The reviews are in!

"J.B." for American Century Theater is a confirmed success! Nice reviews at DCMetroTheaterArts and TalkinBroadway/DC.   Special thanks to the wildly perceptive drama blogger John Glass (DramaUrge) for noticing I was a standout in the ensemble. (Hah!)  Actually, over all of the reviews, I think everyone in cast got a plug, even the dog, Bela, a Mi-Ki who will soon need his own website.  Never appear with kids and dogs?  I'm appearing with both.  They're adorable.   More reviews are expected in the next few days.  

John Tweel, Loren Bray, and Kathryn Browning

Joshua Aaron Rosenblum, Joshua Dick, and Bela

My favorite things....and Lesley Manville

Being handed a bouquet of yellow roses on opening night has me thinking about all of my favorite things.  Cashmere sweaters in cerulean blue.  My husband, who is like a part of me.  Luxury accommodations on a cruise to anywhere. Mallomars (yum). And British actress Lesley Manville. The woman whose incredibly sensitive face is an inspiration for all that I do, both on stage and on film.

Lesley Manville in Another Year

One wonderful thing about not being a principal in the play J.B. is that the pressure is off to carry the production.  I can relax and concentrate on making the most of a small role; one of the most important being to let the tension go out of my face and body so that I can react truthfully to what is going on around me and inside me.

The role I play in J.B. is purely reactive - part of an ensemble of women whose purpose is to comment on the events transpiring center stage.  Some actors would take a purely mechanical approach to that, cueing off a word of dialog to turn this way or look at that cast member.  But I've been allowing myself to relax and get completely in the moment,  so that I can move and react not when I think I should but when it feels natural and right.  I guess one way would be an intellectual approach and the other an emotional approach.  In any case, I like what's happening as a result.

At the end of Mike Leigh's Another Year, the camera settles on Lesley Manville's face and the emotions she conveys are just gut-wrenching. In one fleeting moment her character drops her defenses and tells you absolutely everything about her life.  I don't think I've ever seen another actress who can do that. Sheesh, I should be so good.

Actors hitting their groove

We opened in J.B. (podcast with principals Steve Lebens, Bruce Alan Rauscher, and Julie Roundtree available here.)  The  Preview had a few technical glitches and dropped lines.  Opening night we were technically correct, if a little safe.  Last night, the third performance, I think we hit our groove.  Spontaneous applause, laughter (and tears) from the audience.  Everyone in the cast pumped with adrenaline.

It’s not easy being an actor and working a day job too.  I drove into the theater parking lot Friday night feeling dog tired from a week of dress/technical rehearsals every night and writing contract proposals and ad copy every the day.  Up at 5 a.m., in bed by midnight., again and again. But the minute I walked into the dressing room I felt a rush that lasted through the performance and a couple of hours after.  There is nothing else like it in the world.

I read once that Sir Laurence Olivier, late in his career, was often seen shaky and doddering in the theater wings before a play, every bit the picture of an old man in his declining years.  And yet the minute he got his cue to go on he was suddenly erect, with a spring in his step, striding onto the stage.  It’s a lovely story, and I believe it absolutely.  There is something that keeps actors at it, even when fame is secure and they no longer need the money.  Acting is exciting.  It’s fun.  It gives you a sense of creating something from within yourself that is…well...wonderful!

Opening night fellow actors Bob and Roberta Chaves stopped by to see the play and brought me a bouquet of yellow roses, my very favorite.  They open in a few weeks in  To Gillian on her 37th Birthday at Theater on the Run and What I Did Last Summer at the Alden Theatre respectively.  I will be there with hugs, and flowers, and cheering them on.

Opening in the Pulitzer/Tony-Winning J.B.

For friends in the DC area, I open Friday in the Archibald MacLeish Pulitzer/Tony-winning play "J.B."for The American Century Theater.  Special deals going on. Goldstar and Ticketplace both have 1/2 price tickets available for all performances. Also two Pay What You Can performances on Thursday Sept 13 (a preview) and Wed. Sept 19 (a full performance). It's a thought-provoking play, not surprisingly. Steve Lebens and Bruce Rauscher are terrific as God and the Devil. I have a small supporting role, but come 20 minutes early for the pre-show Clown Reverie and you'll see me do a turn as the Bearded Lady. I'm searching prop and party shops for a cigar to add (as if the beard wasn't enough!)

Doing is the best classroom, as the saying goes, and I find that I learn a lot from watching more experienced stage actors at their craft. Also, as Michael Caine advises, stealing whatever works.   The role of Mrs. Lesure calls for me to express serenity and faith in the midst of disaster - not easy for an ants-in-the-pants actress, such as myself.  I'm having to tap into a lot of inner stillness.  It's still a work in progress, but I find moments when I am so overcome by emotion that get a catch in my throat and tears in my eyes.   (And to think I used to have a hard time crying.)

I love the camaraderie of stage work.  The nervousness early on, struggling to get a sense of your character and wondering if the play will ever come together...and then it does.  A playfulness develops back stage, if only because we're so on top of each other trying to change into costumes and put on make-up. No shy bunnies here.....away we go!

Reading the script

The morning smells of Los Angeles.  Odd how smells trigger memories.  Odder still that after more than 30 years in the East, and a good many years since I've even visited LA, I should suddenly start smelling the cool, misty, eucalyptus-pungent mornings that I remember there. But several times over the past year, I have stepped outside, taken a breath, and been flooded with memories. I was even moved one Sunday to research apartments online. (What does this mean?)

Had the first read-through on the play J.B. and got a look at the cast. Only one is a familiar face to me, and unlike The British Players cast, where it was all one happy family, only the principals seem to know each other here, so there will be a process for everyone of warming up and learning to work with different personalities.  Some of the concepts director Rip Claassen has in mind for staging the play are very exciting, and my role, though small, is not insignificant.  I was glad of that.  It's my first time working for The American Century Theater.  Much to learn.

You can get a lot out of just reading through a script with the assembled cast - things you don't hear in just silently reading the lines on the page.  I participated in a script reading in Baltimore last month at Ken Arnold's Studio Boh.  Mike Morucci, who is a very talented writer, had penned a script for the ABC-TV series Castle and wanted to hear it read by actors before sending it in to ABC for a shot at a writing fellowship.  It was a terrific script, tightly written and funny.  He has a great feel for the characters.  I got to play Martha Rodgers, which was a hoot.  Actress Susan Sullivan, who plays Martha on the series, does a great job in that role so I consider it a compliment that Morucci said I so captured Susan's voice that he thought she was in the room.  (Ha!)  I like comedy.  Wish I could do more of it.

Reading through a TV script for "Castle" at Studio Boh in Baltimore.  I'm on the far left.

So, this week I put my J.B. scenes on audio tape so I can get off book as quickly as possible.  Only one day of rehearsal for me, but next week I imagine the days will start to build.

At the Columbia University Film Festival

One of the things I did back in May that was pure pleasure was attend the Columbia University Film Festival at the Lincoln Center in New York. A film I did for Michael Toscano, The Louder the Better, or Max Cotton’s Climb to the Top, was one of the entries (and went on to take Faculty Honors), but I was also impressed by Andy Nguyen’s beautiful, gritty, Forever in Hiatus, about a washed-up former pop star pedaling a bicycle taxi aimlessly in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City; Nathan Floody’s delightfully wicked animated short, Hunters; and Juliet Lashinsky’s riveting Keys. Wallet. Phone, which I thought so much of I contacted the star, Rae C. Wright, and gushed until I’m certain I made a pest of myself. I’ve had bits and pieces in films where I thought I did okay (I’m my own toughest critic), but Wright had the whole film to herself and turned in a lovely, nuanced, emotionally wrenching performance that had me eating my face with envy. The credits started rolling and I just sat in my seat, stunned, and thinking "Wow.""

Here’s what Rae Wright said about her young filmmaker, and the art of acting: “I think Juliet's a good director.  She gave me time to keep sorting out where we were in the sequence of events, (even though we couldn't shoot in sequence.)   I often struggle with doing the work in order to avoid taking on the suffering of a life.  My tricky mind says; "Why work hard when there's not much pay?"  "This character is such a lame excuse for a woman!"  -- stuff like that.  I like this quote:  "Even though the actor longs to be swimming in the water, they approach the shore with trepidation."

Rae C. Wright

Wright, who reminds me of the great British actress Lesley Manville, is not without experience.  She studied with Lee Strasberg and Kim Stanley (who played Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff). She earned a ton of stage experience touring with an ensemble in Europe and has appeared more recently in one- and two-person shows in the New York/New Jersey area.  She also writes plays and teaches acting to undergraduates at New York University.

Now her focus is on landing a role in a great television series.  I have no doubt that she will.  What a wonderful talent.

And what a great time I had watching all of these films and meeting some of the directors and actors.  Columbia has a terrific program.  You can watch their 25th anniversary video and see interviews with many of the filmmakers, including Michael Toscano here.

By the way, I turned the wrong way coming out of the Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center and suddenly found myself on a dark street in front of a fire station. I asked one of the firefighters where I might be more likely to find a cab. He said "Well you can find one right here!" and the whole contingent of firefighters stepped into the street and stopped a cab for me. I love it! Only in New York!  It was a great evening.

The crowd after the screening.

The Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center

A scene from The Louder the Better, which took Faculty Honors

Soon to be On Stage Again...This time in J.B.

Heading into rehearsals next week for American Century Theater's production of the Archibald MacLeish play J.B.  A small part, but still a grueling schedule through early October. Trying to get a class or two in and still be home enough that the dogs and cats don't forget who I am.  Glad to see some familiar faces in the cast. Theater really is like family.