Last Weekend

Last weekend, Kean University Theatre Department produced a retrospective going back to it's first incarnation as a drama club in the early 20th century. This is the event for which I've been working on Hamlet's speech to the players.

The weekend was amazing.

It started Friday, when I picked up my headshots. They look fantastic. I'm so pleased! (Thank you, Scott!)

I then hopped a train out to Jersey for a rehearsal. The train station in Union is butt up against the Kean Campus. I was already keyed up by the prospect of seeing people that I've not seen in years and being in spaces where the ghosts of performances past still linger, but I was completely unprepared for the physical changes that had taken place. New facilities and buildings seemed to have sprouted, fully formed from the empty places in my memories.

In my adrenaline fueled, hopped up state, I made my way to the main theatre on campus, taking in all the change, quietly reciting the monologue by-rote, and welcoming the flood of memories filling my head and my heart. Arriving at the theatre, I crossed the lobby and entered the theatre where the memories threatened to overwhelm me. It was here that I started my Kean theatrical career, playing Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. 

Peggy Dunn, a professor emerita who directed me as Toby Belch in Twelfth Night many years ago was my coach on the piece. We were able to find an empty classroom in the building and rehearsed for an hour or so. I was nervous at first. I've been operating in my safe, comfort zone for so long, that working with someone new - even someone who I have worked with before but separated by years - was outside that zone. But that's what this whole process is about. Getting out of the comfort zone. So, I threw myself out there and we had an extremely successful rehearsal. The piece took off.

On Saturday evening, after an extremely long and emotional day of rehearsal, we did the show. I knocked the speech out of the park.

So, energized by the weekend, pictures in hand, I'm ready to make the best of the time remaining in the project.

Up next: Today I'm going to set up an audition with One on One.

Project Title: Encore! A Theatre Retrospective
Location:Wilkins Theatre, Kean University, Union, NJ
Date: Saturday, October 3
Time: 7pm
Submitted by: N/A
Medium: Theatre
Role: General
People in the Audition Room: Holly Rhoades Logue, Michele Mossay-Cuevas, Susan Speidel, etc.