The many voices of The Shadow
Rehearsals are going well, despite losing riolobo, which was disappointing to hear. Because we lost him and one other cast member, the remaining male actors all picked up extra roles. I was given one other speech-making official and a military radio operator who speaks only seven words in "War of the Worlds", but no extra parts in the two Shadow episodes, since I'm playing Lamont Cranston/The Shadow. Tomorrow we rehearse all three radio plays in one rehearsal, where before we were splitting them up.
The director really likes my interpretation of The Shadow but has recently told me that he wants me to toughen up Lamont Cranston, something that he never mentioned before (well, once to the other guy who auditioned and was cast as Orson Welles, but not to me). He is saying this partially to make me enunciate my words more, since he thinks I tend to swallow a couple of words in my efforts to project into the room as Cranston. To make it more challenging, he said to make Cranston tough (or "edgy" - he goes back and forth between those two adjectives) while still keeping my Cranston voice distinct from my voice for The Shadow. At first I was kind of stumped on this, but I may have a solution, which is to go back to the source material of the original Shadow radio show.
There have been several radio actors who have played The Shadow. A couple had portrayed him when he was a just a host of a couple of anthology series that dramatized mystery stories published in the pulp magazines - and, in the case of one series, love stories - prior to becoming the main character in the show with which we are all familiar. One or two more characters had very short tenures in the famous radio show we all know, including a somewhat well known Hollywood movie actor named John Archer (who, IMHO, did a terrible job).
The three actors that stand out as portrayers of The Shadow are, in order of when they played the role, Orson Welles, Bill Johnstone (my favorite), and Bret Morrison, the last being most associated with the role since he was last one to play the character and had played him the longest. When I auditioned for the play, I went in playing Lamont Cranston/The Shadow like Orson Welles, since the scripts we are using are from the first of Welles's two seasons as The Shadow. However, when the director decided to split up the roles of Welles (for "War of the Worlds") and The Shadow and give them to two actors, I felt that I was not bound to Welles's interpretation of the character. I still used Welles inflections from the actual broadcasts for Cranston, but I gave my own spin for The Shadow.
Anyway, of those three actors, Bret Morrison came across as sounding the toughest as Lamont Cranston. I'm thinking that this is the voice that director is recalling from his memories of the show. I re-listened to a couple of Morrison episodes and will try to imitate his version of Cranston, with maybe a little Robert Stack thrown in since Stack was uber-tough as Eliot Ness despite the soft tonal quality of his voice.
I hope this is what the director is looking for. If he still says I need to toughen him up, I may be at a loss. I have another tough voice I could use, but it does border on my Shadow voice. I shall see what happens tomorrow.
Boy, acting is hard work.
The director really likes my interpretation of The Shadow but has recently told me that he wants me to toughen up Lamont Cranston, something that he never mentioned before (well, once to the other guy who auditioned and was cast as Orson Welles, but not to me). He is saying this partially to make me enunciate my words more, since he thinks I tend to swallow a couple of words in my efforts to project into the room as Cranston. To make it more challenging, he said to make Cranston tough (or "edgy" - he goes back and forth between those two adjectives) while still keeping my Cranston voice distinct from my voice for The Shadow. At first I was kind of stumped on this, but I may have a solution, which is to go back to the source material of the original Shadow radio show.
There have been several radio actors who have played The Shadow. A couple had portrayed him when he was a just a host of a couple of anthology series that dramatized mystery stories published in the pulp magazines - and, in the case of one series, love stories - prior to becoming the main character in the show with which we are all familiar. One or two more characters had very short tenures in the famous radio show we all know, including a somewhat well known Hollywood movie actor named John Archer (who, IMHO, did a terrible job).
The three actors that stand out as portrayers of The Shadow are, in order of when they played the role, Orson Welles, Bill Johnstone (my favorite), and Bret Morrison, the last being most associated with the role since he was last one to play the character and had played him the longest. When I auditioned for the play, I went in playing Lamont Cranston/The Shadow like Orson Welles, since the scripts we are using are from the first of Welles's two seasons as The Shadow. However, when the director decided to split up the roles of Welles (for "War of the Worlds") and The Shadow and give them to two actors, I felt that I was not bound to Welles's interpretation of the character. I still used Welles inflections from the actual broadcasts for Cranston, but I gave my own spin for The Shadow.
Anyway, of those three actors, Bret Morrison came across as sounding the toughest as Lamont Cranston. I'm thinking that this is the voice that director is recalling from his memories of the show. I re-listened to a couple of Morrison episodes and will try to imitate his version of Cranston, with maybe a little Robert Stack thrown in since Stack was uber-tough as Eliot Ness despite the soft tonal quality of his voice.
I hope this is what the director is looking for. If he still says I need to toughen him up, I may be at a loss. I have another tough voice I could use, but it does border on my Shadow voice. I shall see what happens tomorrow.
Boy, acting is hard work.