Berkeley Rep Blog
Category archive: Backstage buzz
Paradise.
posted by Sarah Moser on Mon, Jun 15, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Paradise. I'm pretty sure that's what Berkeley Rep is. Since the day that rehearsals began in early May, I've been wandering around in a magical stupor. Here's why:
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Inishmore Wardrobe Pt. 1
posted by A Susskind on Tue, Jun 9, 2009
in Backstage buzz
During the final week of The Lieutenant of Inishmore at Berkeley Rep, I spent an evening with the wardrobe crew. Over the course of the show, 30 or so gallons of blood covered the stage and the actors. Here's a glimpse of what life backstage looked like:
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Making an entrance -- Part 2
posted by Daniel Kreuger on Wed, May 20, 2009
in Backstage buzz
This post is the second of two regarding Daniel Krueger's training for a scene in The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Find the first post here.
For me, being suspended upside down several feet above the stage in the Roda Theatre for the first time gave new meaning to the term "stage fright". It was actually terrifying. And it really came as a surprise.
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Of Black Cats and Old Friends
posted by James Carpenter on Wed, May 13, 2009
in Backstage buzz
The Universe seems to have been prodding me in certain directions this year and now, through the devious workings of Dame Fortune, I find myself once more working with Berkeley Rep. It's been a few years since I've done a show here and it's always a huge pleasure to return. To top it off I get to portray Donny in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Berkeley Rep's latest offering -- a mad, hysterical, bloody good Irish play, and a feast for any Actor.
To prepare for the role, I've become thoroughly disreputable-looking.
I've allowed all the hair on my body to grow unchecked. I've put away the razor, the scissors, my tweezers, the battery-powered rotary nose hair trimmer bought by my wife (who now bleats at me from time to time mocking my goatish appearance), and now resemble someone you'd find on a late-night Sunday BART train.
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The Unpredictable Road to the Roda
posted by Michael Barrett Austin on Fri, May 8, 2009
in Backstage buzz
I’ve had Berkeley Repertory Theatre on the list of theatres I longed to work with since I first figured out I wanted to be an actor, growing up in Los Altos, and my desire has only grown in the years I’ve been an adult actor residing in San Francisco. But roles are limited and competition is high with a theatre of this caliber, and I knew that it would take some luck for me to get into a season show here. With The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the stars have finally aligned (with a little nudging…).
Well, I knew I'd be playing one of these guys...
(l to r: Rowan Brooks, Danny Wolohan, Blake Ellis, and me.
Kneeling are James Carpenter and Adam Farabee.
Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com)
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Guns are Dangerous
posted by Michael Barrett Austin on Fri, May 1, 2009
in Backstage buzz
In The Lieutenant of Inishmore, we are firing real guns with full loads of ammunition.
YIKES.
It is not rare for guns to rear their ugly heads in plays. They’ve been a useful and exciting dramatic tool for playwrights since their invention, I’d guess, and I’ve encountered a fair amount of them in my past acting experience—but it’s never been like this.
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Making an entrance. Or, If you're only in one scene, you'd better do something memorable.
posted by Daniel Kreuger on Mon, Apr 13, 2009
in Backstage buzz , Our shows
I must be out of my mind.
The stage directions for the beginning of my character's scene are as follows: "James, a bare-chested, bloody and bruised man, hangs upside down from the ceiling..." And let me tell you, in the Roda Theatre, that is one TALL ceiling.
Another thing I was told to prepare for was the fact that, when upside down, your mouth moves differently. Gravity is pulling your muscles in the opposite direction from what they're used to. And in this play, if you didn't guess from the title, we're Irish. Being a California native, my Irish accent is the product of practice and several sessions with our dialect coach. It's one thing to sit around a table and learn the sounds, the placement, and the inflection of a dialect, but when you're flipped completely over, your voice comes out drastically different. It was time to start practicing. But how?
Thirty seconds at a time.
In one corner of the rehearsal hall, a rig was built. And by a rig, I mean a rope hung from the high ceiling, some pulleys and carabiners, something called a swivel, and two ankle harnesses, the kind that are used for bungee jumping. We decided that the best thing would be to ease into the hanging slowly, starting at about four minutes, and then adding thirty seconds or so each day. So every day in rehearsal we would run the entire scene on the ground (with me seated on a comfy ottoman), and then "string me up" for four minutes of the scene, then four and a half the next day, then five the next day, and so on. Some days it was not as important to run the scene, so I would come in to rehearsal, put on the harnesses, hang, and we would literally just chat for eight or nine minutes, just to get me upside down for thirty seconds longer. It was actually quite pleasant. But what about days off? And how to train for two-show days?
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New Business: The Lieutenant of Inishmore
posted by Lee Helms on Fri, Mar 27, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Boy is this one a mess.
If you’re familiar with The Lieutenant of Inishmore, you may already know what I’m talking about. The script is so funny and poignant, but the particular style with which it achieves success as a play creates some… sticky challenges for the production staff.
There’s blood. And guts. And blood. And cats. And blood. And guns. And a scene that’s upside-down. Also, there’s blood.
As the stage management intern, one of my favorite parts of the show so far is something the audience will never get to see: our weekly production meetings. With such juicy agenda items as “Brain Matter,” “Cat Trap,” “Cell phone: Breaking and Exploding??” and (you guessed it) “Blood,” there’s never a dull moment.
In fact, we could probably sell tickets. The plastic chairs are surprisingly comfy and sometimes there’s even coffee!
Each week I watch in awe as the team collaborates by tirelessly combing through detail after detail with compassion for each other and the deepest respect for the play and its purpose. The cunning of McDonagh’s script has to be matched by the ingenuity and willpower of the Berkeley Rep staff, and while the play will ultimately have the effect of being messy, chaotic, and more than a little ridiculous, our goal is for the actual operation of the show to be anything but.
You’d never know, for example, that certain pieces of furniture on the set actually serve as strategically-placed storage units for blood-stained props that need to quickly appear on stage during scene-changes. Or that the "wooden" arms on an armchair have actually been replaced by steel replicas (not an easy feat) in order to accommodate a particular piece of blocking. Or that the intricate paint work on the set is actually a delicate balance between the scenic design and the need for every inch of every surface to be heavily sealed so that it can be cleaned between performances. Or that the appearance of an actor suspended upside-down several feet above the floor is the result of exhaustive planning, practice, rigging, re-rigging, and even our very own production stage manager spending some time in the air.
The list goes on and on, and we only started two weeks ago! I’m telling you, these folks are geniuses.
Production meetings can be serious business, but our business is a play after all. It’s fun! Highlights of the meetings usually come when someone (and by “someone” I mean Les Waters, our esteemed director) erupts into giggles because it becomes clear that a room full of 20 people matter-of-factly debating the merits of blood-rigged toupees and headless cat puppets is really quite hilarious in an appalling sort of way.
When the show opens on April 22nd, our beloved production meetings will be over and it will be the audience who gets to giggle at the absurdity and bask in the beauty of everyone’s hard work.
But to me, the real show is already well underway.
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Anatomy of a show poster: In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)
posted by Cheshire Isaacs on Tue, Feb 24, 2009
in Backstage buzz
This is one in an occasional series of how a poster for a show comes together. Click on the images below to see larger versions.
In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) was originally titled simply The Vibrator Play. As a graphic designer, I love short play titles; if every play title were simply one word, that would be just fine by me. When I heard the original title of the play back when the season was coming together and before I'd read the script, I anticipated doing something really risqué, which I was looking forward to.
Then I heard the play title had been changed -- what a disappointment. Not only was the title now much longer, making it more difficult to design around, but it had relegated the most exciting word to a parenthetical afterthought.
And then I actually read the play and understood why the playwright, Sarah Ruhl, had insisted on changing the title. Yes, the advent of the vibrator is at the center of the story, but the play is about so much more than that. To focus just on the vibrator in the title would have obscured the heart of the play.
For the poster, director Les Waters and I decided to focus on Mrs. Givings and her intense desire to find out just what is "in the next room." After a false start, we settled on the idea of a surprised eye looking through a keyhole. We also wanted to give the viewer a clear sense of the Victorian era in which the play is set, so we couldn't use just any door and keyhole.
Off we went to Ohmega Salvage in West Berkeley, purveyor of antique doors, doorknobs, windows, bathtubs, furniture, and so much more. We looked through dozens of doorplate sets and doors and finally chose our favorite of each. The generous staff of Ohmega allowed us to install the doorplate on the door and shoot it right there. The original image is above right.
As you can see, we didn't find a door that had had the same style doorplate, so there isn't a keyhole where there should be one, and there's a big hole where there shouldn't be one. Furthermore, there's no bottom screw, which looks odd (there's no top screw either, but that's obscured by the knob). Finally, there's a bunch of what looks like dried glue in the doorplate's crevices. Time for a little Photoshopping...
Oh yeah, that eyeball. As I mentioned in my post about the making of the poster for The Arabian Nights, at the time we create art for our shows we usually don't have cast members in town, so I need to find my models some other way, and often I look no farther than the office. Such was the case here. We wanted someone with bright blue eyes, so that the eye would jump out against the brown background.
That someone turned out to be Margo Chilless, Berkeley Rep's special events manager and organizer of the final Narsai Toast coming up in April (tickets available now!). Margo and I went outside our office on Center Street and shot approximately 50 photos while the cabdrivers looked on, amused. The image to the right was the one we chose.
Then there was the matter of the show logo. This turned out to be more fun than I thought it would be, given my dislike of long show titles. For inspiration I turned to Victorian advertisements, famous for their ornate typesetting and distinctive style of drop shadows. A prime example is at right.
To choose the typeface I went immediately to Letterhead Fonts, which specializes in revivals of classic signage hand-lettering. Their Mackinlay fit the bill perfectly. (They have a beautiful website -- you should really check it out.) After that it was just a matter of arcing the words and creating that shadow (which is more technical than I'll get into here -- just know that it's not the easiest thing in the world to do correctly). Below is the result.
Finally it was time to put it all together. After adjusting the logo to appear on a dark background, I put it together with the image, and we had our poster, which you can see below.
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Episode #3 -- In Which We Share the Show With the General Public...
posted by Stacy Ross on Tue, Feb 17, 2009
in Backstage buzz
well --
we rehearsed
we previewed
we opened.
previews included the excitement of having Sarah back in town --
and small tweaks (and occasionally the addition of a whole monologue) in the script,
as well as the usual additions of costume, lights, and sound:
creative elements that help create the world,
but also add the necessary strictures of timing and spacing for an actor
(not that we don't have very certain ideas of both while rehearsing,
but getting into the actual space, time, sound and feel of the thing as a whole always demands adjustments --
and patience...on everyone's part...).
"do i turn the light off here?"
"how long is this piece of music?"
"which door did you want me to go out of?"
"you can't HEAR me?"
(there is a very specific distress in being told you're just not loud enough, when you've been sure that's the least of your worries...)
okay, and that's the usual stuff --
every tech rehearsal/production holds some mixture of the aforementioned --
but then there are the curveballs...
maria plays the piano!
and has paroxysms...
paul gives paroxysms...
and joaquín gets - - -
well if ya haven't seen the play, i really should let you see for yourself.
so, sometimes productions have that little extra something
that you're sure you can handle,
but still gives you that slightly (or hugely) abnormal hurdle
that you have to negotiate --
first in rehearsal
then in tech
next, with the first audience (usually first preview)
once more on opening, just because you know it's going to be in print,
and then...
and then each and every performance.
this play affords me the unusual -- and oddly stressful, at first -- opportunity
to help my fellow actors in, and as often, OUT of their clothing --
which has to happen in a particular span of time -- not too soon
and definitely not too late in the getting-them-clothed-again part --
they've got to get into the next room to continue the story.
as any parent will tell you,
being responsible for getting another person to a certain place at a certain time
is, at times, weighty...
but in this case, with practice, very do-able
and very communicative, one actor to another,
as much as speaking to each other -- though we don't --
and so the character-relationship grows in a way that the actors can certainly gauge...
but does the audience get that?
i dunno --
SHOULD they?
you tell me. :-)
Photo: Me (on the right), dressing Maria.
Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com