playing an opera star in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1979 “Luna,” one of the most conversation-stopping films ever to open the New York Film Festival. She made widely seen comedies about smart, interesting women (“Starting Over” in 1979, “It’s My Turn” in 1980). She even turned up on the Supreme Court (“First Monday in October” in 1981), a likable presence even in highly unlikely circumstances. “The F.B.I. is wrong in reporting to you that I have no children,” she had to tell cinematic senators in that film. “Ideas are my children, and I have hundreds of them.”

Then she and her husband, the playwright David Rabe, had real children, Lily and Michael. And although Ms. Clayburgh kept working, her public presence grew more intermittent, the available film roles more motherly or eccentric. (She appeared in the 2006 film version of Augusten Burroughs’s “Running With Scissors.”) She was so greatly missed that any major appearances were apt to be described as comebacks (two television series in the late ’90s, “Barefoot in the Park” on Broadway in 2006), but the roles that should have been welcoming hardly existed anymore. Only in life did anyone wonder what had become of all those Ericas 30 years later.

She remained elegant, lovely and so recognizable that she became accustomed to being treated as an avatar. “My God, you’ve defined my entire life for me,” one weeping “Unmarried Woman” fan told her in 2002, and that experience was apparently not unusual for her. When she and Lily, an actress, roomed together in Manhattan in 2005 as both of them prepared for stage appearances, a writer for The New York Times visited the 61-year-old eternal heroine and still saw her unforgettable movie persona.

“Jill Clayburgh appears to be living in an updated Jill Clayburgh vehicle,” Nancy Hass wrote. “Fluttery-yet-determined mom flees comfortable exurban married life to share tiny Manhattan apartment of headstrong, aspiring-actress daughter. Conflict, hilarity and, of course, self-actualization ensue.” For Jill Clayburgh, in both her life and work, that’s just what happened.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."