Berkeley Rep Blog
Category archive: Our shows
The Irish National Be Nice to Cats Army
posted by Megan Wygant on Thu, Apr 23, 2009
in Our shows
I really enjoy watching The Lieutenant of Inishmore, which started previews last Friday and officially opened last night. Actually, I really like watching the audience. Does that make me a bad person?
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With, matter, cat
posted by Megan Wygant on Mon, Apr 20, 2009
in Our shows
I've always been fascinated with accents: how they're created, and how significantly one can change the assumptions you make about a person's character (See: Shaw's Pygmalion).
Since The Lieutenant of Inishmore is set in Ireland (Galway, to be precise), we had Lynne Soffer coaching the actors in dialects for the show. Lynne has served as dialect coach for several of our productions, most notably Homebody/Kabul and The Laramie Project.
Early in rehearsals, we had a great conversation about Irish dialects, particularly McDonagh Irish, which is a bit different. Check it out!
BTW -- My grandma thinks it's her birthday today. So, happy birthday, Grandma!
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Green Day Rocks the Fox
posted by Robert Sweibel on Wed, Apr 15, 2009
in Our shows
I’m a lucky guy. You probably know that Berkeley Rep is producing the the stage version of Green Day's platinum-selling American Idiot. Previews begin September 4. The Theatre is working closely with the band, its record companies (Warner Brothers Music and Reprise Records -- I’m still not sure how that works) to promote the show. The record hits stores on Friday, May 15; a world tour follows sometime after that. And before the band plays the big arenas, they play smaller gigs around the Bay Area to refine their show with the support of hometown crowds. So tonight Berkeley Rep’s PR director, Terence Keane, and I -- he with one of his friends, and me with my son Oliver -- went down to the Fox Theatre in Oakland to catch the show.
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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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Irish accents, cats, and blood
posted by Pauline Luppert on Thu, Apr 9, 2009
in Our shows
I rather fancy The Pogues; I was quite charmed when director Les Waters likened Martin McDonagh's writing to their music.
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Mmmm...shoe polish
posted by Megan Wygant on Thu, Apr 2, 2009
in Our shows
This morning, I stopped by the fridge to drop off my lunch and was brought up short. This is what I saw:
In case you can’t read the writing, the top of the plastic container reads “shoe polish.”
The Lieutenant of Inishmore is currently in rehearsal, and there’s a scene where two of the main characters try to put shoe polish on a cat (which is just as difficult as it sounds), so part of this makes sense…but I’d never heard of perishable polish before.
I was about to shrug this off as one of the oddities of working in a theatre when Leslie Radin, the show's production assistant, walked over, reached into the fridge, and grabbed the container in question.
So I had to ask: “shoe polish, huh?”
She smiled—and grabbed a spoon. “Want a taste?”
Turns out, since the polish gets everywhere during the scene—faces, eyes, mouths—it’s not shoe polish at all, but simply something made to look like it.
And the main ingredient is chocolate.
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Reader makes good
posted by Amy Potozkin on Mon, Mar 23, 2009
in Our shows
This is my first official blog entry in the history of my blogging life. Yes, I’m willing to lose my blogging virginity to tell the very cool story of how Tyler Pierce got cast as Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment at Berkeley Rep.
People have been asking how I “discovered” this wonderful actor. Not to put on a mask of false humility, but I’m not sure any casting director discovers any particular actor -– although I know what they mean. And here’s the story:
When we do auditions for shows, actors are given “sides" — scenes they need to read for the role or roles they are auditioning for. We also hire a “reader,” whose job it is to sit in the audition and play opposite the actors. The reader sits in a chair with their back to us, so that the actor auditioning has the focus.
So, after completing local auditions here in Berkeley for Sarah Ruhl’s play In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), director Les Waters and I went to New York to audition more actors for the show. I hired a New York casting director named Janet Foster to help put together a casting session for us, and after receiving submissions from agents and culling through her files she put together two days of auditions for various roles in the play.
Tyler Pierce was hired to be our reader for the two days of Next Room auditions -— three days, actually, because we then did a day of callbacks. No wait -— make that four days, because after we completed the auditions for the Sarah Ruhl play, we also did a day of auditions for a couple of roles we still needed to cast in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, which is also directed by Les.
We sat in the audition room with Tyler for four straight days while he read with other actors. He read all the other roles in all the sides -— both male and female. We were all struck by Tyler’s generosity while reading with the actors, and how keen his instinct was for what each actor needed to have a successful audition. He amped it up a little when necessary, toned it down when that seemed to be the right note for another person’s audition, and read Mrs. Givings with a fragility all his very own.
During the lunch break I got on the phone and called Paul Fouquet, another casting director, who was putting together our half-day audition session for Crime and Punishment a few days later. I asked for him to bring Tyler in to read for Raskolnikov -- he had a certain quiet intensity and authenticity that seemed very right for the role, and after hearing him read with many actors over the course of three days it was clear he was a very good actor.
He was also a pleasure to be around all day, and that’s a big part of casting -— finding out who a director wants to be in a room with for six to eight hours a day, every day, for four weeks. There are actors out there who may be very good, but who wind up on the “life is too short” list ... but that’s another story and a blog I will not be writing, even if it would make juicy reading.
When Tyler came in for his audition for Crime and Punishment, he was on fire. He gave a fantastic audition —- he nailed it. There was another actor who was also fantastic and who took a completely different approach to the character, who director Sharon Ott also liked; both were invited to attend “callbacks” a couple of days later. They were both great and yet completely different. At the callback auditions, Sharon worked with both actors individually -— giving adjustments to choices they were making and asking them to re-think preconceived ideas. She worked with them for about 20 minutes each and after the auditions, decided she wanted Tyler for the role. She was struck by his clarity of intention, his facility with language, his beautiful and flexible vocal instrument, and his intensity and passion.
The role was cast!
We offered it to him, he accepted the offer, and now we have the great pleasure of watching his moving and powerful performance through March 29.
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Vibrator Play goes to Broadway!
posted by Terence Keane on Thu, Mar 19, 2009
in Our shows
It closed on Sunday, but the buzz continues for In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Yesterday, Lincoln Center Theater announced that it will produce the script on Broadway this fall! We're all feeling a bit proud around here at the moment.
The show will mark the Broadway debut for our associate artistic director, Les Waters, who staged its premiere here and will helm the New York production as well. Playwright Sarah Ruhl will also be celebrating her Broadway debut.
For those of you keeping score at home, that's the third show we've worked on that's gone to Broadway in the last four years: Tony Taccone directed Bridge & Tunnel in 2006, which won a Tony Award for Sarah Jones, and last year Passing Strange won a Tony as well. Strange continued its weird journey this week: Spike Lee's film version of it played at the South by Southwest festival in Austin on St. Patrick's Day.
And the numbers game isn't over: In the Next Room is the eighth show we've sent to Manhattan in eight straight years, the 17th in the last 22 years. It was our 50th world premiere. I'm starting to feel like I should play the lottery today...
But, seriously, it's exciting for those of us who work here. It's wonderful to feel that the plays we create can reach a wider audience, and especially gratifying to see that shows like this -- which blend comedy with serious cultural commentary -- will succeed even in difficult economic times.
Who wants to fly to New York this fall?
Photo of Paul Niebanck and Maria Dizzia by Kevin Berne
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The Method and the Man
posted by Megan Wygant on Fri, Mar 13, 2009
in Our shows
Artist Anthony Holdworth's blog entry about Joaquin Torres and his research process for In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) is interesting reading. I hadn't realized how thoroughly Joaquin had researched the role until just now.
By the way, if you haven't seen In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), this weekend is your last chance!
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Dostoevsky: The Cliffs Notes version
posted by Pauline Luppert on Fri, Mar 6, 2009
in Our shows
After the first preview of Crime and Punishment, I invited exiting audience members to talk on camera about how they liked the show. Despite bribes of free wine, I didn't have a lot of takers; most were very camera shy. However this woman, Tatiana, was very charming and eloquent. I thought it was rather fortuitous that she is Russian and clearly loves Dostoevsky.
I don't have my camera set up anymore, but if you've seen the show, what did you think? Don't be shy--share your opinions below, in the comments.