Gale Day hath arrived!
ORPHEUS OPENING NIGHT OMG.
Tonight's the night for my teevee boyfriend, woot! Everyone going have their tiny hidden videocameras notebooks and pens to take notes? LET THE FANGIRLING BEGIN OMG. I'll be waiting patiently. And by patiently, I mean my refresh button probably won't respect me in the morning.
So, new play = new Gale interview. I'm so smitten.
The Gale bits:
Actors Denise Crosby, Gale Harold & Claudia Mason: Tennessee Ascending
Features by Geo Hartley | January 15, 2010
Orpheus Descending, presented by Frantic Redhead Productions, opens Jan. 15; plays Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Feb. 21. Tickets: $25. Theatre/Theater, 5041 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles; 800.838.3006 or brownpapertickets.com/event/92508.
So that we don’t forget…Denise Crosby, Gale Harold and Claudia Mason, under the direction of filmmaker Lou Pepe, are firing up a six-week run of Orpheus Descending for Los Angeles audiences, opening this Friday, January 15 at Theatre/Theater.
Who are these intrepid actors, where did they come from and why did they choose to ride Williams’ Southern Gothic roller coaster of a melodrama? Let’s see…
We start with Gale Harold as Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier. It would be more polite or conventional to start with one of the ladies, but Snakeskin and perhaps Harold himself are anything but conventional. Williams describes this Orpheus as “having a wild beauty about him,” a drifter who “can burn a woman down.” Wow!
As you know Harold from his television and film work, he certainly has the wild beauty and burn ‘em down business pretty well handled. Among his many roles, he’s been the lead Brian Kinney on Showtime’s hit series Queer as Folk, Susan Meyers’ lover on Desperate Housewives and Wyatt Earp on HBO’s Deadwood. But, did you know he began as an intern at A Noise Within?
Harold’s memories may be even more recognizable to theatre actors. “We were doing Cymbeline at LATC, he recounts, “and I was getting to that stage in my career where I was thinking New York or Chicago. I wasn’t a good auditioner in LA. I hadn’t mastered the Shurtleff style. But, my manager wanted me to audition for Queer as Folk. It was presented more like a movie for cable so I went to read.
“I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care how I looked. I had $5 to my name and ran out of gas on the way to the audition. I had to hunt around in my car to find enough change to get there.
“I had seen the original British version of the show and I knew how an American would play the role-unapologetically OUT, take it or leave it. So I opened up my guns and let them blaze. When I was done, I let them know ‘if you want me back, I can’t read Monday…I have to strike Cymbeline.’”
Why choose Orpheus Descending to perform?
Harold is big on his coach Kim Gillingham. “I am fascinated,” he says, “by how she guided me to make choices amidst all the chaos and to find the feelings that allow me to hold onto those choices. At the end of last year, I called and asked her if she knew of something more rigorous that I could work on every day. She called back and recommended this play. Val. It was a very terrifying thought, and exciting.
“First and foremost, there are the words. He built this man’s way of speaking-’a peculiar talker.’ I’m from Atlanta and spent my formative years in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. There’s French, Spanish, Italian and black culture. It’s phraseology.
“It’s like a symphonic arrangement and, when we’re all talking to each other, the strings play together on stage. They talk to each other with echoes of a mandolin or violin. As our director Lou Pepe says ‘it’s an incantation.’”
Harold, that “younger man,” says “I have a 1001 fears. We can sit around on a blanket with some wine and grapes and get to them all. But mostly, when there’s such a great playwright, you don’t want to sully his adaptation of a myth that makes rocks cry.
“There’s also the fear of the next trap - don’t play the metaphor. Val is a singer and a hustler…a man on the run, not a man with a lute serenading a nymph. I do perform ‘Heavenly Grass’ though, the most terrifying thing of all.” Terrifying perhaps because Williams wrote it himself. An ethereal ode to his audience.
Sounds like a good bet for theatergoers to enjoy these actors in a play about living bravely and honestly in a fallen world. Tennessee Williams began these themes here with his Orpheus and Eurydice and evolved them through the many works of his career.
Here’s hoping your feet take a walk in his heavenly grass.
I'm gonna need a sec. I'm all ♥_♥ right now and it's hard to type. Just the way he phrases things, guh. Oh, Galeface. I have missed you. But no new Galewords. I.. really wanted a new Galeword, you guys. :*(
Also, I have no idea what the Shurtleff style is in the big picture of the acting world, but I did find a few quotes:
"An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. We are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don't realize they must go looking for it. Plays are written about...the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance." - Michael Shurtleff
"Whatever you decide is your motivation in the scene, the opposite of that is also true and should be in the scene." - Michael Shurtleff
"We don't live for realities, but for the fantasies, the dreams of what might be. If we lived for reality, we'd be dead, every last one of us. Only dreams keep us going...When you are acting, don't settle for anything less than the biggest dream for your character's future." - Michael Shurtleff
"Competition is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get along. And they are therefore not first-rate actors. The good actor is the one who competes, willingly, who enjoys competing. An actor must compete, or die...Peacefulness and the avoidance of trouble won't help in his acting. It is just the opposite he must seek." - Michael Shurtleff
"Consistency is the death of good acting." - Michael Shurtleff
"An actor must make his needs (goals, wants, objectives) so strong that he is willing to interfere with the other actor in order to get what he needs. Interfering means getting in their way so that what you want is stronger than what they want." - Michael Shurtleff
"An expression of feeling isn't worth anything unless it interferes with what the other actor in the scene wants." - Michael Shurtleff
Dude. He's like the Yoda of acting.
ALSO OMG. I woke up to an inbox full of notifications, new AND old. Apparently the whole notification problem was actually an AOL problem? Or something. Cos the link to news.livejournal is still in the new emails. Or that wasn't the exact problem in the first place. Whatever! I HAVE EMAILS AGAIN YAY.
Stage Ac-TOR Gale AND emails in one day. I'm going to dance now! This calls for dancing!
Tonight's the night for my teevee boyfriend, woot! Everyone going have their tiny hidden videocameras notebooks and pens to take notes? LET THE FANGIRLING BEGIN OMG. I'll be waiting patiently. And by patiently, I mean my refresh button probably won't respect me in the morning.
So, new play = new Gale interview. I'm so smitten.
The Gale bits:
Actors Denise Crosby, Gale Harold & Claudia Mason: Tennessee Ascending
Features by Geo Hartley | January 15, 2010
Orpheus Descending, presented by Frantic Redhead Productions, opens Jan. 15; plays Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; through Feb. 21. Tickets: $25. Theatre/Theater, 5041 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles; 800.838.3006 or brownpapertickets.com/event/92508.
So that we don’t forget…Denise Crosby, Gale Harold and Claudia Mason, under the direction of filmmaker Lou Pepe, are firing up a six-week run of Orpheus Descending for Los Angeles audiences, opening this Friday, January 15 at Theatre/Theater.
Who are these intrepid actors, where did they come from and why did they choose to ride Williams’ Southern Gothic roller coaster of a melodrama? Let’s see…
We start with Gale Harold as Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier. It would be more polite or conventional to start with one of the ladies, but Snakeskin and perhaps Harold himself are anything but conventional. Williams describes this Orpheus as “having a wild beauty about him,” a drifter who “can burn a woman down.” Wow!
As you know Harold from his television and film work, he certainly has the wild beauty and burn ‘em down business pretty well handled. Among his many roles, he’s been the lead Brian Kinney on Showtime’s hit series Queer as Folk, Susan Meyers’ lover on Desperate Housewives and Wyatt Earp on HBO’s Deadwood. But, did you know he began as an intern at A Noise Within?
Harold’s memories may be even more recognizable to theatre actors. “We were doing Cymbeline at LATC, he recounts, “and I was getting to that stage in my career where I was thinking New York or Chicago. I wasn’t a good auditioner in LA. I hadn’t mastered the Shurtleff style. But, my manager wanted me to audition for Queer as Folk. It was presented more like a movie for cable so I went to read.
“I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care how I looked. I had $5 to my name and ran out of gas on the way to the audition. I had to hunt around in my car to find enough change to get there.
“I had seen the original British version of the show and I knew how an American would play the role-unapologetically OUT, take it or leave it. So I opened up my guns and let them blaze. When I was done, I let them know ‘if you want me back, I can’t read Monday…I have to strike Cymbeline.’”
Why choose Orpheus Descending to perform?
Harold is big on his coach Kim Gillingham. “I am fascinated,” he says, “by how she guided me to make choices amidst all the chaos and to find the feelings that allow me to hold onto those choices. At the end of last year, I called and asked her if she knew of something more rigorous that I could work on every day. She called back and recommended this play. Val. It was a very terrifying thought, and exciting.
“First and foremost, there are the words. He built this man’s way of speaking-’a peculiar talker.’ I’m from Atlanta and spent my formative years in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. There’s French, Spanish, Italian and black culture. It’s phraseology.
“It’s like a symphonic arrangement and, when we’re all talking to each other, the strings play together on stage. They talk to each other with echoes of a mandolin or violin. As our director Lou Pepe says ‘it’s an incantation.’”
Harold, that “younger man,” says “I have a 1001 fears. We can sit around on a blanket with some wine and grapes and get to them all. But mostly, when there’s such a great playwright, you don’t want to sully his adaptation of a myth that makes rocks cry.
“There’s also the fear of the next trap - don’t play the metaphor. Val is a singer and a hustler…a man on the run, not a man with a lute serenading a nymph. I do perform ‘Heavenly Grass’ though, the most terrifying thing of all.” Terrifying perhaps because Williams wrote it himself. An ethereal ode to his audience.
Sounds like a good bet for theatergoers to enjoy these actors in a play about living bravely and honestly in a fallen world. Tennessee Williams began these themes here with his Orpheus and Eurydice and evolved them through the many works of his career.
Here’s hoping your feet take a walk in his heavenly grass.
I'm gonna need a sec. I'm all ♥_♥ right now and it's hard to type. Just the way he phrases things, guh. Oh, Galeface. I have missed you. But no new Galewords. I.. really wanted a new Galeword, you guys. :*(
Also, I have no idea what the Shurtleff style is in the big picture of the acting world, but I did find a few quotes:
"An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. We are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don't realize they must go looking for it. Plays are written about...the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance." - Michael Shurtleff
"Whatever you decide is your motivation in the scene, the opposite of that is also true and should be in the scene." - Michael Shurtleff
"We don't live for realities, but for the fantasies, the dreams of what might be. If we lived for reality, we'd be dead, every last one of us. Only dreams keep us going...When you are acting, don't settle for anything less than the biggest dream for your character's future." - Michael Shurtleff
"Competition is healthy. Competition is life. Yet most actors refuse to acknowledge this. They don't want to compete. They want to get along. And they are therefore not first-rate actors. The good actor is the one who competes, willingly, who enjoys competing. An actor must compete, or die...Peacefulness and the avoidance of trouble won't help in his acting. It is just the opposite he must seek." - Michael Shurtleff
"Consistency is the death of good acting." - Michael Shurtleff
"An actor must make his needs (goals, wants, objectives) so strong that he is willing to interfere with the other actor in order to get what he needs. Interfering means getting in their way so that what you want is stronger than what they want." - Michael Shurtleff
"An expression of feeling isn't worth anything unless it interferes with what the other actor in the scene wants." - Michael Shurtleff
Dude. He's like the Yoda of acting.
ALSO OMG. I woke up to an inbox full of notifications, new AND old. Apparently the whole notification problem was actually an AOL problem? Or something. Cos the link to news.livejournal is still in the new emails. Or that wasn't the exact problem in the first place. Whatever! I HAVE EMAILS AGAIN YAY.
Stage Ac-TOR Gale AND emails in one day. I'm going to dance now! This calls for dancing!