I stumbled across and subsequently asked to join this group a couple weeks ago, after discovering it one Monday evening while perusing DKos. I was waiting for my cue to go upstairs to the stage and do a bit of my job. Currently, and for the last decade, I've been working on one of those long running Broadway Musicals that every serious "theater person" loves to hate. Aside from the fact that this is the longest stretch of continuous employment I've ever had by a factor of at least five, it's not the worst show in the world.
I like the fact that due to having a regular paycheck I've been able to do all those things that used to seem so common place to folks outside of the freelance world.
Especially those who work outside of the (as I like to refer to it) Entertainment Industrial Complex.
Wacky things like create and stick to a budget (it's difficult at best to create a budget when you have absolutely no idea of how much money you will earn from week to week). Take a vacation confident that I will have a job to come back to.
1st --- A little background. ----
I'm a stagehand. My specialty is moving lights, and the programming, maintenance and repairing thereof. If you've ever been to a show that has lights which move, change colors and beams without a person directly touching them I can take them apart, put them back together, program them to do cool things, sometimes hanging upside down over your heads.
I used to tour a lot. 300 days+ per year away from "home", though for most of those years I kept an apartment in various parts of NYC, whatever roommates I had loved the fact that I was never late with my share of the rent and almost never there. They usually had a guest bedroom that paid for itself.
After the true love of my life and I got married, we decided that my wandering days were over, and Broadway bound i was. (I had actually been working on B'way for at least half a decade before I took this current show, but we all knew this one would run, so... I get to go home to my dear sweet wife every night! How cool is that?)
When I joined the group Theatricals I considered writing diaries more specifically about my 25 years plus in "The Biz". I may still do that - I've had many unusual experiences, met wonderful people, and seen the heights and certain depths of the "human condition".
However, I thought I would start off with some musings, and direct you attentions to a fabulous source of much amusement and wonder within the live theater community.
(one of the main reasons I'm starting off with this dairy subject matter is that this is an expansion of a diary I posted on my mostly overlooked and ignored (even by me) blog, which I've essentially abandoned. If you go there, you'll see I haven't made an entry in over a year.)
Join me on t'other side of the Orange Kosiastic Frieze and we'll look at a couple elements of the theater that have broader implications.
Your call is "places"
Theater is based on story telling.
From the Dionysian Dithyrambs to today's "Reality TV" the core of theater has been to tell a story to an audience. The forms have changed from society to society as well as through time and adapting as each wave of technology and fashion have passed through our civilization. It always comes back to telling a story, whether it's just to amuse, to enrage, to garner sympathy... the motive may be different had the forms as varied as the human imagination, but the essence is somebody has something to say and has figured out a way to say it.
(I must state here that MY basic definition of "theater" is a live performance that tells a story. I include sports as a subset of the Entertainment Industrial Complex, but since they are (generally) not scripted, I do not include them as "theater". I do include live performances of music, dance, operas, dramas as well as all manner of "performance art".)
There are a lot of bedrock "truisms" in the myriad arts that make up theater - to me the most basic is "Serve The Script". Tell the story. Whether it as a literal script, a musical score, choreography, even the starting point for a session of improvisation, there has to be a reason to present the show. (There's a whole side discussion that "making money" has supplanted "art" in too many genres. I may touch on that in a later diary, G-d knows I've seen a lot). In live theater a whole bunch of us get together to tell a story - usually a Director has the unifying vision, the designers (inc. choreographers) each add their own creative elements to the director's grand vision, and the actors (non-gender specific term FYI), musicians, crew and management are each responsible for recreating the director's vision as accurately as possible at each and every performance.
We all tend to love the "Biz" and often go way beyond the "call of duty" which leads to another over used, but accurate truism "The Show Must Go On." (which is why young theater types are so easily taken advantage of, not just young actors on the "casting couch" - fodder for another diary, why are Unions so important in theater).
Think about it - in the theater that I work in, 8 times a week, as many as 1500 people have paid $100 each to see a show, and expect to see essentially the same show that we premiered nearly eleven years ago. Everyone on that stage, in the pit, backstage and in the house tries to make the 2.5 hours that you are in the building the best experience that we can, but recreating our director's vision as accurately as possible.
But all of ^ is prologue.
What I want to talk about today are two phrases that leapt out at me when I re-watched one of my favorite scenes from one of the best written television shows of all time, Slings And Arrows
I believe it is available via Netfiix. Certainly, the DVD box set is available (and I would recommend it as a gift to any and all of your Shakespeare loving friends and relatives.)
Let me paraphrase another superbly well written yet short lived TV series (Freaks & Geeks) when I say:
I'm jealous of those of you who haven't seen this yet because you get to watch it for the first time."
The two phrases I want to discuss today are:
"Use it" & "Find Your Light"
They are phrases which are heard in the theater constantly. A classic dialogue built around these phrases is found in the final episode of from the first season of "Slings And Arrows".
You can find excerpts from all 3 seasons on Youtube, but I would implore you to watch each episode in its totality. There's a flow that you just cannot appreciate by watching it in 7 minute chunks. I'm going to transcribe some key parts of dialogue, that, without giving away too many of the plot twists or (hopefully) ruining any suspense, will illustrate the two phrases mentioned above.
here we go -
Setting the stage: without giving too much away for you poor folks who have not yet discovered this rare reason to not throw your TV in the lake
The setting is the fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival in Canada, based somewhat loosely on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
The key to this scene is a young action movie star (Jack) has been cast as the season's Hamlet, in order to prove his "real acting" chops, whereas the director (Geoffrey) is famous for having been a brilliant actor some years in the past, but having had a nervous breakdown on stage, during the grave digger scene, and disappearing into that dark night.
(Dialogue lifted and compiled from a couple of fan-sites. I think it's accurate, without checking via the DVD)
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(previously - before the final rehearsal)
Geoffrey: Hello everybody. Here we go. Well, we only have one dress rehearsal which is not great but it's okay because as the saying goes ... a bad dress means...
Cast: ... a good opening.
Geoffrey: Exactly. So we are protected. We are protected to a certain extent by a cliche. No, I'm sorry. This is actually going to be a nightmare. It is going to have that sickly sickly feeling of playing to an empty house except for a couple of ushers and maybe a sympathetic lizard. There's no avoiding it, so just find your light, say your lines - and if you can't find your light, shout your lines from the shadows. Get through it the best you can and we'll fix what needs fixing tomorrow. It is going to be frightening. Have a good show. Oh, you know, there is one encouraging thing that I can say ... I just happen to believe that this play is the single greatest achievement in western art. So we've got that going for us.
(Skipping scene where Richard Smith-Jones, New Burbage Festival Theater Administrator (Money Guy) tells Jack Crew that it's OK if Jack screws up Hamlet. After all, he's a movie star, nobody expects him to be able to act.)
It's opening night. No preview period. Insanity reigns backstage. The well-dressed crowd starts flocking in. Jack and Geoffrey sit in Jack's dressing room.
Jack: Why would Richard say that? Why would he go out of his way to fuck with my mind?
Geoffrey: I don't know. Why would a man kill his brother and marry his sister-in-law?
Jack: It's a fucked-up world.
Geoffrey: Yeah, it is. It is. Especially for actors. Actors are entirely dependent on other people for what they do. They need a writer, they need a director, they need someone to make their costumes, the sets, the props - they need a theatre - worst of all, they need other actors. That's a lot of people. That's not even including the audience. You bring all of those people into one place and the odds are that you are gonna get screwed by somebody. Usually by somebody wearing a tie.
Jack: I never looked at it that way.
Geoffrey: Well, you can't, can you. Otherwise, you'd go mad. Are you up to some notes? I don't want to overwhelm you or anything. It's just blocking. I want you to be seen.
Jack: Yeah. What the hell. Shoot.
As the notes session goes on, Jack starts to become more and more agitated. His nerves are overwhelming him.
Geoffrey: Oh yeah, you're drifting kind of to the right on Osric's entrance. So just try and keep stage left. If you're ever in doubt, just find your light.
Jack: Oh Jesus. I don't know what that means.
Geoffrey: What?
Jack: Find your light.
Geoffrey: I've said it to you, like, a dozen times.
Jack: Every time you say it, I never knew what you meant. I just nod my head when you say it.
Geoffrey: Wow. Okay. Light is hot. And when you're in your light, you can feel it on your face.
Jack: Look. My hands are shaking. I feel sick. FUCKING RICHARD, MAN. I can't do this! The play's too big! I can't wrap my head around it! I'm just a face, you know? Normally, I don't have to keep it up for more than 3/8ths of a page. Or it's just a glance, you know? And you do it 20 times until you get it perfect.
Geoffrey: Well, forget about perfection. There's nothing more boring than perfection. Imprecision, fear - this is what gets them to their feet.
Jack: Well, I should be brilliant then.
Geoffrey: And. It is not that big of a play.
Jack: Yeah, right.
Geoffrey: Come here. Sit down. Sit. Now look at me. I want you to think of it in terms of six soliloquies, okay? Count them off with me. 'O that this too too solid flesh'. 'O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.' 'To be or not to be.' 'Tis now the very witching hour' - that's a short one, that's only twelve lines. 'Now might I do it pat'. 'How all occasions do inform against me.' That's it. Six. And the rest, as they say, is silence.
Jack: I think there's some dialogue in between.
Geoffrey: Filler. Nail those six soliloquies, everyone goes home happy. Jack. Jack. You can do this. I'll be there.
Maria's (Stage Manager) voice over the intercom: This is your five minute call. Five minutes til the top of the show.
Jack gets up and vomits into the sink. Geoffrey nods in approval.
Geoffrey: I'll give you a moment alone.
It's the top of the show. Jack stands backstage, nervous as hell. Geoffrey comes up behind him.
Geoffrey: Six soliloquies.
The show begins. Jack paces backstage. Geoffrey talks to him.
Geoffrey: First one's gonna be easy. You are just so sick of the world and all the people in it. You just wish you could melt. Stay up left of Laertes on your entrance.
Jack: I'm gonna throw up.
Geoffrey: Use it.
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Two things here -
1) "Use it"- the key to Method Acting. Use your own personal experiences on the stage to get to the emotional core of the scene - it's all about serving the script - make the audience believe your character, believe that your character is consistent within their universe and trust that the playwright had the talent to write a self consistent narrative and the audience will buy it. If you're sick in real life, use it. If you're scared in real life, use that energy. If you're angry, find a way to use it. People want to relate to the show - they want to see and feel real emotions - or believe that the emotions they see are real.
2) "Find Your Light". Geoffrey's explanation; " Wow. Okay. Light is hot. And when you're in your light, you can feel it on your face." is in itself a brilliant (pun intended) lesson for all performers, but there's so much more to it. This is especially true when you consider that the character of Jack Crew was a film action star - he never needed to "find his light". In film (and television) actors look for their marks, and the lighting is set in place. The DPs spend huge amounts of time getting the lighting for a scene just right, all dependent on an actor standing right on his/her spike mark. In live theater, there is no luxury of standing in place while the grips move the lights to suit you. You go out on a dark, often lonely stage and "find your light".
If every actor/dancer/singer/performer could spend one four hour call helping focus lights, how wonderful would that be! You can tell who the real pros are by how they react to their surroundings onstage - they are aware of the entirety of the scenery, the positions of the other actors, the mobility or restrictions of the everybody's costumes, and, yes, the feel of the lights. Especially in smaller, non proscenium theaters, finding your light can be the difference between delivering your lines in obscurity or commanding the entire audience's attention. There are times when a character should speak from the shadows, but, if you're saying something that the audience needs to hear, 99% of the time you should be seen as well as heard.
I think "Find Your Light" can also apply on a much broader scale - the scale of every day existence.
"Finding your light" is a good metaphor for life - Find the heat in your existence. Find what gives you the warm feeling, gets you heated up - Whether in your career quest, a hobby, religion - whatever - finding the place in the world where you can feel the light on your face and command the attention to the level you need to "serve the script" - you can find your light in a for profit career choice, volunteerism, music, religion - if you have a muse, the muse can lead you to a well lit place.
Finding your light can be finding your muse, finding your love, finding your God, finding your purpose.
"Light is Hot. And when you're in your light, you can feel it on your face."
Words to live by.