It’s always difficult for me to let go of a project – (well….usually it’s difficult!) but this has been an especially hard show to bid it’s fond farewell.  In just four short months, I made friendships that I will cherish for life, marvelled at talents that topped the peak of gifts I’ve seen – and I learned such a vast amount about myself as an actor that it will probably be quite some time before I’m able to fully recognize the extent. 

For a very long time I harbored a secret sense that contemporary Shakespeare productions were done for the benefit of mostly the artists involved and a thin sliver of intellectual elite audience members who came to see how many lines they could quote in their heads (or aloud!) – but after two incredible seasons on stage with my family at Writers’ Theatre – after journeying through the darkness of one of drama’s most painful tragedies last year and then through the revelations of one of the most complex and uplifting comedies this year, I have seen first-hand that audiences from age 9 – 90 - from the most studied Shakes scholars to the first-time initiates – can be taken away, their thoughts and imaginations lifted to places they’d never imagined before taking their seats.  I can’t believe how much I actually missed slathering my face with the clown white make-up last night! 

My love and thanks to everyone who gave me such an unforgettable adventure through those crazy woods of Arden!

We are about to start our extension week, which I like to think of as the post-season. It’s like we had a great year and won our division so we get to play a little longer. Of course you can’t push this metaphor too much, like an out-of-shape jogger it strains easily. There is no playoff, we are not going to extend further, come Sunday we are done. That is always a happy and sad day. Happy because we’ve completed something, it’s a job well done, and we suddenly get your evenings back! Sad because the community that was created around this production will dissipate as we all go our own ways.

One of the wonderful parts of being an actor is the companionship that develops during a show. When it really works, when you’re having a good time in an engaging show, it has the same uplifting feeling as being a part of a team in a pennant chase. I personally function best as part of a team. In a show like this one, where everyone is good at what they do and also fun to be around, it lifts up the overall production to a higher level. We all want to do the best job we can and it is a real gift when you find yourself in a show that encourages and celebrates that. We’ve been up and running for awhile now but there’s still an excitement every performance because you know that no one is content with just repeating what we’ve already done, everyone is still exploring and searching and discovering, and that is thrilling.

Of course, like many teams, we’ve had a line-up change mid-season. Robby Lehman had to leave us and so we called in our fearless director, Bill Brown (harkening back to the day of the player/manager). It was very exciting being behind the plate for the first few performances. Each pitcher has a different delivery and there were a few times I was looking for high heat and got a wicked slider instead. Okay, my metaphor is getting a side-stitch… but, seriously, it has been great to have Bill with us again. Besides that the dressing room is suddenly a little more bombastic, it’s just plain fun to find these scenes again with a different partner.  I have to compliment Bill on how well he made the transition from Director to Actor. In the hands of a less secure person that could be an awkward situation. We have been very lucky to get not one but two great Touchstones over the course of this run. If you are asking yourself, “Is it worth coming back again to see it one more time?” the answer is YES.

I’d like to wrap this rambling blog up by thanking our wonderful, smiling, laughing audiences that have made our jobs so much fun. I also want to thank all my teammates (both on the field and in the Writer’s Theatre clubhouse) for their hustle, humor, honesty and affability. It has been a pleasure working with such a talented and hard-working group. I am proud of what we’ve accomplished and I have enjoyed the whole process immensely. I’m glad we’ve got a few more games to play.

One of the most difficult and unsung roles in theater is the understudy. Imagine having to learn all the lines, blocking, combat, and songs of several characters and then being responsible for performing them at a moments notice in front of a packed house when you might not have even been able to rehearse the scenes with the other actors. It is TERRIFYING. It is a bit like being dropped at the top of a mountain you’ve never seen before with rented skis and a blindfold. If you stop to think about it there are a million ways you can fail but you really don’t have any choice but to get to the bottom.

We have had three understudies go on so far in our run, including two in the opening weekend. They have all been magnificent. Which brings me to the wonderful part of understudying which is you get to be the pinch-hitter who drives in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. As an understudy you put in all this work for a performance that might never come. So when you get a chance to go on it is a thrilling honor to step up and join the team. And it is great because all the other actors are right there with you, making sure you’re in the right place, supporting you completely, and showering you in positive energy. It’s fun for the other actors too because they get to see scenes that they are accustomed to in a brand new light. It is so much fun to see the unique personalities that the understudies bring to their parts. The understudy’s job is to step into another actor’s role and follow it faithfully, but it is also to inhabit the character and be present, and that will always bring a bit of their own spark to the part.

A great quote that I heard in grad school was that “the role of an understudy is to make an emergency a non-event”. Dick Cheney said that. Yeah, I didn’t think I would be quoting Dick Cheney either but he should understand the understudy role at this point and it’s a good quote. That’s what your job is as an understudy, to make sure the show goes on. Not only have our understudies done that, they’ve also all brought some wonderful fresh moments to the show and done the rest of the team proud. Thanks, you guys!

A wiser man than I once said that Shakespeare is always about sex. Especially when it’s a play with multiple pairs of would-be lovers chasing each other through the forest in the springtime. Now I don’t happen to think that detracts from the artistry or power of the play at all because it is absolutely universal and unparalleled when it comes to creating comedic situations of life-threatening urgency. Another great thing that Bill said as we were finishing rehearsals was that he wanted people to fall in love when they come to the show. He wanted them to get swept up in the spring fever of life and love and joy and to feel that vitality and wonder too. Talk about the kind of mission statement that will put a big-old smile on your face. I feel like we all have been falling in love out there so far, audiences and performers alike. It’s like we all are taking a chance and letting our guards down for a while, risking ridicule and embarrassment, to revel in the spring air of Arden. I feel like I’m living a Walt Whitman poem when I’m out there; Corin sings the body electric. Boy howdy!

During table-work Bill said he doesn’t believe Shakespeare ever got sarcastic. He had a firm grasp of irony and the put-down to say the least, but there’s a level of honesty and openness to Shakespeare’s characters that is intimidating but invigorating. They aren’t holding back. They are all in. And that means that’s what we all have to do, go all in. When we’re in that space there’s no room for half-hearted. We have a chance to soar and rage and seek, why would we settle for less? I sincerely hope everyone who comes to see this show puts all their chips in the pot and lets the action ride.

Given that our show JUST opened and will be running until early April, it seems an odd time to talk about things coming to an end. Not if you’re a designer.

For a typical designer, the majority of interaction with the entire team (Director, actors, stage management, theater management, etc.) is in the relative few days of tech. In Equity theaters tech is tightly controlled, usually moves along quickly, and is over before you know it. When a show goes into previews, the designer is an audience member with the power to make decisions but isn’t actively participating any more. When it opens, the designer is done. Costume designers are occasionally called upon to make decisions regarding upkeep or dressing understudies, but for the most part the design team is usually only contacted if something goes wrong, breaks, needs to be replaced, rethought, or removed.

On the majority of shows, the closure is welcome. It is hard to feel the sense of a “job well done” unless you’re actually done. In rare cases where the process is taxing, it is a great relief to be finished. But there are certain shows that you never really want to open because doing so means you don’t get to play any more. As You Like It was one of those for me.

Part of it is that I was “Music Director” for this production. I have done this a few times in my Chicago career and I have found those shows hardest to let go. When your only responsibility is sound design, you come to rehearsals a few times to get a sense of the show then bring in a bunch of sound effects and transitions over a period of a few days. It is sometimes hard to feel connected. When you’re a Music Director, you are called upon to lead rehearsals, which is a substantial shift in social dynamic. You have to answer questions, provide encouragement and occasional correction, and (if you’re the composer) explain something that sprang intuitively from your mind in words that that are technical and unintuitive. It can do things to your sense of proportion, particularly if what you’re use to is waving at actors from the other side of the room and only interacting with the core design and production teams.

This experience was one I felt (and still feel) deeply invested in. Alas, the time has come for me to pack my giant tech nerd bag and go home.

We’ll always have Arden.

That is some of the best advice I have ever received from a director. We were working on the song at the end of the show and those of us playing instruments were having a hard time getting one of the changes. We are all actors who play instruments more than musicians who act and so it’s easy to get a little self-conscious. We really wanted to nail it, to get it right. Then Bill chimed in with, “Alive is better than perfect”. It sounds so simple but it was (ironically) the perfect thing to say. Suddenly it ceased to be about us as actors trying to play a song perfectly and became about characters who (perhaps unfortunately) have our musical ability, coming together to play music and celebrate. The pressure was off of us as actors to get it right and instead it was on the characters that were much less concerned with perfection and more concerned with playing. If I miss notes then it pulls me out of the song and I get embarrassed, but if my character Corin misses a note he just hits the next one because there’s a party going on, not a performance.  I liked that quote so much I kept thinking about it and how it applies to the play. “Perfect” is about performance. It’s about actors acting. It’s about showing. It’s judgment. “Alive” is about being. It’s about characters in situations. It’s about the story. It’s about being present and taking the journey. Which sounds like more fun to you? Sure it’s enjoyable to watch people who are good at something do it well. But it’s a lot more fun to watch a good story. One of the things I love about this show so far is that we are all there to tell the story, not to look good telling it. It’s hard to forget that you’re an actor and there might be a critic or casting director out there whom you want to impress. But that’s not where the story is. That’s not why we’re all coming together for this show, audience or actor or technician. We’re coming together to share a story and revel in Life.

At the very first production meeting we had for As You Like It, Bill Brown stated that we would probably not be doing all the songs in the script, at which point I instantly suggested that we cut “Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind”. The look Bill gave me – a mixture of surprise, disappointment, and confusion – told me I had misspoke. I would like to be able to say that I had only misunderstood the beauty and importance of the song but the truth is that the song contained a phrase that stymied me because of my pop culture upbringing. Two little words that conjur singing dwarves: Heigh Ho

“Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind” begins encouragingly enough with a beautiful observation that the winter wind, however unkind, is more desirable than the ingratitude of one’s fellow man. I like illustrations from the natural world and can throw myself behind that completely. But then you get to “heigh ho” and a string of “olly” words – holly, folly, jolly – and my first response was panic. Now I had two famous cartoon songs in my head, the second being “Holly Jolly Christmas”. I longed for The Tempest’s “Full Fathom Five” with its “bones” and “coral” and “sea change” – evocative words that paint vivid pictures and tie very specifically to the story. Instead, the picture I had was of seven little men with pick axes marching to and from work, or worse a showstopping musical number in Santa’s workshop

For all its light hearted frivolity, As You Like It is not an easy play and no designer on this project was presented with an easy task. Keith Pitts had to design a set that starts inside a palace and ends up in the forest in a theater with no wing space or fly space. Rachel Healy had to help Tracy Arnold transform into a convincing boy – the entire premise of the play depends on it. Charlie Cooper had to take us from outside to inside to outside all by himself for one very critical moment in Act Two. And I was worrying about singing dwarves.

As is usually the case with these things, the answer is to fully embrace what you fear. At some point I realized I was trying to run over the words in the hopes that nobody would notice them or would forgive or forget them. Then I realized that “Heigh Ho” is the most important moment of the song and it made all the difference. Rather than being nonsense words, “Heigh Ho” is an expression that can evoke either hope or sadness or even both at the same time (check the Webster’s definition if you don’t believe me). This realization unlocked the entire song for me. I like to imagine William Shakespeare strolling into the room and saying to me, “Very good. Now, NEVER assume that you know better than I do again.” (If only he did that more…)

“Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind” and the melodic motif that makes up “Heigh Ho” have become very important to the production. It is the first musical phrase the audience will hear in the show, it forms the basis of the Miles Davis inspired jazz number that accompanies Rosalind’s first appearance, it anchors the end of our First Act, and it is transformed into the Debussy inspired music that brings the true Rosalind and Celia back to us in the final scene of the play.In terms of my personal artistic growth, I think it’s the best setting of text (i.e. song) I’ve written to date and is certainly my proudest achievement at Writers’ Theatre. I owe an immense debt to Carol Kuykendall and Kevin Asselin for their beautiful and completely personal interpretation of it in the show, W Shakespeare for being the smarter half of the songwriting team of Hansen & Shakespeare, and to Bill Brown for that brief moment of consternation.

A year ago, as Michael Halberstam and I talked about possible plays for me to
direct, Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT came up. I have acted in or directed a
lot of Shakespeare, but never that one. It was a play I admired but didn’t love.
It has extraordinary characters, fascinating relationships and beautiful scenes,
but I never understood what held it together. It seemed to have no narrative
force. Scholars say, “Oh, well, it’s a pastoral.” What the hell does that mean?
Does one put in the program, “You see, it’s a pastoral.”

I sat down and read the play and realized anew how compelling it is. I started
reading about the play and I hit upon a piece of information that made the light
bulb go on for me. I read about a 1957 production in Great Britain that
followed on the heels of the Hungarian uprising in which the exiles in the Forest
of Arden reminded the audience of the Hungarian refugees that were pouring
into England. How easy it is to forget, in a play with so much love and laughter,
that these people are displaced persons. They cannot go home. They would
be killed. They must create a new world for themselves that will require all their
courage and imagination. What a delightfully dangerous context for a comedy.

Every play is about the people who come to see it. It must speak to us in
ways that relate to our experience. However, I always find it useful to try to
imagine how that first audience at the first performance received it.
Elizabeth I is on the throne – a brilliant woman playing a man’s role. It is a
golden age of discovery, with swashbuckling explorers discovering new worlds
everywhere. Elizabeth’s court is smart, witty and glamorous. It is also
murderously dangerous. One is in favor one minute and in the Tower the
next. No one can be trusted. It is the English renaissance, bursting with
miraculous possibilities, that is terrorized by uncertainty, religious zealotry,
unbridled ambition and the randomness of hate.

But don’t be scared. AS YOU LIKE IT is Shakespeare’s hope that everything will
turn out just fine. The folks who end up in the Forest of Arden are a mixed bag
of individuals. The argue, they misunderstand each other, they flirt, they joke,
they sing. But they do create a community – a community of individuals – and a
safe harbor for the young, the old and the gender confused.

I have one personal story. I officiated at the wedding of Tracy Arnold and
Marcus Truschinski, our Rosalind and Orlando. (I have no idea why they
thought I would be appropriate.) In the excitement of the ceremony, I forgot to
do the part that begins, “Do you, Tracy Arnold, take this man, etc?”

Now, eight times a week, Tracy’s best friend, Carey Cannon, can perform the
part of the ceremony I forgot.

What an apt way to finish this evening’s rehearsal, huddled together, our first night on the set, singing “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind” while outside the bitter winds whited-out the icy roads. One of the themes of AS YOU LIKE IT is that the world of Nature, while harsh and rough at times, is more honest and pure than the cut-throat world of men. That in Nature we find a sacred space where we can seek the eternal and meaningful. Almost all of the characters in the play escape to the Forest of Arden during the play, fleeing persecution, tyranny or ill-fortune. In the forest they find solace, rejuvenation, new perspectives, new identities and (of course) Love.

The exiled Duke Senior has a beautiful speech that introduces us to the forest. Not to give anything away but I think it can only help to know this one beforehand:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

Here is a man who has had his dukedom usurped by his own brother, who had to flee to the forest after living in a palace, and these are the thoughts he shares with his compatriots.

Like I said, everyone in this play flees to the woods at some point and there they find lives more enduring, more vital than what they had known before. One of the things I embraced early on was our director’s idea that everyone, even the long-term residents of the forest, fled from somewhere. This place unites all who come to it because it serves as a sanctuary for them all. I play a shepherd (Corin) who has lived here longer than anyone else we encounter. This idea that at some point I fled something and came to the Forest of Arden was very powerful for me. I could go into great depth about the history I have created for Corin, but what I really want to point out is that this idea brought me to the revelation that Corin chose to be here. Chose this life specifically. He could have moved on, gone somewhere else, maybe even returned home, but the forest became his home and he has embraced this life. This opened up a deep well of meaning beneath the lines that Corin speaks and connected me to my character. Part of bringing a play off the page and to life is finding those notes that resonate, when the words you have to speak become the only possible words to use for that person. When you come upon one of those notes you know it because it echoes in your bones and everyone stops whatever else they are doing and looks. Ultimately we are arranging a series of resonant notes, making a song of moments and connections that fuel the poetry and open up a space for life to happen.

Sitting around on our stage for the first time tonight we all found a resonant note. While the winter wind raged outside we were finding something eternal, enduring and vital here in our space, in our theater, in our Forest of Arden.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to be sitting around the table with this amazing group of people. I’m still a relative newcomer to the world of paid professional theater and I don’t often find myself in shows where we have the luxury of table-work sessions before we get on our feet. Table-work is a fairly unimaginative term for a very imagination-centered activity. As a whole ensemble we sit around and go through the script with the scrutiny of a forensic investigator while still keeping our creative ears open for the unintentional (but deeply appreciated) ricochets of inspiration and revelation. We take the time to weigh the words and explore the various possibilities that they suggest. We make decisions about our characters and their relationships and we start to define the world of the play that we are about to inhabit. Of course we also take a few scenic roads and detours on our journey as we riff on how the play’s themes relate to our present world, or get enjoyably entangled in the minutia of stress or punctuation. Personally I seem unable to keep my mouth shut in theses cases and I easily get swept up in the discussion, which fascinates me completely. Luckily we always end up back on track and often with a new insight or idea to try out.

At this point I have to confess that I am a little in awe of the rest of my cast. I am working with people who I have been watching and admiring for years and I feel a bit like a rookie who suddenly gets called up to the Cubs and finds himself sharing a dugout with his heroes. I must look like a goofball because I just sit there with a huge smile on my face basking in the conversation. Luckily I do have one thing going for me, I’m playing a shepherd in the play and I am reasonably sure I am the resident shepherding expert considering I did that for a year after high school. So for now I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open to the great work going on around me and just make sure I’m ready for some sheep-shearing if it comes up.