United Stage tag:unitedstage.com,2009-12-19://13 2010-03-08T13:54:37Z Poetics in Live Performance Movable Type Pro 5.01 I Will Know It When I See It tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.4062 2010-03-08T13:49:58Z 2010-03-08T13:54:37Z There is no greater moment of trepidation for a Playwright -- or any author, really -- when you're dealing with a Director or an editor who replies -- "I'll know it when I see it" -- in response to your... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Playwright -- or any author, really -- when you're dealing with a Director or an editor who replies -- "I'll know it when I see it" -- in response to your asking for clarification on a change they want made.

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The trick these "Un-Knowers" use to try to get some understanding of what they clearly do not comprehend is to have you rewrite the scene or section several different times and many different ways and you present all those versions to them for the picking:  "They'll Know It When They See It."

You can see how that deceptive phrase sets up a never-win situation because you are caught in an endless rewriting loop trying to guess what they want when they have no idea what they really want. 

That lack of vision is common and that is why I always prefer Playwrights direct their own plays and authors publish their own books because command and control of the work is retained.  Any criticism leveled at the completed work is completely owned by the original author and no excuses have to be made for following someone else's "revision" of your original intent -- that may have obliterated all your meaning and values.

When you are stuck with "I'll Know It When I See It" you are left to negotiate with someone who has no clue about structure or character of dramatic tension.  The way these types keep you in line is via the accusation-stated-as-fact:  "Authors never really know what their work is about."  By making you doubt your talent, they are then able to get you to make their endless revisions because they "know better than you."  Don't fall for that falsity.  Remember, you know your work far better than anyone else and, in the end, you alone will be held responsible for the final product with your name on the project.

Don't be fooled into getting hooked into the "I'll Know It..." revision trap.  You know what you want.  You write and revise as best you can and then be done with it.  Do not allow the endless revision cycle of searching for meaning by those who obviously do not understand you or your work. ]]> Amplification Made the Live Theatre the Radio tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.4049 2010-03-01T17:05:17Z 2010-03-01T17:06:00Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com project their voice in song and dialogue.  It was magnificent to hear a live voice singing with a live orchestra.  Today, the actors wear microphones and, for many Broadway shows, the entire orchestra is artificially amplified because the stringed instruments are playing live from a different floor in the theatre and they watch the conductor via closed-circuit television.

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You no longer need any imagination in the live theatre because all the hearing is prepackaged for you by a soundboard and an engineer.

When you remove the natural voice from the live theatre, you remove the essence of life from the performance.  The mechanical is favored over the fleeting and the ethereal is made nothing in the permanent recorded.  We don't attend a live theatre performance to watch a radio play.

We must, at every opportunity, disconnect the microphones and the loudspeakers, and root the live theatre back into necessity of the barrel-chested singer and the actor who knew how to project a voice in a stage whisper from the front row to the balcony.

Today, a whisper is a whisper, and there is no magic in just speaking instead of making your entire voice and body perform to be heard as more than just a cry in the dark.
]]> Facebook Powers Betty White onto SNL tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.4034 2010-02-22T15:50:32Z 2010-02-22T15:50:20Z When I think of the possibilities of what large groups of otherwise unrelated people can do when properly organized through methods that have only come about since the creation of the various protocols that make up the Internet, many things... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com Anonymous -- a group dedicated to liberating people from any perceived oppression -- whether it comes from Scientology or the Australian Government. I certainly would have never thought that masses of people would get together to want comedienne Betty White to host the late night comedy show "Saturday Night Live."

]]> the dead zone, it was high time Betty White host "Saturday Night Live." They formed a group on Facebook called "Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!" that went from a few fans to (at this moment) over four hundred and twenty thousand fans.

The mainstream media finally seemed to catch wind of this movement after the Super Bowl, with the funny commercial featuring both White and always seemingly old yet not that old actor Abe Vigoda.

The funny part of this all to me is how "Saturday Night Live" generally picks its hosts, and how this campaign contradicts that process. Generally speaking, hosts for Saturday Night Live are there to promote their new film whereas musical guests have new albums to promote. This has long irked me as there are plenty of talented actors and actresses out there who would be hilarious on the show who just happen not to have anything to promote. Similarly, there are many musicians who would be great as musical guests who have not put out an album in a couple of years.

This movement has therefore been inspiring to me. I was not expecting it to go as well as it has been based on the short term failure of the Coco campaign -- I say short term because I fully expect Conan to succeed in the long term thanks to the efforts of the fans involved in the campaign. Rather, the Betty White campaign has been going well enough that Michael Ausiello has reported that the show is close to signing Ms. White to host the show -- along with other women -- in a special episode about women in comedy.

Naturally, there are some people on the Facebook group discussion groups that are already angry about this compromise, but I say that it is significantly better than not having Ms. White as a host at all. Indeed, the power of the Internet is incredible when used for the good -- because nothing would make me happier than seeing Betty White host "Saturday Night Live."]]> How to Guarantee One Hundred Percent Failure tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.4021 2010-02-15T17:05:01Z 2010-02-15T17:05:58Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com expectation of perfection is guaranteed to fail one hundred percent of the time.  Remember:  The only thing we find with a 100% rate of success is death -- and we spend our lives running away from, and betting against, that mortal guarantee.

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We kill all the pigs to remove the threat of Swine Flu -- only to fill the roads with garbage.

We kill all the birds to only scare people away from reporting their infections for fear of prosecution and quarantine.

Do we tempt the wrath of the Gods by publicly proclaiming the total eradication of Smallpox from the face of the earth?  Does any reasonable mind truly believe we will never see Smallpox erupt to kill again?

We must temper our expectation with the reality of common experience.  Only the Gods are perfect and we must leave any and all guarantees in their vicious hands.

We are imperfect people seeking to do more good than bad and to live more right than wrong -- and the live stage must reflexively inform that tenuous human condition -- or we fail in our effort to record the minutiae of human life that can leap forward and kill a generation in a single sneeze or droplet.]]> Television Matriarch Frances Reid Passes tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.4005 2010-02-08T12:52:37Z 2010-02-08T12:52:32Z On November 8, 1965, Frances Reid appeared as character Alice Horton for the first time on daytime drama, "Days of Our Lives." For forty-two years, she continued to appear on the show until her health no longer permitted her to... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com ." For forty-two years, she continued to appear on the show until her health no longer permitted her to do so. It really touched me whenever she was able to make an appearance on the show in the later years because it reminded me of many happy years that I spent watching the show with my grandmother.

]]> passed away on February 3, 2010 and the theater world shed a tear -- Frances Reid found her acting start in theater, after all.

Frances Reid started her career with an uncredited role in a film called Man-Proof. From there she went to act in Broadway plays before accepting her role on "Days of our Lives." To me one of the most amazing things about her career is how she was there in the first episode of the show and she watched as so many men and women joined the cast and eventually left -- and yet she was still there.

When she started "Days of our Lives," she was already in the actress dead zone and she remained loyal to the show in an industry where leaving a show to pursue "real" acting careers is too common.

Sometimes the reverse is true, although we have found that James Franco had ulterior motives for briefly joining General Hospital.  It was clear that she was in it for the long haul, and cared more about staying true to the character on the show than making a name for herself and getting out quickly.

The best equivalent to which I could compare her happens to be on one of my other favorite soap operas, "Coronation Street." The character of Ken Barlow has been portrayed by actor William Roache for the last fifty years come this December and that is an accomplishment of which any actor should be proud.]]> Regeneration Tricks: Same Show, Different Leads tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3991 2010-02-01T12:58:43Z 2010-02-01T12:59:10Z From 1963-1966, actor William Hartnell portrayed the character of The Doctor on the British television program "Doctor Who." Towards the end of his run, Hartnell was weary from the intense schedule and bowed out. The producers faced a fundamental... Gordon Davidescu http://bolesblogs.com Hartnell was weary from the intense schedule and bowed out. The producers faced a fundamental dilemma: How to continue the series if they did not have their lead actor?

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A slightly similar problem faced Terry Gilliam while making "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." With a great deal of the footage left unfilmed, Mr. Gilliam experienced an unexpected loss with the passing of Heath Ledger. In this instance, the director took the fact that the character was going through a sort of magic mirror to a different dimension to make use of other actors to portray Heath's character. This did not sit well with some people, some taking to the blogosphere to make their disgust with the notion known to the world at large. ("Dear Internet," some of them surely were writing, "I am furious! Hear me roar!")

Back in the realm of television this concept has taken on its own form in the case of the television show Scrubs. I was introduced to the show by a very good friend of mine who told me that I would love it and so I have been watching it for the last six or so years. I was most impressed by the lead character portrayed by Zach Braff and therefore I was naturally a little sad when I read that he and the creator of the show were both leaving. I was a bit confused as to how they were planning on continuing without them.

What has happened since then is not quite like what happened when John Schneider and Tom Wopat left The Dukes of Hazzard and they were haphazardly replaced with their cousins that happened to look a lot like them -- Coy and Vance Duke. Rather, the setting for the show has changed from a hospital to a medical school hospital and after a few transition episodes with Zach Braff, the main character role has been delegated to Kerry Bishé, who plays the inexperienced with lots of heart Lucy. She is surrounded by both her fellow medical students and the doctors from the first eight seasons of the show who have taken on teacher roles.

Despite quite a few episodes having aired already, I feel as though it is still premature to tell whether or not this will be a successful transition. It is entirely possible that this will be a great regeneration and the show will go on for a few more years on the strength of the new characters. I hope that it will not suffer the same fate as the Dukes and just crash and burn after trying to replace the main leads.]]> The Stench of Death at Ford's Theatre tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3978 2010-01-25T15:10:26Z 2010-01-25T15:10:50Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Washington, D.C.  President Lincoln was shot in the back of the head there by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.  Why do Americans totemize the gory deaths of our leaders?  The limousine President Kennedy was assassinated in is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

]]> actual blood-soaked white shirt and evening coat the President was wearing at the time of his assassination.

It was hauntingly horrible to imagine the evil done in that theatre.  There is a human disconnect between the yearly production of "A Christmas Carol" -- performed only feet away from where President Lincoln lost his life -- and the meaning of a misbegotten life.

 

Seeing a show at Ford's Theatre is the ultimate test of the Suspension of Disbelief against the wake of an indescribable Stench of Death wafting forever in the gunsmoke around you.


You can even stand in the same spot as Booth and pretend to be Lincoln's assassin if the urge is within you.


I don't think Ford's Theatre will let you make Booth's famous leap from Lincoln's box to the stage to shout -- "Sic semper tyrannis!" -- but you could always try.  Break a leg!


Here is Ford's Theatre as I knew it.


Here is the "renovated" Ford's Theatre today, completed in 2009 after 18 months of work, with a new, shifted, entrance that isn't even part of the old theatre, and an amusement park marquee, a whole new gift shop -- I wonder if they sell any John Wilkes Booth memorabilia? -- and remodeled bathrooms and a whole new lobby museum. 


The gentrification of our most horrible moment in American history can only leave behind private shame and a bitter public taste of a memory some want to whitewash with spotlights and singalongs -- but the stain of bloodshed forever marks Ford's Theatre -- and it should have been made into a national memorial and no live performance should have ever been attempted again after Lincoln's killing.

Every living President I have seen visit a Ford's Theatre performance has always looked pale and sickly as they sit there in the midst of Lincoln's living grave.  The Presidents know the history of the place and they absolutely cannot help but feel the chill of Lincoln's assassin creeping along the back of their necks because they know their similar fate is only but a bullet shot away -- and for them to sit there and pretend to ignore the killing of their predecessor is shudder-inducing and their fear cannot be hidden as they meekly applaud and and try to smile while looking for the nearest exit.

We dishonor Abraham Lincoln as a man and we discredit his memory as a monument in the frothy performances at Ford's -- and for what reason?  So we can all forget our troubles?  Or so we can try to whistle "Good King Wenceslas" in the graveyard as we try to ignore the assassination hanging above us up and to our right?

Here is the Ford's Theatre stage after the renovation.  


Theatre seats have replaced the regular spoke-back chairs that gave the theatre its hardy character -- but there's no way any renovation can remove the viciousness of a moment frozen in time that lingers forever in the heart of every American who dreams of freedom at night and tries to pinch away the Stench of Death in the daylight that still indelibly soils Ford's Theatre today. ]]> Silence in Performance tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3977 2010-01-25T13:20:25Z 2010-01-25T13:20:35Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Diction not only includes patterns of speech, Diction can also mean the lack of a spoken word:  Silence.  Silence is a frequently overlooked, but powerful, meme to employ in an effective life stage performance.

]]> properly trained actor.

You can also be daring and bring to the empty space a completely silent performance.  Audiences will immediately get edgy in the quiet as every cough and fart and giggle from them become part of the hubbub surrounding the silent performance.

A silent performance means a lack of recognizable speech.  A silent performance can be quite noisy with the opening of creaky doors, the shuffling of leather soles across a rough stage and the flappy sound of sheer curtains blowing across an open window.

Silent performances challenge actors to find a way to express a thought from the body in situ instead of relying of vocalization tricks.  Oftentimes a silent performer is more memorable, and infinitely more human, than an actor who relies on voice alone.

I have written and directed many "Silent Performances" for both Deaf and Hearing audiences and I find the quiet incredibly powerful and loud in every memeingful way.
]]> U.S. Steel and The Theatre Guild tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3976 2010-01-25T12:58:12Z 2010-01-25T12:59:09Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Golden Decade in American television between the years 1952-1963 when live theatre performances were aired live on the young ABC Television network.  The show was called -- ''The United States Steel Hour" -- and it was produced by The Theatre Guild, and we've never had such a perfect blending of live performance for a national audience.

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My good friend, and mentor, Marshall Jamison, worked as a producer and a director on the U.S. Steel Hour and it was a high-stakes, higher-pressure job.  Mistakes were common.  You had to learn how to recover your thoughts in real time with no mulligans.

ABC was a new network trying to get a foothold in American homes and The Theatre Guild was dedicated to producing only the best theatre possible -- in performance on a stage or television set did not matter -- The Guild was only interested in sustained excellence.

With the introduction of digital editing and the concept of "live on tape" that took hold in the 1960's -- there was too much risk is producing a live production every week and the show was canceled in the names of cost and convenience and accessibility -- and television hasn't been any good since.


We owe our theatre and television pioneers a debt of gratitude and a bucket of thanks for the hard work they did blazing a path of access and viability for new work to be seen by, and to be shared with, a whole new audience hungry to see something fascinating on what would later become The Boob Tube.

It's hard to believe today that there was a time in America when the television set was a special and revered guest in the home -- just as radio was before it -- and to remember those divine moments of live performance, and the inspiration it brought to the masses, all helped create a high expectation of quality on a live stage, and that recognition of a national aesthetic is the greatest gift The Theatre Guild and ABC could've ever left behind for rediscovery and, we hope, a resurrection one day.
]]> Sport in Live Performance tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3974 2010-01-24T17:10:45Z 2010-01-24T17:11:07Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com Creating Dramatic Tension -- and the buildup to the annual Super Bowl celebration is one of the finest examples of spectacle in performance wrapped in football pads and held tight with crossed fingers.  The countdown clocks on NFL.com today directly inherit, and reflect, the innate sense of doom and pending explosion that so many modern dramas lack on the live stage.

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Sides are drawn.

Stakes are wagered.

The entire production explodes in pent up fury and the hubris of expectation and the performance begins. 

You have yourself a football game -- and a live performance with a definite ending but without a named winner.

Only when the play clock ticks to zero will we be able to crown a victor and celebrate the conquering or wallow in the cathartic misery of yet another lost year.
]]> How to Write Stiff and Really Fake Dialogue tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3972 2010-01-23T19:39:40Z 2010-01-23T19:39:06Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com CSI" and "House" and "Criminal Minds" where lots of technical dialogue is supposed to promote authenticity and professionalism to a scene when all that sort of preciousness really provides is ear boredom.

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LAB TECH #1:  I found trace amounts of ferrite in the metal shard...

LAB TECH #2: (Interrupting) ..you mean "ferrite" -- a ceramic compound consisting of a mixed oxide of iron...

LAB TECH #1: (Interrupting) ...and one or more metals, yes, the very same ferrite that has ferrimagnetic properties...

LAB TECH #2: (Interrupting) ... and is used in high-frequency electrical compounds such as antennas...

LAB TECH #1: (Interrupting) ... or... Katana swords!...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) ..."Katana?"  You mean the long, single-edged sword...

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) ...used by Japanese samurai...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) ...who were members of a...

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) .... powerful military...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) .... caste in feudal...

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) ....Japan...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) .... especially...

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) ....a member of...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) ....the class of military....

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) ....retainers...

LAB TECH #2:  (Interrupting) ....of...

LAB TECH #1:  (Interrupting) ....the...

LAB TECH #2 and #1:  (Together) ....daimyos.

LAB TECH #2:  (Slowly) Yes.

LAB TECH #1:  (Quietly) Yes.

(Uncomfortable pause.)

LAB TECH #2:  (Loud) Daimyos were...

LAB TECH #1:  (Louder, Interrupting) ....one of the great lords...

LAB TECH #2 and #1:  (Loudest, Together) ....who were vassals of the shogun!

I have no idea how the scene ended -- if it ever did -- because I ran screaming from the room.

Dialogue, even in hyperreal situations, must always remain true and believable in context; but when you see characters in the same room -- or on the telephone -- finishing sentences for each other, then you know you're deep into the realm of bad writing and fake exposition and meaningless background information that does nothing to move the plot forward.

Sometimes technical words need no explanation or definition.  If the characters know the meaning of the word, and they should, then they must not be made into empty vessels for teaching unimportant noise invented to fill time and cheat space. 

If, however, specific information must be shared between characters in order for the audience to make sense of the plot and its twists, then scene action -- not lecture dialogue -- must be invented to get the plot points moving the audience forward so they are never stuck in the stasis of stiff and stilted dialogue.
]]> Magnifying the Human Condition tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3969 2010-01-22T14:21:29Z 2010-01-22T14:22:14Z The universal human condition is one of suffering and it is the Playwright's moral duty to bring that condition to light on the live stage.... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com
]]> lead a righteous human life -- but many of us fail in the end mired in despair and disappointment.

By attending a performance in the darkened theatre, we seek to learn secrets about our own station that we are too scared and too brittle to examine in our everyday lives.

In the sanctuary of the live stage, we find reassessment, disgust, revulsion, joy and sympathy and, in the end, a cathartic release of emotional toxins and mindful poisonings.

We must learn to accept our suffering and to overcome our want to become immortal because, in the end, we all wish to be released into sunlight and not darkness.
]]> Writing a Sixty Second Play tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3962 2010-01-20T14:48:36Z 2010-01-20T14:48:07Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com amateur Playwriting students is to have them write a 60-second play in Two Acts using the Three Act structure.  That means you have around 30 seconds to set up the plot conflict points, 20 seconds to explode the conflict and 10 seconds to bring around a catharsis and denouement. 

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Students always balk at the time limit.  They want the freedom to explore and write as they wish without any conditions or boundaries.

I teach them that the discipline of writing a 60-second play -- and then performing it! -- will make them better writers because they will have to be economical, smart, and to trust their gut.

It can be just as hard to write a 60-second play as a 90-minute play because the terms and conditions are absolutely the same:  Drama is Conflict.

Learning how to sustain the conflict over arcs of crisscrossing time is what measures the mature playwright's rite against the amateur wrong.
]]> Acting in Slow Motion Creates Perpetual Momentum tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3960 2010-01-20T13:32:02Z 2010-01-20T13:32:25Z David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com good actor can speed up time or slow time to a crawl.  Speeding up is easy; slowing down is hard.

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You see parents naturally use that technique with temperamental children who have lost their reality in crying and anger.  The parent uses a soft voice and speaks slowly.  Arm movements toward the wailing child are slow and tender and deliberate.  Like pressing your finger against a roulette wheel to slow the spinning, so too, a parent slows a spinning child with the emotional brake of a reality retard.

One of my favorite techniques to teach actors is how to take over a stage in slow motion.  If someone hands you a bottle on stage and if you slow down time in taking that bottle because you know there's poison inside -- you've created a moment with your movement -- and that is always a delicious, and silent, joy for celebrating on stage.

You might be surprised how hard it is for young actors to comprehend the idea of slow motion.  One student, who was supposed to "run like leopard" in slow motion simply ran around the room at normal speed.  When questioned about the lack of slow motion, she said, "But I can't run as fast as a leopard, so I am in slow motion."

"You might be in slow motion to a leopard, but to us, you are running very fast," I told her.  "You need to understand it is our perception of time that you need to bend, not yours and not the leopard's." 

She looked at me with a blank expression.

"Lick your paw," I said.  "Create a perpetual momentum out of nothing."

She licked her paw.

"Slower.  Take 60 seconds for your tongue to touch your paw and lick one inch of your fur."

"But that'll take forever!"

"It will take 60 seconds." 

As she began to lick her paw, the rest of the class quietly counted out loud from "one Mississippi" to "sixty Mississippi" to help time her action -- and the things she did with her hips and eyes and her other paw during that one-inch lick where hilarious, touching, and masterful.  When she finished her licking, she collapsed on the floor -- exhausted and red-faced from the tremendous toll on her body from warping time and collapsing space. 

Imagination comes alive in the ruins and it is the actors job to take on any challenge and make a moment -- and one way out of the rubble is to slow down time and walk through the valley of a deconstruction you did not commit, but can still abide with professional aplomb.
]]> Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. tag:unitedstage.com,2010://13.3959 2010-01-20T12:58:23Z 2010-01-20T12:58:39Z When I first arrived in Washington, D.C. many years ago as fresh-faced lad freshly graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, one of the first places I was able to feed myself was at Arena Stage reading scripts at $10 a... David W. Boles http://bolesblogs.com University of Nebraska-Lincoln, one of the first places I was able to feed myself was at Arena Stage reading scripts at $10 a pop for Lloyd Rose and Jerry Manning.  Arena Stage is one of the best professional regional theatres in the world -- they were one of the first theatres to employ an acting core on a full time basis -- and Zelda Fichandler created Arena Stage out of nothing and ran it for 40 years from 1950 to 1990 until she moved to New York University in 1987 to run the graduate school acting program.

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Zelda brought in Liviu Ciulei from Romania to direct shows for her and, in turn, Liviu brought over Lucian Pintilie to direct one of the best stagings of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" that I have ever witnessed.

While Arena Stage kept me fed, I was not really thriving -- and when I received a Presidential Scholarship from Columbia University in the City of New York to study Playwriting at the graduate level, I was torn:  Should I stay in Washington and continue to work and grow as a theatre professional, or should I go into student loan debt and move to NYC and study Playwriting with Howard Stein at Columbia?

When I showed Jerry Manning the tender letter of acceptance from Howard Stein, he read it and looked up at me and said, "David, this letter will warm the cockles of your heart for the rest of your life.  You must go."

I was surprised Jerry told me I needed to leave Washington -- after loving it, but only living there for less than a year -- and that I should to move to New York City.  I was a little sick to my stomach to have to start all over again.

"Life is full of starting overs," Jerry said.

In the end, I accepted Howard Stein's kind offer, and Jerry Manning gave me as many scripts as he had to help me pay the way to Columbia's Morningside Heights campus -- and to this day, I know I never would've been brave enough, or smart enough, to make The Big Move to New York without Jerry Manning's direct and prescient advice.
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