WORKING WITH ACTORS

José Angel Santana :|: The Art of Connecting

2012-01-27T13:42:00.004-05:00

T.J.PARSELL - PRISONER NO MORE

2012-01-17T13:57:00.002-05:00

If you are anywhere near Croton Falls, NY this Saturday night at 7PM, this is important stuff. A truly unique, individual and courageous story. The article below is reprinted from lohud.com

In 1978, T.J. Parsell was 17, living in Michigan as a member of a family deeply mired in bad decisions. His father, grandfather, several uncles and his older brother had all been incarcerated at one time or another. Yet, even now, 35 years later, he’s not sure what spurred him to pick up a toy gun and pretend to rob a pretty girl at a photo booth — mostly, he says, as a way to get her attention. It was the wrong kind of attention: She handed over $53, which, Parsell says, he took and ran.

He was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to Jackson State Prison, where the scared, skinny, nonviolent teen was immediately singled out. “On my first day there — the same day that my classmates were getting ready for the prom — a group of older inmates spiked my drink, lured me down to a cell and raped me,” he recounted in a 2006 Op-Ed piece for The New York Times.

It was a pattern of abuse that continued for nearly five years of incarceration. Along the way, Parsell was “sold” to an inmate who eventually ended up protecting his “fish,” came to terms with the fact that he was gay, fell in love with a fellow inmate and managed to complete high school behind bars.

Against all the odds, Parsell, who struggled with drugs and alcohol, graduated from college and had a successful 20-year career in the software industry. Now a third-year film student at the Kanbar Institute of Film & Television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Parsell will be at The Schoolhouse Theater in Croton Falls on Saturday to present three short films; two are based on his bestselling book, “Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison,” (Da Capo Press, 2007).

Although not quite ready for the Sundance Film Festival, Parsell was nonetheless thrilled to be in the company of Martin Scorcese and Helen Mirren last week at the National Board of Review’s annual film awards gala. “Not as a filmmaker, no,” he laughs. “As NYU. film students, we get to go to the screenings, and also to volunteer. I was a volunteer at the event.”

Still, his fledgling film career is a positive goal. “I am having a second childhood and run around with these young people,” he says. “But I have my moments; you know, you have these raging arguments with yourself, ‘should I be doing this?’ I am 51 and I figure if I don’t do it now...”

Parsell’s film is still a work in progress, but it’s as unflinching and candid as his book. He says the retelling is part of recovery, so much so that he speaks out all over the country; he served as as president of Stop Prisoner Rape (now known as Just Detention International) and has served as a consultant to the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.

“I have a really amazing adult life; I feel very fortunate, exceptionally fortunate that I was able to get out,” he says. “On one level, I am a testament to the inherent ability of the troubled teen to be able to transcend his circumstances and become productive. I deserved to be punished, there was no question about that,” he continues. “And there are people who say, ‘you get what you deserve’; that if you don’t want to be raped, stay out of prison. But, you see a young kid going in there, and yes, he is troubled, but he doesn’t deserve that. I think that’s what I am trying to capture.”

“T.J. is an amazing person; what’s he’s done is to turn incredible hardship and injustice into advocacy to help keep others safe,” says Lovisa Stannow, executive direction for Just Detention International. “He’s been an exhaustless champion against prison rape and trying to ensure teenage offenders are placed in appropriate settings.”

Parsell actually filmed part of his film in Jackson State Prison, and scenes were shot in the the very cell where he was once incarcerated. “Shooting our film at Jackson Prison was actually empowering; for eight days, I owned the prison I was in,” he says. “I was low key about who I was, so when a guy from the prison said, ‘I am going to Google you tonight,’ I was a little nervous. The next day, he came back and said, “I Googled you, and I realized you are responsible for a lot of the rules we have in here. That was an incredible experience.”

The Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed in 2003, is part of the reason for those rule changes. Says Parsell, “in the last eight years, there’s not a correction department in this country that hasn’t been involved in the conversation; everyone has been engaged.”

Laying bare the story of what happened to him in prison was also emotional for his family, but Parsell says he prepared them all, and in a strange twist, it was their support that helped him move on with his project. “My parents, as any parents would be that lost sons, were filled with all kinds of questions, ‘what could they have done differently?’ and fueled by that, they got behind me. Simple awareness is curative,” Parsell says.

Parsell says that the constant retelling of his story and reliving the past is never easy, but necessary. “Activism is a way to take that stuff and change it into a vehicle for change.”

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

CINDY CHEUNG IN "SPEAK UP CONNIE"

2012-01-16T18:10:00.007-05:00

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

WAITING ON OTHERS - EPISODE 1 - BRING YOUR A-GAME

2012-01-16T12:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.waitingonothers.com/

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

CHARLIE KAUFMAN BAFTA SCREENWRITER'S LECTURE

2012-01-12T23:23:00.002-05:00

My friend Risa Bramon Garcia sent me this from here blog post "In the Company of Naked Wounds." I think it's important. Thank you Risa.

TWO LINKS

http://guru.bafta.org/charlie-kaufman-screenwriters-lecture-video

http://bcove.me/e0ft4h8z

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

KRISTINA NIKOLOVA - "FAITH, LOVE AND WHISKEY"

2012-01-11T15:22:00.010-05:00

FACEBOOK

SCREENINGS DATE AND TIME

Faith, Love and Whiskey from Mollye Asher .

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

DRAMA MANDALA

2012-01-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

the Abe Polsky "Drama Mandala"

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

THE RING OF TRUTH

2012-01-06T12:32:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, January 5, 2012 I shared this with some friends and former students:

a beginning

Over the years my students have regularly encouraged me to write my teachings down and to share them with others. Recently, one student in particular more than any of the others. If ever there was a good time to begin, now is that time.

Since this work has always been collaborative for me, I really don't know how to do it alone. I'm going to share it with you now a "very very first draft" of the beginning of the story. Because, yes, I also don't know how to say anything outside of the story form.

Preface (rough draft):

As a student of Sanford Meisner at The Neighborhood Playhouse I received a most precious gift, a guiding belief in the great value of "a sense of truth." It was the standard to which Mr. Meisner and all his subordinate teachers and students were devoted. Each day we strove toward grasping this illusive term, I had never heard before, "a sense of truth." Over the course of two years of ceaseless practice and observation of countless exercises designed to hone one's "sense of truth," it was the standard to which the quality of all our work was always measured.

The question always, "How does the work at hand square with one's sense of truth?"

In time I came to realize it had a ring to it, a "ring of truth." One could best detect it in the sound of a person's inner emotional life. Visually, the best way to detect it was to determine, "is the person really doing something or are they pretending to do it?"

Nothing less than "the ring of truth" was ever acceptable to Mr. Meisner. Fortunately for his students, he had perfect pitch for the "ring of truth." One could always count on what seemed like his x-ray vision into each student's soul, usually by means of his extraordinary ear for emotional life and for his uncanny ability to detect the most miniscule diversion from "the reality of doing."

He was our tuning fork, by which, over time we each learned to tune our own instruments.

Since then, this ethos has been the foundation for all my creative work. Though I've often fallen short, due to my own limitations, I do not recall ever consciously compromising my sense of truth, in the work, for anything or any body.

William "Bill" Reilly and I shared these same artistic values.

(to be continued)

Syntax and punctuation are not my strong suit. Please forgive. This is my first rough draft.

Moving forward today (January 6), I came across a piece I've given my students for years:

The Ring of Truth
by Vernon Howard adapted by José Angel Santana

A Swiss shepherd girl was kidnapped by passing gypsies. As she was hustled away inside the wagon, she heard the ringing of the village bell. The sound became fainter and fainter as the wagon carried her away. But that bell's special tone made a permanent impression upon her mind.

Years later, as she grew up, the memory of that bell stirred a restless urge within. It made her weary of the gypsy life. she longed to return to her rightful home. So she broke away from the gypsy camp and began her search. She wandered from country to country, village to village, listening intensely for the special ring of that single bell. She heard many peals as she journeyed along, but she always detected a false ring, and so refused to be lured away.

Finally, while pausing by the roadside to rest, she heard a faintly familiar peal. She turned in its direction. The farther she walked the more swiftly she stepped. Something within her knew that she was hearing her village bell at last. And she followed it all the way home.

Likewise, the ring of truth is inside every person. And this is not something merely mystical or philosophical. It is a practical fact. If one learns to listen, if we refuse to be lured away by false sounds, we will find our way home. The ring of truth will always be recognized by the person who listens. And everyone has the capacity to listen and to follow.

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

PERNELL WALKER INTERVIEW - "PARIAH"

2012-01-03T23:35:00.000-05:00

http://focusfeatures.com/pariah

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

2011-12-31T08:38:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!!! I hope that everyone should rock out and enjoy all day as much as Sarah Hess does in this vid. Happy New Year!!!
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

WAITING ON OTHERS: KITCHEN GUY

2011-12-29T10:54:00.001-05:00

http://www.waitingonothers.com
https://www.facebook.com/WaitingOnOthers

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

MOMENT TO MOMENT

2011-12-28T12:35:00.000-05:00

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

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT

2011-12-25T13:21:00.000-05:00

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

NYU RESPONSE TO RECENT PRESS

2011-12-22T19:28:00.027-05:00

[This post has been voided. I did so because while it had clearly shown the basis for the claims in the NYPOST report, and refuted any possibility of FERPA violation, I have chosen to retard the fuel on the fire. Others' commentary, both pro and con, the healthy debate, together with my own remarks or links cover the situation in a way that any reasonable person can find the truth. One can also click through this text link. "The thing speaks for itself." ] - Sincerely, José Angel Santana, PhD

José Angel Santana, PhD

2011-12-21T01:51:00.019-05:00

DIRECTING THE ACTOR II SPRING 2010
(SYLLABUS FIRST PAGE)

Directing the Actor II
H68.2115.01 H68.2115.02
Spring 2010
Friday: 10:00am – 1:00pm 2:00 – 5:00
New York University
Tisch School of the Arts
The Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television
Department of Film and Television
Graduate Program

José Angel Santana, Ph.D.
Email: j.a.santana@nyu.edu

DIRECTING THE ACTOR II continues to explore and focus on the best practices for Directors working with Actors: the task to GUIDE THE ACTION; the concepts of ACTION, OBJECTIVE, and JUSTIFICATION; the process – TO SEE, TO EXPERIENCE and TO SHARE.

Students will practice guiding the specific actions by leading actors in both group and paired improvisations. To do so, student directors will learn the dynamics of dramatic structure from an actor’s point-of-view. Students will learn about the deeper implications of ACTION, OBJECTIVE and JUSTIFICATION and how it informs the craft of acting and directing in the service of dramatic writing.

Through the use of improvisation, from both the actor's and director's point-of-view, student directors will learn of the great importance of the concepts: THE REALITY OF DOING, CONTACT, LISTENING AND ANSWERING, THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY, THE MOMENT, COMMON KNOWLEDGE, RELATIONSHIP, SPECIFICITY, and BEHAVIOR, as they relate to the making of narrative motion pictures.

In tandem, student directors will learn script analysis and its enormously useful implications to the interpreting of and directing narrative film.

Through the use of specific exercises and a piece of dramatic literature, the class will function as a collaborative group, one that reflects the dynamics of all theatrical productions. As such, the instructor will model behaviors that set a tone to invite: respect for co-workers, group participation, discussion, reflection, permission to dissent, inquiry, and a safe place to risk; all, with an emphasis on DOING.

Course Requirements and Grading:

100% attendance and 100% participation.

Curriculum vitae

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

DIRECTOR DAVID CRONENBERG ON WORKING WITH ACTORS

2011-12-18T13:55:00.001-05:00

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

WAITING ON OTHERS - CREATOR INTERVIEW

2011-12-14T14:45:00.008-05:00

www.waitingonothers.com

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

CONGRATULATIONS BROOKE SWANEY AND KENDRA MYLNECHUK WHO ARE GOING TO SUNDANCE

2011-12-07T13:48:00.003-05:00

2012 Sundance Film Festival Announces Short Film Program

:|: OFFICIAL SELECTION :|:

OK BREATHE AURALEE (Director and screenwriter: Brooke Swaney) — Auralee wants a baby and will go to great lengths to get what she wants.

Director and screenwriter: Brooke Swaney

Kendra Mylnechuk plays "Auralee"

Park City, UT — Sundance Institute announced today the program of short films selected to screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. This year's Short Film program is comprised of 64 short films selected from a record 7,675 submissions, up 16% over submissions for the 2011 Festival. The Festival will be January 19 through 29 in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.

link

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

Teatro Lincoln

2011-11-22T01:43:00.008-05:00

Visit: www.TeatroLincoln.com
Like: www.facebook.com/TeatroLincoln
Subscribe: www.youtube.com/TeatroLincoln

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

SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS

2011-11-07T18:40:00.002-05:00

Arrested for participating in the White Rose resistance movement, anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) is subjected to a highly charged interrogation by the Gestapo, testing her loyalty to her cause, her family and her convictions. Based on true events, director Marc Rothemund's absorbing Oscar-nominated drama explores maintaining human resolve in the face of intense pressure from a system determined to silence whistle-blowers.

Netflix streaming: Sophie Scholl

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

PETER BRODERICK

2011-11-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

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

Daniel B. BURKE; HELPED ENGINEER CAPITAL CITIES-ABC DEAL

2011-10-26T15:52:00.005-04:00

As a freshman at The University of Vermont, with no contacts but wanting to pursue a career in journalism, I wrote to Daniel Burke. He not only replied but provided mentoring to me throughout my college years. Going so far as to offer me a start upon my graduation. By then, I had chosen a different path in life.

Over the years I stayed in touch with him through brief correspondences that he'd always reply too. I have always cherished the generosity, time, and consideration that he extended to me over the years, for no other reason but to simply help. It has meant the world to me throughout my life that someone so decent and classy as Mr. Burke would recognize the potential in me, a Cuban street kid, from Union City, New Jersey. At times, when I have doubted myself, I have remembered him.

I learned what I know about mentoring from Daniel Burke.

The world has lost such a wonderful man.

Sincerely,

José Angel Santana

:|:

October 26, 2011

Daniel B. Burke Dies at 82; Helped Engineer Capital Cities-ABC Deal

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Daniel B. Burke, who helped engineer the acquisition of the American Broadcasting Company by Capital Cities, one of the boldest corporate takeovers of the 1980s, and went on to become chief executive of the merged company, died on Wednesday at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 82.

The cause was complications from Type 1 diabetes, the family said in a statement.

Mr. Burke worked for most of his career alongside Thomas S. Murphy, whom he served as a trusted lieutenant and partner. Mr. Murphy had been a Harvard Business School classmate of Mr. Burke’s older brother, James E. Burke, who later became the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson.

Daniel Burke and Mr. Murphy were a formidable pair. Together they built Capital Cities through a series of acquisitions and orchestrated the merger with ABC in 1986. While Mr. Murphy was the outside man, happy to be the public face of the company, Mr. Burke thrived as the inside man, the cost-conscious manager much less eager for publicity.

“He was really a partner,” said Mr. Murphy, who described their relationship as a collaboration between equals, even though Mr. Murphy was always a notch higher on the organizational diagram. “It was not a one or a two,” he said of their working relationship.

“As far as running the business and, particularly when we took over ABC, the details of putting that ship in order so we maximized our financial opportunities, a great deal of that was him,” Mr. Murphy said.

The acquisition of ABC, a much bigger company than Capital Cities, for $3.5 billion stunned the business world. It was the first time one of the nation’s three major broadcast networks had changed ownership, and at the time it was the biggest corporate acquisition outside the oil industry.

Despite the surprise, Wall Street reacted positively, not least because Capital Cities brought in Warren E. Buffett to help finance the purchase.

Mr. Burke became president and chief operating officer of the merged company, while Mr. Murphy was chairman and chief executive. Capital Cities was a highly profitable company that owned television and radio stations, newspapers and trade magazines. ABC was the third-largest network, but still a vast operation that ran television and radio stations and produced programming.

ABC insiders were skeptical about the acquisition at first, but Mr. Murphy and Mr. Burke turned the new company into a well-managed and profitable media conglomerate. Known as cost-cutters, they sought to replace a celebrity-oriented culture at ABC with a less profligate one that emphasized management teamwork.

Mr. Burke could be a tough task master, Mr. Murphy said, but he also had a deft way with people.

Daniel Barnett Burke was born in Albany on Feb. 4, 1929, a son of James and Mary Barnett Burke. His father was an insurance salesman. He grew up in Slingerlands, N.Y., outside Albany, and Dorset, Vt. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1950, served as an infantry lieutenant in the Korean War in 1951 and 1952, and received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1955.

After leaving Harvard, he worked for the Jell-O division of General Foods. In 1961, Mr. Murphy hired him to manage an Albany television station owned by Capital Cities. Mr. Burke became chief executive of Capital Cities/ABC in 1990, when Mr. Murphy retired from that position but stayed on as chairman. Mr. Burke retired in 1994.

In 1995 Mr. Murphy pulled off one more mega-deal: negotiating the sale of the company to Disney for $19 billion. In retirement, Mr. Burke lived in Maine and ran a minor league baseball team, the Portland Sea Dogs.

He was a director of Conrail, the federally operated freight railroad, from 1981 to 1986. He was also a director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and he was a chairman emeritus of New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

Two of his three sons also made careers in media. His oldest son, Stephen, held top posts at Comcast and Disney and in January 2011 was named chief executive of NBC Universal. His son Bill was president of TBS and the Weather Channel.

He is also survived by his wife of 54 years, Harriet; another son, Frank; a daughter, Sally McNamara; a brother, James; a sister, Phyllis B. Davis; and 14 grandchildren.

THE CASTING DIRECTORY*SOCIAL - 700 MEMBERS

2011-10-24T13:50:00.003-04:00

(click to enlarge)

The Casting Directory*Social

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

FOG CITY MAVERICKS

2011-10-19T14:03:00.001-04:00

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

imagine science films: SCIENCE FILM FESTIVAL - OCTOBER 14 - 21, NEW YORK

2011-10-05T13:57:00.001-04:00

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

PARSONS ET ALL SET T JOIN TRIBUTE TO GROUP THEATRE

2011-10-04T23:49:00.001-04:00

:|:

BROADWAYWORLD.COM

Frances Sternhagen, Estelle Parsons, Lois Smith, George Bartenieff, Marsha Warren, Director of the Paul Green Foundation, Wendy Smith, author of The Group Theatre book, Real Life Drama, are slated to join the 20 member ReGroup Ensemble in this one night benefit performance.

For the first time ever, letters and stories from the Group members along with scenes/monologues from their 23 plays will be woven together into a 2 hr narrative celebrating the the country's most influential theatre group. The event is a fundraiser for the non-profit ReGroup Theatre Company and will take place October 10, 2011 at 7 PM. The tribute will be held at Peter Norton Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, 2537 Broadway at 95th St. Tickets can be purchased online at www.symphonyspace.org or by calling 212-864-5400.

For the most up to date list of guest artists and speakers, please check out www.regrouptheatre.org

Though The Group turned out some of the top actors, directors and teachers, including Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Elia Kazan, Sanford Meisner to name a very few, they also worked with some of the greatest dramatists. Most remembered for the 6 plays of Clifford Odets, such as Golden Boy and Awake and Sing, The Group presented works by John Howard Lawson, Paul Green, Dawn Powell, Sidney Kingsley, and many more. Though most of them have been forgotten over the years, many due to the blacklist, these Great Depression era stories are once again extremely relevant. Several of the plays that will be represented during the tribute, including Nellise Child's Weep for the Virgins, Robert Ardrey's Casey Jones, and Irwin Shaw's Retreat to Pleasure have never been published, so this is a rare chance to get a glimpse of a piece of American Theatre History.

Regular priced tickets for the fundraiser are available for $55 in advance, tickets will be $75 at the door. In an effort to re-educate the young as to the power of great playwrighting, student tickets are $25. There will also be a limited number of VIP tickets available for $100 that will include a private reception with the artists after the show.

The ReGroup artistic team includes Allie Mulholland, Emily Ciotti, Linda Glick, Maurya Scanlon, Alex Ristov, Kelsey Moore, Shelley Valfer, Angelo Angrisani, Pete McElligott, Stephen Dexter, Rachel Casparian, Emilio Tirado, Kate Warren, Selena C. Dukes, Timothy Weinert, Shaun Bennet Wilson, Ben Weaver, Zach Wegner, Alexander Carney, Joseph McDonnell, Jaclyn Biskup, José Angel Santana, and John Moletress.

The non-profit ReGroup Theatre Company burst onto the scene in 2010 and has since presented 7 gripping staged readings of the Group plays. The ReGroup recently published a collection of 3 of the Group's plays for the first time in over 75 years. It features a foreword by Estelle Parsons. The "Lost" Group Theatre Plays: Volume 1 will be available for sale at the tribute and on their website at www.regrouptheatre.org Volume 2 is already in the works and will feature several Group plays that have never been in print.

Tickets for the fundraiser can be purchased through www.symphonyspace.org

October 10, 2011 7 PM 2537 Broadway at 95th Street New York, New York 10025

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

DARREN ARONOFSKY ON CONNECTING WITH AUDIENCE

2011-10-03T15:16:00.002-04:00

video platform video management video solutions video player
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

ACTIVE VERBS

2011-09-30T22:56:00.005-04:00

:|:

From "David Mamet: a life in the theater" by Ira Bruce Nadel

"I'm of the Aristotelian School: characters are nothing but habitual action. You don't create a character; you describe what he does. . .the theory of true action. . .is the essential understanding of drama." - David Mamet pp. 42

	Accelerate
	Accommodate
	Accomplish
	Accumulate
	Achieve
	Acquire
	Act
	Activate
	Adapt
	Add
	Address
	Adjust
	Administer
	Advertise
	Advise
	Advocate
	Aid
	Aide
	Align
	Allocate
	Amend
	Analyze
	Answer
	Anticipate
	Apply
	Appoint
	Appraise
	Approve
	Arbitrate
	Arrange
	Articulate
	Ascertain
	Assemble
	Assess
	Assign
	Assist
	Assume
	Attain
	Attend
	Attract
	Audit
	Augment
	Author
	Authorize
	Automate
	Avert
	Award
	Bargain
	Begin
	Bolster
	Boost
	Bought
	Brief
	Broaden
	Budget
	Build
	Built
	Calculate
	Calibrate
	Canvass
	Capture
	Care
	Catalog
	Catalogue
	Categorize
	Cater
	Cause
	Centralize
	Chair
	Charge
	Chart
	Check
	Clarify
	Classify
	Co-operate
	Coach
	Code
	Collaborate
	Collate
	Collect
	Combine
	Comfort
	Commence
	Communicate
	Compare
	Compile
	Complete
	Compose
	Compute
	Conceive
	Conceptualize
	Conciliate
	Conclude
	Condense
	Conduct
	Confer
	Confirm
	Connect
	Conserve
	Consider
	Consolidate
	Construct
	Consult
	Contact
	Contract
	Contribute
	Control
	Convert
	Convey
	Convince
	Cooperate
	Coordinate
	Copy
	Correct
	Correlate
	Correspond
	Counsel
	Create
	Critique
	Cultivate
	Customize
	Dealt with
	Debate
	Debug
	Decide
	Decrease
	Dedicate
	Deduce
	Defend
	Defer
	Define
	Delegate
	Deliver
	Demonstrate
	Depict
	Depreciated
	Derive
	Describe
	Design
	Detail
	Detect
	Determine
	Develop
	Devise
	Devote
	Diagnose
	Diagram
	Differentiate
	Direct
	Discharge
	Disclose
	Discover
	Discriminate
	Discuss
	Dispatch
	Display
	Dissect
	Disseminate
	Distinguish
	Distribute
	Diversify
	Document
	Draft
	Draw
	Drew
	Earn
	Edit
	Educate
	Effect
	Elect
	Elicit
	Eliminate
	Emphasize
	Employ
	Enable
	Encourage
	Enforce
	Engineer
	Enhance
	Enlarge
	Enlighten
	Enlist
	Enrich
	Ensure
	Enter
	Entertain
	Enumerate
	Equip
	Establish
	Estimate
	Evaluate
	Examine
	Exchange
	Execute
	Exercise
	Exhibit
	Expand
	Expedite
	Experiment
	Explain
	Explore
	Express
	Extend
	Extract
	Extrapolate
	Fabricate
	Facilitate
	Familiarize
	Fashion
	File
	Filter
	Finalize
	Fine-tune
	Fix
	Focus
	Forecast
	Formulate
	Fortify
	Forward
	Foster
	Found
	Frame
	Fund
	Furnish
	Further
	Gather
	Gauge
	Generate
	Govern
	Grade
	Grant
	Greet
	Guide
	Handle
	Head
	Help
	Highlight
	Hire
	Host
	Identify
	Illustrate
	Impart
	Implement
	Import
	Improve
	Improvise
	Incorporate
	Increase
	Index
	Individualize
	Influence
	Inform
	Initiate
	Innovate
	Inspect
	Inspire
	Install
	Institute
	Instruct
	Insure
	Integrate
	Interact
	Interface
	Interpret
	Intervene
	Interview
	Introduce
	Invent
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	Persuade
	Photograph
	Pilot
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	Plan
	Practice
	Predict
	Prepare
	Present
	Preserve
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	Print
	Prioritize
	Probe
	Process
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	Qualify
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	Quote
	Raise
	Ran
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	Read
	Reason
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	Reconcile
	Record
	Recreate
	Recruit
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	Reduce
	Refer
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	Route
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	Schedule
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	Set goals
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	Weigh
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	Withdraw
	Witness
	Write

FREE DICTIONARY

(Amazon Link)

Book Description:

ACTIONS: The Actors' Thesaurus is a vital companion for actors in rehearsal—a thesaurus of action words to revitalize performance.

Actors need actions. Actors cannot ‘act’ adjectives, they need verbs. Verbs are an aim to achieve, an action to perform.

‘Actions’ are active verbs. ‘I tempt you.’ ‘You taunt me.’ In order to perform an action truthfully--and therefore convincingly-- an actor needs to find exactly the right action to suit that particular situation and that particular line. That is where this book comes in….

ACTIONS is a thesaurus of active verbs that the actor can use to refine performance until s/he hits exactly the right one to help make the action come alive. ACTIONS: The Actors’ Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams has gathered together the (formerly) dogged-eared photocopied lists of action verbs from greenrooms and rehearsal rooms and put them together in this pocket-sized thesaurus. All with a view to helping actors get to the heart of meaning and to a great performance. This thesaurus of action words is indispensable in developing mood, line readings, and acting choices for each and every line.

From the Publisher
This new book just released by Drama Publishers gathers together -- for the first time -- the acting community’s –- formerly — secret lists of action words and makes them available in an organized and comprehensive format.

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

DARREN ARONOFSKYO ON WORKING WITH ACTORS

2011-09-21T10:56:00.004-04:00

The best words of wisdom I've heard about working with actors and finding your voice. Worth listening to "over and over and over again." - José Angel Santana
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

COLE WILEY WINS BEST SCREENPLAY

2011-09-20T08:25:00.002-04:00

Cole Wiley and Producer, Molly Asher

Cole Wiley wins Best Screenplay Award at the 15 Annual Urbanworld Festival for his script, AFTER THE STORM.

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

DARREN ARONOFSKY GIVES ADVICE TO ASPIRING FILMMAKERS

2011-09-19T10:53:00.007-04:00

Darren Aronofsky, who needs no introduction, sits down below for an interview about his early years attending graduate film school at AFI, his experiences famously shooting Pi for $20k, and gives some worthy advice for up-and-coming filmmakers.

nofilmschool.com

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

NY TIMES: THE NAME MIGHT ESCAPE, NOT THE WORK

2011-09-18T12:31:00.002-04:00

The Name Might Escape, Not the Work

By MANOHLA DARGIS and A. O. SCOTT

THE golden age of Hollywood may have passed, but these are boom times for great character actors. On the big screen and the small, in movies and in television, beautiful sad sacks like Paul Giamatti, Bryan Cranston and Steve Buscemi are running away with some of the best roles and lines going, and Viola Davis is suddenly on the verge of stardom.

Reality TV and the tabloids can have the plastic people with the corrugated stomachs and corrected cheekbones. This season will have its share of muscular action heroes and sexy vampires and suffering spouses, but the richness of the new movies is more likely to lie in the ragged human details. We’ll take the sagging jaw line, the suggestion of mortality, the kinds of faces and physiques we recognize from the shopping mall, the office, maybe even the mirror.

Character actors endow the make-believe of movies with personality. They’re the performers nibbling in the corners of the screen, like the ticking bomb played by Stephen Root in "Office Space,” a basement-cubicle casualty in thick glasses, lost in a miasma of humiliation. Their faces, bodies and performances linger in your memory even if you can’t quite recall their names.

One look at the hollowed-out cheeks and scarecrow physique of William Fichtner and you know his résumé (HBO’s “Entourage,” “The Dark Knight”). Shea Whigham you may know as the comically tough-talking con in “The Lincoln Lawyer,” while the velvet-smooth Isiah Whitlock Jr. was the other insurance guy rooming with Ed Helms and John C. Reilly in “Cedar Rapids.” Fans of “The Wire” also know Mr. Whitlock as Clay Davis, the genial and corrupt Maryland politician known for his ability to stretch a common four-letter-word into an endlessly adaptable, three-beat musical phrase.

The killer in “Zodiac” was an elusive phantom whose identity consumed the lives of that movie’s triumvirate of stars (Jake Gyllenhaal , Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo ). Evidence points to Arthur Leigh Allen, a beefy, balding Everyman played by John Carroll Lynch with a chilling mix of blandness and menace. If you’ve seen “Gran Torino,” “Shutter Island” or “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” you’re likely to recognize his face, and if you were unfortunate enough to endure “Love Happens,” a forgettable 2009 romantic comedy with Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston, you will be grateful to Mr. Lynch, who played a grief-stricken participant in a self-help seminar and supplied that film’s only moments of authentic emotion.

A star imports outsized individuality into every role, playing variations on a person we believe we know. A character actor, by contrast, transforms a well-known type into an individual. In “The Descendants,” Alexander Payne’s soon-to-be-released film (Nov. 18), Judy Greer , best known for kooky-friend roles in romantic comedies, makes a strong, poignant impression in a handful of scenes opposite George Clooney playing a fairly tangential character: the wife of the man Mr. Clooney’s character believes his wife had an affair with. Whether clueless, bewildered or tearful, she shifts the film’s center of gravity and alters its emotional chemistry: Ms. Greer reminds Mr. Clooney’s character and the audience mesmerized by his star power that it is not all about him.

Screenwriters don’t always give much thought to the feelings and aspirations of the zany co-worker, the flaky best friend, the low-level expendable criminal, the assistant D.A. or the doting or disapproving mother. But if Mom is played by Donna Murphy (“Higher Ground”) or Kathy Baker (to be seen in “Machine Gun Preacher,” opening Friday and “Take Shelter,” Sept. 30) — or Lois Smith (“Please Give”) or Celia Weston (“Knight and Day”) in a more grandmotherly register — our familiarity may grow into interest, our interest may blossom into sympathy and, without our necessarily knowing why, our emotional stake in the story may shift and deepen. An otherwise disposable character takes on the complexity of a real person. Give that actor a few good lines, and suddenly the character in question can become a tragic figure within the confines of a single, haunting scene, like the melancholic jazzman played by Barry Shabaka Henley, who meets his fate with the soft pops of a silencer in Michael Mann’s “Collateral.”

Movies tell the same stories over and over (boy meets girl, good fights evil), so it’s no surprise that character actors are often asked to traffic in stereotypes, ethnic and otherwise. The hardworking funnyman Ken Jeong, best known from his squirm-inducing roles in “The Hangover” comedies as the deranged giggling drug dealer Mr. Chow, walks and sometimes swishes a dangerous line as the Asian fop whose effeminacy and eccentricity inspire both honest and unsettling laughs. It’s impossible to know if Mr. Jeong’s in on the joke, just as it’s often hard to know what the joke is: that his characters are funny because of their eccentricities or because they’re Asian men and are therefore “exotic,” effeminate and all the noxious rest.

For a good actor, a stereotype can become an opportunity for subversion, whether scripted or not. African-American and Latina women have been typecast as maids since the silent era, but the tradition of turning those roles inside out — of communicating the humanity of marginal, taken-for-granted servants — stretches from Louise Beavers in the 1934 “Imitation of Life” and Hattie McDaniel in “Gone With the Wind,” to Adriana Barraza in “Babel” and Ms. Davis in one of this summer’s hits, “The Help.” Ms. Davis has long been one of the best character actresses, and few other performers around could snatch a movie from Meryl Streep as nimbly as Ms. Davis did in “Doubt,” her quiet intensity making Ms. Streep’s thick Bronx accent sound very loud. A star on the verge, Ms. Davis is having a much-deserved breakthrough moment that will last until the next Oscars.

“You can have a weak, utterly bad script, and a good cast will turn it into a good picture,” the director John Ford said. That’s why, while the studios picked the stars, he chose the lived-in faces and unmelodious voices that define his work as much as the mesas of his westerns and the towering figure of John Wayne. The film critic Tag Gallagher nicely observed that Ford’s films, like those of Howard Hawks, could be described as “a series of skits by character actors” and much the same can be said of the movies of Judd Apatow, a difference being that some of his favorites, including Seth Rogen, Jason Segal and Jonah Hill, broke out early from the ranks of bit players to become supporting players, headliners, even stars.

Not every character actor breaks into the majors, moving from the sidelines to the center as the camera, filmmakers and audiences take note. It takes something extra, the ability to hold the screen, not just embroider around its edges, and it helps of course if you have a patron like Mr. Apatow. Just a few years ago Mr. Hill, who costars in “Moneyball” (opening Friday) with Brad Pitt — one of the few real Hollywood stars around — was playing a bit part in Mr. Apatow’s “40-Year-Old Virgin” as an earnest young man anxiously trying to buy a pair of glitter high-heel platform boots at an eBay store. Seven years, many movies and lost pounds later, Mr. Hill has eased comfortably into supporting player mode, his recent weight loss perhaps an indication that like his sometime colleague, Mr. Rogen, he is looking to shed his fat and funny tag to become a utility player.

There have always been Hollywood stars who looked more like character actors than glamour gods and goddesses, though in the past their names were changed from Emanuel Goldberg to Edward G. Robinson and more than a few noses were bobbed. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Hollywood and the new let-it-all-hang-out realism meant that there was more room for different kinds of faces — like those belonging to Dustin Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould — who with their shaggy looks and hair would once have been relegated to a few lines, a walk-on or, at best, ethnic types. A durable star since the 1970s, Mr. Hoffman is essentially a character actor writ large, commanding attention by disappearing into his roles while also playing someone we recognize as a “Dustin Hoffman” type.

Traditional beauties like Mr. Pitt still have the advantage of course; that’s why the industry keeps trying to turn Ryan Reynolds into a major movie star. Mr. Pitt was a terrible star in his younger days and seemed to enter a narcoleptic haze when called to carry movies like “Meet Joe Black.” He came alive in tiny if crucial roles in movies like “12 Monkeys,” where as a twitchy, wildly gesticulating Looney Tunes of a mental patient he leaped around as if joyously liberated from the burdens of stardom. Johnny Depp has turned a plum character role, the dandyish pirate captain Jack Sparrow, into one of the best-paying gigs in contemporary movies, raking in millions with wildly exaggerated gestures and eyeliner and playing a role that now seems definitively Depp.

In the end the greatest difference between big stars and character actors may have more to do with fame than craft. As the ranks of large-scale, old-style movie stars continues to dwindle — and as more and more actors migrate between large screen and small, between franchise pictures and indie passion project — it is possible to imagine a vast democracy of talent taking shape. What James Joyce once said about his characters surely applies to ours: Here comes everybody.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/movies/in-praise-of-character-actors.html

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

NEW COMEDY WEB SERIES: THE SLOPE

2011-08-10T08:51:00.001-04:00

Superficial, homophobic lesbians.

Episode 1: "Miserable Animals" from The Slope on Vimeo.

“The Slope” is a comedy that follows the lives of a lesbian couple navigating their way through modern-day Park Slope, Brooklyn. One year into their relationship, Ingrid and Desiree continue to hash out a power dynamic that ends up making them look homophobic, superficial and ultimately, perfect for one another.

Starring: Desiree Akhavan & Ingrid Jungermann

Written By: Desiree Akhavan & Ingrid Jungermann

This is very funny!
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

ADVICE ON LAUNCHING AN INDEPENDENT CAREER: AN OPEN LETTER TO AN ACTOR

2011-07-22T12:46:00.007-04:00

ADVICE ON LAUNCHING AN INDEPENDENT CAREER

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

INDIE FILM FINANCE MODEL V2011.1: THE TEN FACTORS

2011-06-13T15:27:00.007-04:00

From: Hope for Film

Truly Free Film blog

Yesterday I went into some of the factors determining how the Model for IndieFilmFinanceV2011.1 may be set. If you were taking notes you probably recognized that these are the factors, but I thought it was worth jotting them down for our cheat sheets:

Price point / negative cost below $5M;
“Estimated” Foreign Value at 80% or higher of negative costs;
Track record of collaborators in US Acquisition market to project 25% of negative costs;
Utilization of Soft Money/Tax Benefits as revenue — not enhancement;
Manufacture desire: inject freshness & an ability to cut through the noise;
Predetermined & Accessible Audience;
Aura Of Inevitability= Polished Script+Show Reel or Look Book + _________?
Urgency of the deal;
Something old (proven genre)
Something new (fresh scent).

What does this all add up to? Is there a formula we can use? I think so. Why don’t we just get to that tomorrow?

Ted Hope

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

NY THEATRE INTENSIVES

2011-05-28T00:21:00.008-04:00

NY THEATRE INTENSIVES SITE

DOMINIQUE DELEON: "FIT IS FOREVER" - CROSSFIT 718

2011-05-27T15:45:00.003-04:00

Crossfit 718 Commercial "Fit is Forever" from Mr DeLeon on Vimeo

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

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: ON RISK, MONEY, CRAFT & COLLABORATION

2011-05-20T14:18:00.014-04:00

Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

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

THE WORK - JAMES HAYDEN

2011-05-07T05:37:00.015-04:00

Source: New York Magazine December 12, 1983 - A Death In the Theater

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO READ ARTICLE)

Yesterday, I told a story while doing the work. Thinking on it, I found this excerpt. It's remarkable how relevant it is to the work we were doing. In the article above in Jimmy's father's observation, what he thought was "blocking and tone" was our daily ritual of finding/refining the behavior of a scene. Other than that, his impression and my memory of the experience are identical. - José Angel Santana

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

ONE SHOT STORIES BY JOSEF KUBATA WLADYKA: JACOBO CASTILLO SALAZAR

2011-04-27T23:23:00.003-04:00

Curai is a small, tight knit fishing village on the Southern Pacific Coast of Colombia. It's a place where almost everyone shares the same last name. Jacobo is a community leader there and this is one of his stories. Location: Curai, Colombia; Cinematography by: Leonardo D'Antoni, Music by: Tyler Cash

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

LESLIE CARON ON THE CRAFT

2011-04-26T03:29:00.006-04:00

Excerpt from DVD: "From Russia to Hollywood": The 100 Years Odyssey of Chekhov and Shadanoff. On the craft of acting from the perspective of another one of the great actors and teachers from within the Stanislavski tradition.
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

SIDNEY LUMET: A DIRECTOR WHO GAVE ACTORS HIS ALL - NPR

2011-04-18T12:42:00.000-04:00

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

"NIGHTLIFE" BY SHANDOR GARRISON WORLD PREMIERE - TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL

2011-04-12T22:16:00.000-04:00

DETAILS

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

ONE SHOT STORIES BY JOSEF KUBATA WLADYKA: ALBERT MAKHTSIER

2011-04-09T08:57:00.002-04:00

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

"MAKING OF" AARON SORKIN INTEVIEW

2011-04-05T11:09:00.003-04:00

"Intention and Obstacle somebody wants something, somebody is standing in their way of getting it." Aaron Sorkin, Winner - Academy Award for "The Social Network"

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

ONE SHOT STORIES BY JOSEF KUBATA WLADYKA: OKAASAN お母さん

2011-03-30T09:04:00.002-04:00

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

ON LISTENING

2011-03-29T14:16:00.001-04:00

Charlie Rose interviews actor, Bradley Cooper who talks about "listening" with Robert DeNiro while working on the movie "Limitless."

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

ALICE NEEL

2011-03-18T11:59:00.012-04:00

Painting by Alice Neel: YOUNG WOMAN, 1940, oil on canvas.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"You can do anything you will to do if you are sufficiently
tenacious and interested." - Alice Neel

MICHAEL K. MATTHEWS' SPOT - BOB WOODRUFF FOUNDATION

2011-03-16T12:32:00.003-04:00

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

CARY JOJI FUKUNAGA'S "JANE EYRE" EXCELLENT NYTIMES REVIEW

2011-03-10T21:48:00.006-05:00

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre,” starring Mia Wasikowska, is a splendid example of how to tackle the daunting duty of turning a beloved work of classic literature into a movie.

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

NYU GRADUATE FILM SCHOOL CELEBRATES LUKE MATHENY'S OSCAR WIN FOR "GOD OF LOVE"

2011-03-06T09:05:00.008-05:00

WEBSITE
"GOD OF LOVE"

March 3, 2011, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell and the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television Graduate Division celebrate LUKE MATHENY, Academy Award Winner 2011 for his film "GOD OF LOVE" - Best Short Film (Live Action): NYU Tisch School of the Arts 721 Broadway 9th Floor, New York City.

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

"OSCAR...OSCAR, OSCAR, OSCAR!"

2011-03-04T08:17:00.006-05:00

Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell and the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television Graduate Division celebrate LUKE MATHENY, Academy Award Winner 2011 for his film "GOD OF LOVE" - Best Short Film (Live Action). NYU Tisch School of the Arts 721 Broadway 9th Floor, New York City.

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

2011 OSCAR TELECAST

2011-02-28T04:24:00.004-05:00

Or, go: HERE

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

LUKE MATHENY WINS OSCAR FOR "GOD OF LOVE"

2011-02-28T01:19:00.002-05:00

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

"GOD OF LOVE" WINS OSCAR FOR BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

2011-02-28T00:31:00.007-05:00

"God of Love" has won the Oscar for live action short film. Luke Matheny, who also directed, wrote and starred in the film, tells the story of a man who acquires some love-inducing darts.

"God of Love" was competing against "The Confession," "The Crush," "Na Wewe" and "Wish 143."

The 83rd Academy Awards are taking place at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and are being televised live on ABC. We'll carry all the breaking news and reaction here on Awards Tracker.

-- Nardine Saad (SOURCE)

Photo: Luke Matheny at the Oscars. Credit: Valerie Macon/Getty Images.

LUKE MATHENY AND "GOD OF LOVE" WIN 2011 OSCAR FOR BEST SHORT FILM

2011-02-28T00:22:00.003-05:00

Luke Matheny wins Oscar for "God of Love"!

NYU Grad Film Alum Luke Matheny won the 2011 Oscar for BEST SHORT FILM for GOD OF LOVE. GOD OF LOVE was Luke's thesis film. It was produced by Ryan Silbert and Gigi Dement, shot by Bobby Webster, edited by Levi Abrino and scored by Sasha Gordon. Congratulations Luke! and to all your collaborators at NYU!

Posted by Cine City, NYU Grad Film on February 27, 2011 10:56 PM | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

BILL MURRY ON "THE PRESENT MOMENT" AND WHAT AN ACTOR BRINGS TO A SCRIPT

2011-02-12T22:45:00.005-05:00

Thanks to John Ryan Johnston for this excerpt:

Q: You have a lot of lines in this one that get tons of laughs I doubt were on the page. It's all in the rhythm, the delivery. How do you pitch something like that? How do you make something out of nothing?

A: I have developed a kind of different style over the years. I hate trying to re-create a tone or a pitch. Saying, "I want to make it sound like I made it sound the last time"? That's insane, because the last time doesn't exist. It's only this time. And everything is going to be different this time. There's only now. And I don't think a director, as often as not, knows what is going to play funny anyway. As often as not, the right one is the one that they're surprised by, so I don't think that they have the right tone in their head. And I think that good actors always—or if you're being good, anyway—you're making it better than the script. That's your fucking job. It's like, Okay, the script says this? Well, watch this. Let's just roar a little bit. Let's see how high we can go.

But you asked how you get the comic pitch. Well, obviously a lot of it is rhythm. And as often as not, it's the surprising rhythm. In life and in movies, you can usually guess what someone is going to say—you can actually hear it—before they say it. But if you undercut that just a little, it can make you fall off your chair. It's small and simple like that. You're always trying to get your distractions out of the way and be as calm as you can be[breathes in and out slowly], and emotion will just drive the machine. It will go through the machine without being interrupted, and it comes out in a rhythm that's naturally funny. And that funny rhythm is either humorous or touching. It can be either one. But it's always a surprise. I really don't know what's going to come out of my mouth.

Source: http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201008/bill-murray-dan-fierman-gq-interview

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

HARLAN J. STRAUSS - THE CONDUCTOR

2011-02-09T20:26:00.001-05:00

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

BRANTLEY JONES IN: "THE SIEGE OF BLACKTHORN CASTLE"

2011-02-08T21:36:00.003-05:00

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

ARCHETYPAL IMAGES: "SELF PORTRAIT WITH SEVEN FINGERS" BY MARC CHAGALL

2011-02-07T23:26:00.007-05:00

Archetypal images:

Artist, Painter, Portrait, Self Portrait, Seven Fingers, Tower, Cross, Clouds, Brush, Heart, can you see more.

Source: http://aras.org/

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

MICHAEL CAINE - ACTING IN FILM

2011-02-03T18:58:00.001-05:00

From MICHAEL CAINE - ACTING IN FILM

section THE ART OF SPONTANEITY

"And that's the greatest advice I can give to someone who wants to act in movies. Listen and react."

"Movies actors earn their living and learn their craft through listening and reacting."

"...in the movies the camera has to cut to Frank to get his reactions; otherwise what Rita says has no further meaning. I can't say it enough: one of the most important things an actor can do in a motion picture is to listen and react as freshly as if it were for the first time." pp. 68-72

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

SHAKA KING DROPS - TONE TANK & SCOTT THOROUGH - "FORTIES"

2011-01-31T22:10:00.003-05:00

WEBSITE

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

LUKE HEARS THE NEWS FROM THE ACADEMY AWARDS THAT HIS FILM HAS BEEN NOMINATED.

2011-01-27T02:10:00.005-05:00

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

DC SHORTS WINNER "GOD OF LOVE" NOMINATED FOR AN OSCAR

2011-01-26T04:33:00.012-05:00

By The Reliable Source

"God of Love" by Luke Matheny

The Oscars made history Tuesday... by nominating a live-action short we've actually seen! "God of Love," by NYC filmmaker Luke Matheny, was a breakout hit at the DC Shorts fest last September (and, maybe not coincidentally, one of the bigger-budget shorts, at $25,000). The bittersweet 15-minute black-and-white comedy about Cupid as a Brooklyn hipster came into Washington with a Student Oscar already under its belt (Matheny made it for his NYU film-school thesis) and went on to with the festival's Audience Choice prize. And lucky for you, it's already scheduled for another set of screenings this weekend, at DC Shorts' "Rewind." "God of Love" will be on a bill with several other shorts at 9:30 p.m. Friday and 10 p.m. Saturday at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE.

Read earlier: "God of Love" and an SNL star shine at DC Shorts

By The Reliable Source | January 25, 2011; 12:55 PM ET

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

"GOD OF LOVE" BY LUKE MATHENY - NOMINATED FOR BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT - 2011 ACADEMY AWARDS

2011-01-26T03:36:00.001-05:00

(click on image to enlarge)

Lounge-singing darts champion Raymond Goodfellow finds his prayers are answered -- literally -- when he receives a mysterious package of love-inducing darts. The catch is that the one woman he loves -- Kelly, a drummer in his band -- is alr...eady in love with Ray's best friend Fozzie, the guitarist in the band. But when Ray uses the darts in a loony scheme to resolve this strange romantic triangle, he learns a surprising lesson about unrequited love and discovers his own place in the universe.

WEBSITE
"GOD OF LOVE"

THE OSCARS

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

WORKING WITH ACTORS, FINDING THE BEHAVIOR "YOU'RE TRYING TO GET HER TO LIKE YOU."

2011-01-05T11:38:00.018-05:00

Our dear family friend Jordan Stone, Producer/Director and International 1st AD for Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" sent me this today. It's striking to me, an educator in this field, how clearly this brief exchange between Director and Actor, on the set, captures the essence and simplicity of working with actors; when a Director can communicate with actors in terms of what the characters want, and what they do to get it.

It's the universal language of Drama.

The preparation it takes to get there, is another matter.

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

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DAVID FINCHER! TALKS SOCIAL NETWORK, DRAGON TATTOO, 20,000 LEAGUES, EDITING, HOW HE MAKES MOVIES, MORE

2011-01-03T15:12:00.002-05:00

(click image to click through and read at Collider.com )

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

THE ACTOR AS ARCHITECT OF A ROLE, NY TIMES

2011-01-03T00:13:00.005-05:00

By LARRY ROHTER

Published: December 29, 2010, NY TIMES

As a boy, from the age of about 9 until well into his teens, the actor Javier Bardem would often help his mother, Pilar, an actress well known in Spain, learn her roles. At their home in Madrid she would hand him a script and then read her lines out loud while he read all the others.

“I watched my mother act all my life, and yet I wasn’t attracted to acting as such,” he recalled recently. “What attracted me was my mother’s effort, her dedication, the seriousness of the work, the desire to do something. But what that something was didn’t matter to me. It could just as well have been painting or writing or even rugby.”

Nevertheless, at the age of 41, Mr. Bardem finds himself one of the world’s most admired actors, with one Academy Award to his name — for best supporting actor in Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” — and the possibility of another looming on the horizon. Leading directors regularly offer him juicy parts, and he has worked in widely varied roles with many of the most distinguished names in film, including Pedro Almodóvar, Woody Allen, Milos Forman and Terrence Malick.

“I think the best actors are those who are not only talented, but work harder than anybody else, and that’s Javy,” said the director and painter Julian Schnabel, who gave Mr. Bardem his breakout English-language role in “Before Night Falls” a decade ago. “That’s his barometer. He’s got a deep interior life going on, but he’s so immersed in the thing he does, with such concentration, with so many different buttons he can press, from humor to despair, that he becomes that, and it doesn’t even look like he is acting.”

But nothing, according to Mr. Bardem, has ever tested him — physically and mentally — or required greater effort and dedication more than “Biutiful,” a drama, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, which won Mr. Bardem the best actor award when it was first shown at Cannes last May and opened in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday. “For me ‘Biutiful’ is going to represent a before and after,” he said in an interview last month in New York.

In “Biutiful,” set entirely in Barcelona, Mr. Bardem plays Uxbal, a petty criminal and doting father of two whose world, built around immigrant smuggling and the manufacture of fake luxury goods, begins to collapse when he learns he is seriously ill. Mr. González Iñárritu, whose previous films include “21 Grams” and “Babel,” said he wrote the part specifically for Mr. Bardem, the first time he had ever cast a role in advance.

“Physically Javier possesses an attraction that is tremendously magnetic and kinetic,” Mr. González Iñárritu said. “On the one hand, he has the primitive force of the minotaur, the strength of a bull crossed with a man, along with a face that contains the essence of the Mediterranean, that looks like it could be that of a Caesar on a Roman coin. But he also has the sensibility of a poet, an inner subtlety and emotional baggage, and it is those two sets of qualities that made him so particularly fitting to play this character.”

Mr. González Iñárritu shoots his films with scenes in chronological order, which is unusual in the movie business, and has been known to demand 50 or more takes from his actors. Mr. Bardem knew that going into “Biutiful” but still found the process unusually exhausting, and not just because he injured his back in a sequence that required him to lift another actor and was in pain throughout the second half of the five-month shoot.

Because the scenes were shot in the order in which they play and his character has to come to terms with the possibility of his own demise, Mr. Bardem said he had to “keep holding in the emotional intensity.” Or as Mr. González Iñárritu put it, “Javier had to find a balance while surrendering totally to a role that required him to be completely charged up while showing very little, and that, emotionally, is very arduous.”

Mr. Bardem often seems to be acting intuitively, especially in critically acclaimed films in which his characters face death, like “Biutiful,” “The Sea Inside” and “Before Night Falls.” But he describes his work as meticulously plotted in advance and in detail. Asked about a pair of especially moving moments in “Biutiful” in which his character, wrestling with mortality, does not speak at all, Mr. Bardem reached for a sheet of paper and proceeded to diagram the stages into which he had divided the two scenes.

“A character is like a building,” he explained. “I’ve never studied architecture, but I imagine that first you have to prepare the plans, lay down the base, a solid base that has to do with the character, and from there build it up. Once this is all clear, you can add the details: I want blue walls, I want wood floors, I want him to speak this way or move like that. But first you have to think.”

Another sign of the seriousness with which he approaches his craft is that, despite the growing acclaim for his body of work, he continues to study with an acting coach, Juan Carlos Corazza, an Argentine. They have worked together nearly 20 years, since the beginning of Mr. Bardem’s career. In a telephone interview from Madrid, where he lives, Mr. Corazza said that Mr. Bardem not only consults with him as he prepares for each role but also attends his classes and workshops, where he is sometimes matched with beginning actors.

“Part of the work in preparing for his roles is always at the table, where we analyze the script, each word and each phrase, to try to understand the mind of that other person,” he explained. But Mr. Corazza also has Mr. Bardem do exercises designed to “prepare the canvas for painting” by “identifying and stripping away the habits, clichés and artificial aspects between him and the character, so he has the courage to find a freedom in his character.”

In a sense Mr. Bardem seems almost to have been predestined for a life as an actor. In addition to his mother, both of his maternal grandparents also were prominent actors, and one of his uncles, Juan Antonio Bardem, was a distinguished screenwriter and director (and Spanish Communist Party leader), perhaps best known for the film “Death of a Cyclist”

But Mr. Bardem tried at first to resist being pulled into the family trade. He played rugby as a boy, relentlessly and passionately, which gave him the broken bones to show for it and instilled the sense of teamwork that directors uniformly praise. When it came time to choose a career, however, he initially decided to go to art school, intending to become a painter.

To earn money for his studies he did small acting jobs on the side, adopting his mother’s surname rather than that of his father, Encinas, as would have been more customary. But in his art classes he discovered that while he seemed to have talent, the only thing he wanted to draw was “faces, eyes, expressions and bodies,” not landscapes or abstract works.

He concluded that his primary interest really was how human beings express emotions. And at that point, around the age of 18, the Bardem family tradition, and all the years observing his mother, gave him something to draw on and inspire himself.

“I didn’t like having to read the other characters,” he recalled. “What fascinated me was listening to her. She’d have a great script with a monologue and would begin to speak and then stop and correct herself. She’d go back to the beginning, and that’s the way it was for the entire work. So after an hour or so of the technical aspects, the memorization, she would fly. She knew the text, she had control, the actress would appear, and off she would go.”

The lesson he drew from that experience, he said, was that “to get to the art, one must work very hard.” He added: “Art doesn’t exist just as talent. It exists as effort, work and judgment.”

In keeping with that philosophy, Mr. Bardem said, nowadays he chooses roles based not on their size or the chances for acclaim they might offer, but on the degree of the challenge they present. That’s the kind of thing that actors always say of course. But Mr. Bardem’s track record suggests he means it.

The director Fernando León de Aranoa, a friend of Mr. Bardem’s, recalled: “When we were getting ready for ‘Mondays in the Sun,’ ” a Spanish film about unemployed shipyard workers, “he had just been nominated for an Oscar for the first time, for ‘Before Night Falls,’ and every time his phone rang, it was with a proposal to be part of a production that, in terms of money and fame, was more important than mine. I thought it was logical that he would take one of those, but he said to me, ‘I really like this character’ and remained firm. That’s an honesty that I like.”

If anything, Mr. Bardem may be more focused than ever. In the past, he admitted, he played as hard as he worked. But his recent marriage to the actress Penélope Cruz, with whom he worked first on the 1992 hit “Jamón, Jamón” and most recently on Mr. Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” and the impending birth of their first child seem to have brought a stability and depth to his work and life.

“I think that professionally he is now in a place where he feels greater security and a larger sense of freedom to do less, and be more the character and not force things,” Mr. Corazza, his acting coach, said. “It’s a very rich time for him right now personally too, a moment in which he is enjoying love and its fruits and has reached a level of maturity in which he thinks less of himself and more of others.”

. . . to make the invisible visible.

2010-12-22T08:11:00.000-05:00

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

MARK & JAY DUPLASS ON "CYRUS"

2010-12-11T13:11:00.004-05:00

The Duplass brothers have taken a big step forward with Cyrus. Their previous films such as The Puffy Chair and Baghead were both very good, but Cyrus is great. One of those reasons: the awkwardness and realism. When you watch a Duplass film it couldn’t feel more close to real life. The jokes aren’t broad or too over-the-top, but grounded in a realm of uncomfortableness.

This isn’t a battle a la Step Brothers or Rushmore style, but something real. The Duplass brother’s shooting style is a contributing factor to that which is quite unorthodox compared to most filmmakers. They shoot in sequence, the camerawork is practically all handheld, and they hardly stick to the dialog on page. Their formula is different, but obviously works. Here’s what Jay Duplass had to say about all this:

So, how did you make sure not to make Step Brothers 2? It’s obviously not that at all.

Thank you, I appreciate that. That’s an important message for us to get out there. It is John and Jonah, but we don’t want people coming in expecting Step Brothers. The easy answer to that is: although we love those type of movies and laugh our asses off, those aren’t the type of films that we make. Ultimately, it’s a relationship movie first. It’s about characters and real people tying to accomplish real things. Secondarily, we want it to be as funny as it can be. We don’t really write jokes or ask our actors to be funny, but we actually go the opposite way. We try to make sure that they’re just playing their characters. It’s the situation that comes off funny.

When you pitched the film to Fox Searchlight with the script did you and Mark say, “All the dialogue you read in the script actually won’t be in the movie.”

Yeah, we told them exactly how we work. It’s interesting that, in the end, the movie is actually pretty similar to the script. It’s just the method of getting there is really different than how most people in Hollywood shoot. We just try to go off script so we can get that level of naturalism that we’re obsessed with.

What’s your process of writing dialogue? Do you guys focus less on that because of how off script you go?

Honestly, the way it goes down is that my brother and I get the story down pretty heavily. When it comes time to do the first draft we have everything set. We know what the story is, we know how it’s going to add up, and Mark literally spews the whole script out in a linear fashion without looking back in a matter of two or three days. The dialogue actually comes out of the mouth. When it’s on the page, it doesn’t look as pretty as a lot of scripts look. It looks messy and looks almost superfluous. We definitely have a process where we try and keep the piece of art out of the intellectual realm as much as possible. We try to keep it in the body and as a living, breathing thing.

And all the plot points stay the same?

Absolutely. The plot points are all the same, but except for a couple that are just from typical editorial choices. Sometimes you take out scenes to make the film move along a little bit quicker.

One scene I wanna ask about that I know was cut out was where you actually got to see Cyrus having a panic attack. Was that cut out because it could’ve made him too sympathetic?

There’s definitely some things we had to cut. We were writing a very specific tone and there were some things that Cyrus was doing where… At a certain point, if you’re really connecting with this kid and realize he’s just a kid scared of losing his mom you have to save that realization until the end. If you realize that earlier on it would make it harder to have a lot of fun with the competition between John and Cyrus.

The most interesting part about Cyrus’s relationship with Molly is the subtle creepiness to it. There’s something slightly inappropriate about it, but the film never condemns that.

For us, we don’t like to condemn anything or any of our characters. Ultimately, at the core of Cyrus- who’s probably the most extreme character we’ve ever created- he really is just a kid terrified of losing his mom. That’s really the only significant relationship he has in his life. That’s what drives him to this desperation.

How do you balance though making Cyrus sympathetic while also making him out as the menacing and manipulative kid that you do?

You know, I don’t know. It’s more of a sub-conscience process, but I’d say more than anything we start off with an impression and then flip it over on its head. Hopefully, by the end of the movie you really get who he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing. It’s important that you understand him.

Do you think John ever comes off creepy as well?

Yeah, John is going head-to-head with this kid and using everything in his arsenal to try to take him down. In our opinion, no one is innocent in these movies. There’s no right or wrong. Everyone has flaws. That’s how we experience the world and that’s how we see people. We don’t judge them for it, but what we will do is put them on film and laugh with them and even at them a little bit. Never in a mocking way, but just in the way you’d laugh at yourself for all the little weird things you do.

You don’t hide their warts at all. It’s pretty awkward when you see John following Molly home. He’s a really nice guy, but it’s still odd.

Yeah, he stalks her and he even admits it. She’s a little creeped out by it. At the same time, if the guy turns out just to be a genuine dude then it’s a little flattering. It’s flattering if someone like that is focusing all about you.

John is a good guy. There’s that one scene where he says, “I know I’m a good guy,” and that really plays into how self-aware your characters are, but that’s also a really sad moment as well.

I know (laughs). We just love that his character is one-hundred percent on-the-line and that’s one of the great things about John C. Reilly. He can achieve a level of vulnerability that not many people can.

Reilly put it best too that Cyrus isn’t only ruining his relationship with Molly, but also messing with his goal to have his life together by the time of the wedding.

I think that is definitely a sub-conscience aim that maybe even the character is not even aware of. His ex-wife is getting remarried and he just doesn’t want to be that person that all of his and her friends have come to see him as.

When you get to Cyrus’s redemption at the end, how do you make sure it’s not too triumphant? It’s great how you don’t disregard the fact he’s acted like a terrible person for most of the film.

Yeah, we don’t. Honestly, we don’t like to suggest anything specific like everything is going to be okay from this point on. We’re definitely walking a fine line with the tone of the movie to makes sure there’s a lot of interpretations. The ending of the movie is more of a product of what’s going on inside of each audience member. Things are left pretty vague. There’s definitely some satisfying moments, but who knows what will happen in the future.

Couldn’t you say though that Cyrus ends a little more upbeat than your previous films?

Definitely. I don’t know if it’s a product of the fact that this movie has an enormous amount of conflict in it. It was something where you needed to achieve a balance in terms of the overall piece of art. There’s definitely some hopefulness there that definitely hasn’t been present in some of our past films.

Was finding the right tone something you struck at during the editing process? Since you shot so much footage I’d imagine once you get to that stage you could, if you wanted to, make a completely different movie.

That’s exactly what it is. Although the plot would’ve been the same, but because we are ninety-percent in close-ups that tone and the mode of how these people are treating each-other rises to the surface a lot more than you see in most films. From our perspective, we feel like we could make different movies with that footage. Our edits take a long time and it’s usually about nine months of editing. It’s documentary feature edits. We probably recut every scene twenty times.

Did you ever end up with say, a broader cut? Something more over-the-top?

We never did, but we certainly could’ve ended up with a more balls-out comedy cut.

How do you make sure to keep it restrained in that realm? You could have easily gone too far with the conflict between John and Cyrus.

You know, we’re just following our instincts. Ultimately, we like relationship movies that are funny. We’re going for a documentary-like style with the realism. We really want people to feel like they’re in the room with these people. You know, it may or may not be happening, but it certainly feels like the argument I had with my girlfriend last week. That’s the type of stuff we’re obsessed with. It’s a lot of work for us to imagine the tone, but it’s easy for us since that is what we’re drawn to.

The documentary style definitely comes off with the handheld camerawork.

It’s really just a result that we shoot totally differently than most of Hollywood. Normally, Hollywood will bring actors to a mark and overall, it’s a machine type of production. We actually do something completely different. We set people loose in a room and we say, “Do what you want.” Go where you wanna go, say what you wanna say, and have the interaction you wanna have. You know what the script is about and you know the goals you have to achieve, but just run free. We come to that interaction as a documentary-like crew. The adjustments of the camera are really because of where the actors are going.

Cyrus is now in theaters.

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

MERYL STREEP, GEORGE C. WOLFE, ET. ALL: IN & ON THE PROCESS

2010-12-10T10:37:00.003-05:00

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

THIS SUNDAY - THE HOLIDAY BRUNCH

2010-11-29T18:43:00.005-05:00

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!

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

THANK YOU BILL REILLY

2010-11-25T11:51:00.001-05:00

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

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

THE NEW BUSINESS OF ENTERTAINMENT

2010-11-20T02:55:00.011-05:00

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"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"

2010-11-13T08:11:00.032-05:00

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.

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

THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY

2010-11-12T05:19:00.023-05:00

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.

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

JILL CLAYBURGH'S UNFORGETTABLE "UNMARRIED WOMEN"

2010-11-08T09:43:00.000-05:00

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.

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

FINDING THE BEHAVIOR OF CONVERSATIONAL REALITY

2010-10-31T01:42:00.010-04:00

Jodie Foster talks about rehearsing with Robert DeNiro for "Taxi Driver." "Taxi Driver" Collector's Edition DVD
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"The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

char•ac•ter

2010-10-24T23:29:00.009-04:00

This is a great documentary. A compilation of the best "shop talk" I've ever heard on film. if you are an actor or director this is the best $25 you will ever spend on your craft. - José Angel Santana

website

"A raw and candid dialogue about the life and craft of acting between longtime colleagues and friends Dabney Coleman, Peter Falk, Charles Grodin, Mark Rydell, Harry Dean Stanton and including a very special interview with Sydney Pollack. Drago Sumonja's document takes us into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of some of America's greatest storytellers. This unique and inside glimpse at this revered collective exposes as much about each individual as it does about acting." Written by Cody Henderson

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

JAMES FRANCO IN AND ON "127 HOURS"

2010-10-08T02:38:00.005-04:00

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

ABIGAIL GAMPEL IN "THROUGH THE WINDOW"

2010-10-07T09:54:00.003-04:00

(ckick image to enlarge)

Abigail Gampel

"Through the Window"

Directed by Holli Harms

Abigail on TCD*S

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

BILL REILLY

2010-09-25T23:01:00.001-04:00

The world has lost one of the great teachers and mentors to filmmakers of all time. He recognized talents in others when they were getting started that they didn't know they had. And because of his encouragement, his belief in young artists he helped them to believe in themselves. What a great and loyal and kind friend. I will miss him forever. William Reilly.
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"Elevate the subtext." William Reilly

NYTIMES: ONCE MORE INTO THE GROOVE: 'DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN' TURNS 25

2010-09-20T23:27:00.013-04:00

José Angel Santana with Madonna in scene from "Desperately Seeking Susan."

NYTIMES ARTSBEAT:

September 22, 2010
BY DAVE ITZKOFF

Empty out your vintage shopping bags from Love Saves the Day, unroll your fishnet stockings and dust off that pyramid jacket you claim belonged to Jimi Hendrix, because “Desperately Seeking Susan” is a quarter-century old. This 1985 comedy-drama, which starred Rosanna Arquette as a New Jersey housewife masquerading as a bohemian Manhattanite – and, by the way, provided Madonna with her first lead role in a movie – was for a generation of viewers an introduction to New York’s downtown counterculture and its motley fashion sensibility. Now the film plays like a cinematic time capsule, filled with endearingly grimy places, authentic and imagined, and distinctive personalities that have vanished from the city.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary, the Film Society of Lincoln Center is hosting a screening of the film at the Walter Reade Theater on Thursday evening that will be attended by its director, Susan Seidelman; its screenwriter, Leora Barish; and the producers Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford.

ArtsBeat spoke recently to Ms. Seidelman (who went on to direct “She-Devil,” “Gaudi Afternoon” and episodes of “Sex and the City,” among other projects) about the making of “Desperately Seeking Susan,” her memories of New York in the ’80s and, of course, Madonna. These are excerpts from that conversation.

Twenty-five years after the fact, what are you most looking forward to about this particular showing of “Desperately Seeking Susan”?

I haven’t seen a lot of the actors and crew members in a while, but I haven’t seen it on a big screen in many, many years, so I’m just as curious to see how New York has aged. It was a very different place back then, especially downtown. Young people didn’t have to move out to Brooklyn and Queens to find affordable housing.

How did you first get connected with the movie?

This was my second film. I had done a low-budget independent film that was also set downtown, called “Smithereens,” in 1982. And as a result of that, these producers, Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, sent the script to my agent. And I’m kind of a superstitious person so the “Desperately Seeking Susan” title caught my attention. It had that title already –- that wasn’t vanity on my part.

But it had a theme that my first film was about. It’s about finding out who you want to be and who you are inside. The inner Susan — the adventurous creature that’s inside the suburban housewife — really interested me thematically. I wasn’t a housewife but I grew up in suburban Philadelphia and I couldn’t wait to cross the bridge, metaphorically speaking, into Manhattan. I just knew that there was something on the other side, out there, that I needed to get to.

How deep were your roots in the downtown New York scene?

I came to New York in the mid-’70s to go to N.Y.U. film school. The grad film school, at that time, was on East Seventh Street and Second Avenue. That was when Second Avenue – after First Avenue, you just didn’t go, but Second Avenue was pretty funky. I’ve always been a downtown person for the last 30 years or so, and I’ve never lived above Ninth Street. So I was familiar with that world. I went to the clubs, I knew some of the musicians. I felt comfortable.

Who did you cast first, your Roberta (the housewife) or your Susan (the bohemian)?

The producers were from L.A. and had gotten Rosanna Arquette attached before the movie was greenlit. Then when I got involved, the rest was cast out of New York with up-and-coming actors — obviously, Madonna, who was not known at the time, as well as downtown types that had been in some of these independent, downtown movies. Like Rockets Redglare, Richard Edson, who had been in Jim Jarmusch’s first movie -– he hadn’t made any others at that time – and some of them had been in my first movie, “Smithereens,” like Richard Hell and Susan Berman.

How did you find Madonna for this film?

Madonna lived down the street from me, so she wasn’t “Madonna,” in quotes. I knew her from people who were in the downtown music scene. We started to audition more up-and-coming actresses who had done some films -– people like Ellen Barkin and Melanie Griffith and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kelly McGillis, who had just made one or two movies and were getting known. But even though the film is a fairy tale, in a sense, it needed to be grounded in some kind of authenticity. We didn’t want actors putting on costumes and playing downtown.

You wanted someone who genuinely embodied it, rather than an actor who would be playing at it or pretending it?

Right. And she hadn’t really done a movie before. She’d played in a band in the background of “Vision Quest,” whatever. But it wasn’t really an acting role. I hoped that because she is a performer and she had such an interesting persona, I could capture that on film somehow. And that does involve a lot of acting. People sometimes think, “Oh, it’s just being.” But it’s not. When you have to say lines and hit marks and get your lighting and repeat it 20 times from different angles, it’s acting.

Given her inexperience, did you have to make a case for casting her in the film?

Well, yes. She had to do a bunch of screen tests. But it was the early days of MTV, and she happened to have a video that got a lot of rotation, because there just weren’t a lot of music videos at that time. I think it was for “Lucky Star.” So the the Orion people out in L.A. saw that and liked the way she looked. She was also helpful in auditions for the actor that was going to play her boyfriend. Somewhere, in a carton in my basement, I have Madonna and Bruce Willis doing an early screen test for that.

How did you find your locations?

A lot of them that were places that I knew. I went to Danceteria, I went to the Bleecker Street Cinema and I knew that strip along Second Avenue where Love Saves the Day was. That was home turf. We were trying to find a tone that was sort of hyper-realism. You wanted it to be gritty, but with a slightly romanticized edge. If you look at a location like the Magic Club, it borrows from punk but it also borrows from bad Las Vegas lounge acts.

The other thing that was so crucial was that we filmed it all in New York. We were filming at the end of 1984, and New York was still coming out of the 1970s bankruptcy crisis. Nothing was getting renovated or repaired. There was no money. So it still had that grit. If it was in the ’90s, they would have said: “Go film it in Toronto. Toronto looks just like New York.” It doesn’t. When you look at the background people and the faces, that is New York and you don’t get it in Toronto and you don’t get it in L.A. either.

Watching the film recently, one thing that struck me was how much more curvaceous Madonna was than I remembered her. Where did that aesthetic go?

I think that starting in the ’90s, and certainly continuing on, people got a little obsessed with skinniness. Certainly she was more full figured, but look at Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell — they were great, sexy, curvy, voluptuous women. I guess tastes change and I’m hoping it’ll come back a little bit more in the other direction.

Does Madonna owe you a debt of gratitude for helping to send her career into the stratosphere?

I can’t postulate what kind of response the film would have gotten had Madonna’s star not risen so fantastically in such a short period of time. But sometimes things converge and make a thing that’s even bigger than the two alone. By the time we finished shooting the film, Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” album came out and that’s what catapulted her to the first level of stardom. You never knew how long that was going to last, but certainly that made a huge splash. Simultaneously she had this movie, and had the movie not been well received, it wouldn’t have mattered. But the fact that she’s good in the movie, people seemed to like the movie and she suddenly had this meteoric album -– all that converged. So much about what makes something happen or not happen has to do with having the right stuff at the right time.

Did you feel like your experience with “Desperately Seeking Susan,” and the success that it had, prepared you for the ups and downs that awaited you in your filmmaking career?

I didn’t have any expectations. If I moved out to L.A. and immersed myself in the world of Los Angeles, my ups and downs would have been different. But I’m really a New York person. New York is bigger than the movie business, and I really like not living in a company town. I got to make some movies that I’m really glad that I got to make. I got to make some that I thought were going to better, more successful than they were, but I’m still glad I made them.

Another thing that people don’t really talk about, but is really true, because there are so few female directors: the last movie I did for Orion [the company that produced "Desperately Seeking Susan," and went bankrupt in the 1990s] was “She-Devil.” The week that movie came out, I was in the hospital having a baby. Literally, in labor pains watching Siskel & Ebert on the monitor in the room. That’s another component to being a female director: how you juggle a professional career with a family raises its own issues. When you’re making a movie it is nine solid months of your life where you are living, breathing that movie 16 hours a day. It’s not like you can do it and turn it off. That’s another article.

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