The prop I’ll be walking you through is the ideation and build of a Geiger counter. I’ll avoid spoilers for the play, but physically, this particular prop had to “measure radiation” and be able to distinctly point to highly-radiated areas.
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So, my approach to creating the character of Robin in THE CHILDREN by Lucy Kirkwood is not about actually creating him at all. I consider Lucy Kirkwood the creator; I am merely a Vessel and a Messenger of her words. I am also an Interpreter of her punctuation, the spaces and pauses she offers up in the threads and the thru-line of how Robin co-exists in the shrinking world borne out of a dire and heightened circumstance that has changed everything for him and his wife.
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. . . my job as an actor was to support and connect with my cast mates through listening and reacting, making my contribution as truthful and as vulnerable as I could every night. Because no matter how insignificant it might seem, the beauty and truthfulness of everyone’s work shines the brightest when we’re all equally invested in our circumstances together onstage.
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Readings tend to bring out voracious readers of plays or books, other playwrights, and avid theatre goers or performers. As a technical theatre person who is not a wordsmith, or a huge reader, and most definitely not a performer, I am not the typical audience member and I don’t hear or see the play in the same way.
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Directing the first reading of a new play is less about staging and more about creating a safe container for discovery.
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We’re heading into autumn and things are busy here at Seat of the Pants as we onboard new ensemble members (for a total of 14), finalize contracts with our performance spaces, casts, and crews, update our website and social media platforms, and kick off our 2025-2026 Annual Fundraising Campaign. Each year, I try to encapsulate our goals for the campaign in a single word or phrase, and this year I’ve chosen EXPANSION. Here are a few highlights of how your financial support will help us do just that.
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The end of the 2024-2025 theatrical season has been my most recent time of reflection, so here are a few things I think I've learned as the Artistic Director of a small professional theatre company, offered up here in the hopes that maybe you'll find these ruminations useful as well. In no particular order:
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In the Michael Chekhov Technique for actors, there is a concept called The Four Brothers. These are reminders and qualities that can lead to integrated, inspiring, full-bodied performance. The first three Brothers are: a feeling of Ease, a feeling of Form and a feeling of Beauty. The fourth Brother, a feeling of the Whole (sometimes called Entirety) can refer to the actor’s awareness of the full scope of a play or story, but it can also refer to an ensemble of actors being tuned into each other as a unified, cohesive unit.
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I have been lucky to have been involved in several “World Premiere” projects - some that have died on the vine (sadly) and some that have seen some decent life after my iteration. All of them included lessons about myself, the different ways the creative process can take shape and the underlying current of the business of show.
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