After 3 years as an ensemble member with Seat of the Pants, I have decided to take a year away from the company to pause, take stock, and continue to build roots in my new-ish home of Buffalo, NY. I am so grateful for these years of growth, play, and community. Here are some highlights from my time with Seat of the Pants:
Read More“You work in costumes?! That must be so much fun!!” I never tire of hearing this from the people I meet. It keeps the job refreshing to see my job from others’ perspective. It is not all frolicking through the woods with yardages of fabric billowing behind you in pursuit of costume inspiration destined for Project Runway. (I wish though. But there definitely is a lot of, “Make it work, people!!”)
Read MoreNeedless to say, I hadn’t expected to be so challenged by this piece. On the surface, it is a lighthearted, comical piece about a book club. Underneath, it challenged me as a designer and as a person. Leave it to the theatre to always force me to grow. Time to get curious.
Read MoreCast member of THE BOOK CLUB PLAY, Natalie Green, takes us on a fictional conjecture ride in today’s Seat of the Pants blog, providing a bit of backstory on how Ana Smith’s Book Club came to participate in a documentary film being made by legendary filmmaker, Lars Knudsen. Enjoy!
Read MorePicking music for a show is probably my favorite part of being a sound designer. I mean, who doesn’t like to listen to lots of music anyway? But this is a real opportunity to explore genres and artists I might not have paid attention to otherwise, so there are numerous rabbit holes to explore and enjoy.
Read MoreRecently, our director, Chris Bohan, gave us an exercise called “Primary Event.” The idea is simple, but kind of profound: create an inciting incident for your character that happens before the play even begins.
So the question becomes “how do you build a past for someone who doesn’t technically exist?” Sure, the playwright gives us clues. But a lot of it is on us as actors to fill in the blanks - to imagine a full, lived-in human based on what’s on the page.
Read MoreAt first glance, acting and stand-up can feel like opposites. Stand-up is often labeled “silly,” unserious, even chaotic. Theatre, on the other hand, carries this legacy of prestige—something classical, something once reserved for nobles and royalty. But honestly? The “jester” and the “actor” aren’t so different. The real distinction is often just: who’s writing the words?
Read More“I need to get out of my head!” Many an artist has uttered this phrase, a plea invoked to ‘stop thinking and start doing’. In more desperate cases, an artist might shout “I just want to cut off my head!” thus employing the metaphorical Artistic Guillotine. In a perfect world, the artist is working from a place of true inspiration, that ethereal space where the Thinking (head), Feeling (heart), and Willing (desire) centers are symbiotic, feeding off each other to create beauty. Artists don’t need to cut off their heads, what they need to do is reconnect their head with their heart and their desire. They don’t need an Artistic Guillotine, they need an Artistic Bypass.
Read MoreI have an insatiable need for character research. I often refer to my brain as a series of unorganized filing cabinets, bursting at the seams, unable to close. Character research helps me straighten out the eruption of files and ideas I am accumulating through the artistic process and life as an all too inquisitive observer.
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