POSTS FROM OUR PROCESS

How does the actor’s voice connect with their body when working on a character that requires a way of speaking that is different from the actor?

Professionally, I identify as an actor and an educator. When I’m not performing, I teach Voice and Speech at several actor training programs and universities in New York City. I have spent the past few years training in both the Michael Chekhov Technique through the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium, as well as working towards my designation in Kristin Linklater’s voice work. Kristin Linklater’s work aims to free the actors' voice from unnecessary habitual tension in order to open up the full range of human expressivity. The work is psycho-physical, exploring the social, cultural, physical, emotional, and psychological experiences that shape the way we speak. Similarly, the Chekhov work is also psycho-physical, connecting the actor’s psyche with their body. They are a brilliant pair.

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In 1999 I took my first yoga class and acted in my first play. I was 15 and initially didn’t feel very at home in my body or on the stage, but something was ignited. Ever since, both performing and practicing yoga have become parallel passions in my life. Each discipline offered me space to explore expression in my physical body, emotional world, and imagination. As a kid who used to use a step stool to ‘climb’ trees and begged her mom to make phone calls for her due to intense shyness, this was no small thing.

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I was first exposed to the Michael Chekhov technique in college. I was a theatre major, but Chekhov was not a primary influence on my professors and, therefore, was not a primary influence on me. In one class, we spent maybe a week or two on it - an inauspicious start to be sure.

It wasn’t until about thirteen years later that Michael Chekhov would truly enter my life. I was working on a production of Mothers & Sons at Beck Center with Cathy Albers. Cathy, one of the Founding Artistic Directors of the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium (GLMCC), became a friend and, after I mentioned to her that I was becoming bored with acting, suggested I work with a private coach to learn more about the technique. That decision changed my artistic life.

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I've been acting in plays and working in the world of theatre for as long as I can remember. I actually taught myself to read on my first play script as I was trying to memorize lines. Through all the years of training, and trying to implement that training into actual paying work, I always thought that the rule of thumb was the same basic strategy as the board game of Monopoly, always say yes. If you are lucky enough to land on a property, you snatch it up. If you are lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to act or work in the theatre, you snatch it up and say yes. Opportunity begets opportunity, right? Yes, and it comes with a cost.

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How do you play a character who comes across as a monster on the page? How do you ensure that this character is human and not some kind of caricature? Can we understand why this monster does what he does? How exactly did this person come to be the person that they are?

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What the heck is this Our Country’s Good project all about?

Well, the pandemic afforded everyone some time to reflect and - in the season of contemplation - one of my creative dreams rose to the forefront. A hallmark of Seat of the Pants’ work is that we engage in longer rehearsal processes, allowing actors and designers to live with a play for a bit more than is traditional, in the hopes of telling a more authentic, lived-in, fully realized tale. I wondered: “What if - instead of planning and executing a traditional four show season - we picked one play and worked on it for a whole year, having an opportunity to experiment, play, learn new technique as we go along, and more fully integrate designers into the rehearsal process?” My intriguing proposal seemed to resonate with several artists who were thinking about doing theatre in a new way - and so the Our Country’s Good project was born.

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The pandemic has postponed or cancelled many plans, wreaking havoc on regular schedules and making it nearly impossible to figure out your calendar in advance with any sort of guarantee that six months from now you’ll still be able to do the thing you were hoping to do. People joke about time having no meaning anymore. But meanwhile there seems to be a growing recognition of how precious our time actually is, and a movement to take back some of it for ourselves. Along with this has been a trend towards digging deep into what is most important in our lives, and an urge to simplify.

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A fantastic rehearsal story from James Alexander Rankin:

“The majority of my theater experience has been on the stage; I haven’t had a massive amount of formal training. As a result, sometimes it takes me years to drink in a concept. That is usually paired with me observing actors around me, trying to understand their process and how they do things, or it can be me talking with directors and reading books on theory ad nauseam. Even after all that work it still takes an epiphany during a practical experience for me get an inkling of understanding.

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