The Apprentice Ensemble Project - A Process

Ok everyone - this is a huge post. Its unorganized, and I'll clean it up later - but I want to get it out there!

Ensemble Project

Step 1 - find two articels from the same day, different parts of the country, 22 people sit in a circle and talk about them all 
Step 2 - talk about IDEAS behind articels
Step 3 - work generation - Improv/ theatricalizing ideas 
Step 4 - Find a framing device
Step 5 - Make a freaking show
The first project we worked on as a company of 22 actors, 4 dirctors - two of which are Michael and Amy and 2 dramaturgs, was The Aprentice Ensemble Project. Before we arrived here, we were told to buy a local newspaper from where ever we were on july 12th, 2010, to read it in its entirety and find two articles that struck us. In my paper I found an article about the Barefoot Bandit (Colton Harris-Moore). We knew that were were going to have to talk about the articles and explain why we picked them when we started working on the project.
So, we arrive -
Ensemble Project Day 1 - We sat in a circle on the 4th floor of the administrative building ( which is basically our rehearsal space) and we each told about our articles, why we picked them, and then a discussion or comments would raise up and we'd just start talking. Keep in mind, that at this point we've known about each other for only days. As we went around, we started to see not only the kinds of things people were interestd in, but the things they talked about, how they talk, how they think. Stories start to pop. Monica Bergstrand told this story about how about a month before she got here, she met her dad for the first time. She's 28, and cried and laughed through the whole thing. Like, it just popped out. Several others just started coming out. It was like we were all old friends, hadn't seen each other in 20 years, and had to get everyone caught up on what was important to us. We talked all day - 9 to 5. It was a day of discovery. Not only about the project, but about each other. It was like meeting the family I'm staying with for the next 9 months.
Ah - i'd like to note that 8 of us all picked articles concerning Colton Harris-Moore or (Barefoot Bandit)
Ensemble Project Day 2 - 
    We came together, sat in a circle, and literally talked about all the ISSUES the articles brought up the day before for the entire day. Like sky is the limit, Discuss what affected you yesterday - go. And we talked, totally trusting and supporting, for another 8 hours. -

*****List of Ideas to come
Ensemble Project Day 3 - 
Alter Egos - Everyone reading this, before you read on, think about your alter ego. If you could be anything, any person, any object, any anything, what would it be? and get specifc, name, the color of shirt they're wearing, how they talk, where they're from - just give it as many details as possible. Thats one of the things we were asked to do upon arrival. On day 2, we performed them for each other. Michael said, "Ok. take 15 minutes and figure out how to personify your alter ego and then we'll perform them for each other." Panic. - I went first.
My alter ego - Desperado
Here was my brainstorm right out of my journal -
- COWBOY - Boots, chaps, whiskey, horse, the real deal
- wild west, before califonia was settled
- cattle driver
- Brown beaten hat, hole in the brim
- worn leather chaps
- boots the color of dirt, spurs
- pearl handled 6 shooter on each him - Right, Jane - for my momma - Left, Culver - Beacuse it sounds so nice
- Brown, party calico horse named O'l Wiley - Faithful companion
- Expert poker player - bluffer
- whiskey
- Dried beef
- can -o- beans
- skillet, coffee cut, pot, silverware on a ring. yes.
- Lonely, comfortable solitude
- calm, assured
- quickshot
- 1850's
- almost a ghost
- People just hear stories about him, but have never met him.

This is the bit of a monologue I worked up to introduce him-

"Howdy yall, Desperado here. I herd cattle and I play a smooth had of poker. This here's Ol' Wiley - best friend I ever had. On my hips, on the right, Jane (mimes pistol) for my momma. On the left, Culver, cause it sounds sooo nice. I make my way by the stars, town to town, saloon to saloon. My name is in the breeze. People hear it whisperin in their ear, but never see my face less I tip my brim."
- There's more I put into it when I did it, but thats were it started from -


Apprentices and alter ego names - I'll leave the details to your imagination.
Scott - John Band - 007, pimp in reno
Brandon - Pablo - hair dresser of celebrities
Kerri - Onyx - Secret agent/Assassin -
Alex Hernandez - Nelson "Party Bowl" Ramirez
Zach Virden - Don Martin - Doesn't say much, wine taster
Ellen - Mayln Moresee - Actress, famous for no reason
Martina -no name - as nameless as the earth - Seer, Wizard, possbile bringer of natural disasters, seen at several
Alex Stage - Peter Ungar - Alien,, "I am your master"
Jordan - Jerry Jive Washington "Best pianist that never gone Pro"
Monica - Kelly - Super strong, Very helpful, but no one accepts her help cause she breaks everything, Great picture hanger
Havalah - Sasha Swenson - Born in a yacht on the border of two countries, so, not a citizen of anywhere. Model
Shawn - Miss Louisianna - Won the hopscotch contest
Dinah - Humphrey - 89 years old, has escaped from 23 nursing homes, helps other senior citizens escape
Will - Smash hit - Smashes everything in 10 seconds
Daniel - Assassin/Bead collector - Kills people, paid in beads and jewels, makes jewlery with the beads and gems, sells it at fairs.

*****Six or 7 more to come -

The next thing we did, was split into groups of 4-5. We were given 15 minutes to come up with 3 ways to theatricalize the story of the Barefoot Bandit, or parts of the story or anything about him. The sky was the limit - but 3 different ways, 15 minutes.
Quickly we brainstormed all the ways theatre is presented, here is a short list
 - Narrative retelling
 - Abstraction (I don't even know if thats a word)
 - Direct address
 - Movement
 - Collection of news quotes
(I know this is a short list, we only had 15 minutes hahaah )
We came up with a radio show telling his story, a group of girls looking at his facebook fan page oogling  - the parents burst in, but then get caught up in the "Barefoot Excitement" and... something else I don't remember.
We did this all day - for two or three days - 8 hours a day, generating ideas.
It was the most creative I'd ever been in my entire life. Group sizes would vary, the length of time we had to come up with ideas flexed from 15 minutes to 45. At the end of the day, I could have fallen over. I think I did, when I got home actually. It was unbelieveable. I went home after the first day of work generatio - the one with the alter egos. So much had happened, I thought we had done the alter egos a day before. So much work had happened in 8 hours. It is, I can't explain how much work happened.
Here are some of the ideas that were put up on thier feet:
- Newsroom telling story
- ASS - Thieves club
- holding auditions for the role of "Barefoot Bandit" each actor brought a "Foot Shot"
 - Leaving water foot prints on rolled out paper
 - Coming onstage, dressing someone as a celebrity, then them singing sadly, taking off the facny clothes, " Fame, I'm gona live forever"
 - The moment you realize you're mortal and are going to die.
 - When I was 7 - our lives at 7 as oppsed to Coltons
 - Personifying his accomplis Harley Davidson Ironwing (Yes thats his real freaking name)
 - A soundscape of Colton being captured.
 - Point of no return - the idea of painting yourself into a corner (physical)
 - Scrolling movie credits of Coltons story
 - folk songs written in memory of Colton

Day 4 and 5 were more of the same - work generation - just putting ideas on their feet by what ever means we wanted to. It was at this point, that we had so many ideas, so much work out there on the table, that we were getting pretty overwhelmed by it. There was nothing holding it together no "Banks on the river to hold it in". We had half a week, over 36 hours of just creating work, creating characters and situations.
At this point, the days blend together - So I'll say by mid week two, Michael stepped in and said him and Amy and the other 2 directors Rachel and Zach had come up with an idea to frame these Ideas we had - The Barefoot Bandit's story.
We had decided that the main ideas we wanted to work with were Self Identity, Legacy, and Fame in the digital age. All of those things kind of revolved around this Barefoot Bandit article that 1/3 of us had been drawn to in the first place.
It was also at this point, after the work had been generated and the framing device set, that Michael and Amy asked permission to start making executive decesions concerning what pieces of work we would use to tell the story. - At this point, we had been working our asses off and didn't know what else we could do with it as a group of 26 individuals. Each of us had different ideas. We really needed some one to be able to make executice decesions about what to keep. - Michael and Amy stepped in to do this, and  I think there was a general sigh of relief when they asked us if they could. If they'd have said that from the beginning, I don't think we'd have liked it, or had gotten as much out of the process as we did. But right when we needed it, right when we were desperate for direction, they stepped in. - It was a fantastic way to do it. Also - this was when rehearsals for Dracula started and the folks in that would only be doing the Enseble Porject a few hours a day.

So lets see - I want to say now, we're about at the end of the 2nd week of work -
We made a time line of the Barefoot Bandit's life up to this point, and started to match up ideas from our themes, Legacy, Self Identiy, and fame, that matched them.
So we'd do a little scene about how the nickname was picked - Barefoot Bandit, then do a little bit right after that that exposed our ideas on self identity. That kind of thing.
after we had fleshed out and worked through some of the better ideas michael and Amy came up with an order.  It changed several times, but ended up looking like this -

****order ******

So we started working each of these bits - we had 4 directors, so each bit had a different director basically then when we'd show them to the company, all 4 directors would give their imput on the scene.
Once the scenes were solid - Probobly 4 days before we opened, we put in transitions - The transitions were direct quotes from his facebook fanpage that had to deal with the issues presented in the scene before or the one coming up. All of the sudden we had a show. We performed it on the 27th and 28th of August. 2 performances. The product was incredible, the process was mind blowing.

We ran it the first time 3 days before we opened 2 1/2 weeks after we started creating it.
It was 45 minutes long. It was funny, beautiful, full of ideas and sweat. I'll never forget it.

Rehearsal with Dracula Director- Bill McNulty

Rehearsal with Dracula Director Bill McNulty

I have so much to learn

So I’m here in rehearsal with a director who’s incredible and directed this show for 15 years at Actors. Intimidated, is more than an understatement of how I feel. It’s been about a week since we began and I just had my first rehearsal where it was me, him, Havalah, and the stage manager and I was finally able to let my belt loose a little bit. Let go of the, “I’m a student, you’re incredible, and I’m not doing anything that you want”, mindset. Its really hard to think of myself as a peer with the folks in the cast. As much as we’re told to, its hard to wrap my head around it.

So I just took this rehearsal to listen. To listen to everything he was giving me, and not feel like I had to get it THAT instant to impress him, or show him that there was a reason he cast me. I had a good hour.

Play the action –

Work with what you want the OTHER character to feel –

Work what you want in the scene –

Those are the main things he kept pushing at us. Those are the things I forget about when I’m in my room running lines and working beats. I start talking and think, Oh, yeah, that’s a good line reading. Or, oh nice, that’s a nice bit.

Bill brought this up, recognized it, and kind of made a joke about it. He said you do all that, but then when you get into the room with the actor and they start giving you something different, you have to roll with it and let it happen. That’s the only way to get something organic and valuable.

He just kept on pushing to keep your action in the back of your head; what is your action in this beat. Once I got it, once we both started just leaving these line reads and these bits at the door and just played off each other with our actions in mind- it started to happen. Work, actual, valuable work started to happen. I started to feel, for the first time today, that I was contributing.

Today’s rehearsal got me thinking about a bigger issue as far as my craft goes –

My process –

One of the things Michael and Amy asked us to do when we got here was, “Articulate your process. How do you create a character? What do you do when you get in a play?” I didn’t really know what to tell them.

I don’t really know what my process is- My process of creating a character and a world in a play. I just memorize the lines, find the beats, think about what the character wants and start rehearsals. I want to be able to actually bring ideas into the rehearsal room, not just know where the beats are.

So, today’s rehearsal was good. It’s the first scene study rehearsal I’ve felt good about. I feel good about it because I was able to drop nervous Ryan for a while and just play around with smart actor Ryan, who doesn’t come out very often. J

More later about fight choreography….. 

Also, an Apprentice Ensemble Post is coming....

22 People Who All Think, Laugh, and Dream Like I Do~

So here I am, a member of the top internship program in the country. As I packed up my bags and headed out to Kentucky a million things ran through my head. What will I be doing? Where will this lead me? Who will I meet? Will we all be best friends by the end? Will we fight the whole way? Will I grow as a performer in ways I never imagined I could? What I hadn't realized yet was the process Michael Legg and Amy Attaway, the director and assistant director of the Apprentice Program respectively, had gone through to pick us out.

2800 people of varying talents and from different walks of life had auditioned. I'd thought about the level of talent I'd be working with, but not about the character. Michael and Amy picked out 22 people that they would be OK working with for 9 months of their lives. They had to say to themselves, "Yes. I would not mind seeing you every day for the better part of a year. In fact, I want to. Come be a part of this program."

The apprentices are the nicest, most driven, smart, and fun group of people I've ever come across in one place at one time. They all dream big, and loud.

I remember the first day we all met in one place, the associate dinner, when all I could see was a room full of smiles. We all burst into the room with a chorus of, "Hello! I'm so and so, who are you, cause I can't wait to meet you!". I mean, I just can't believe how wonderful each of them are.

Just think for a minute - a place where everyone accepts everything about you. A place where you can be you, completely. A place where everyone wants the same things you do. A place where you feel a sense of home 4 days after being there. I'm there. I'm right in the thick of that rainbow coated world.

A member of the cast of KITE RUNNER, Kario Pereira-Bailey, turned 21 last week and the cast threw a surprise party for him and invited all the apprentices. We crammed into his gorgeous apartment for about an hour before he got there. Most of us barely knew Kario. We'd talked to him passing in the halls, or had a beer or two with him, but we were there along with the whole cast to celebrate his birthday. He had no idea. In fact, just days prior the cast threw a surprise party for him in rehearsal with a cake and everything just to throw him off. So he walked in and we all started shouting and his face - just priceless. Not just shock though,  like, sheer joy. It was all in his eyes and his smile. He was just so surprised about it all.

My point is we were all there, and it was a fantastic night.

We're only a week in a half in, but I'm feeling like we're off to a really good start. I'm sure arguments and fights will break out. It's inevitable. theres 22 people and we work together all day long. But, if that happens, We'll be able to remember, "wait a minute. At some point, this person was awesome. I've gotta get back to that. Who knows, maybe we'll all just kill each other by the end. :)

A bit on the talent pool out here of the apprentices~
    They're all fantastic. We've been working on the Apprentice Ensemble Project for like 7 days (I'll be posting one enormous post about this process at the beginning of September) and seeing everyone work is amazing. to give you a better picture of it:
     The second exercise we did, on the first day was to theatricalize the story of the "Barefoot Bandit" (if you don't know it, click here http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/07/12/five-reasons-why-the-barefoot-bandit/ ) in three different ways. We had 15 minutes. We were in groups of 4-6, and we all did it, and it was fantastic. Thats what we've been doing for 3 days. Generating work through talking and improv. Its kind of an amazing thing to see 4 people that BARELY know each other get up and throw a piece of theatre together in 15 minutes. Its a magical thing. Its kind of blowing my mind actually, the amount of work we've done in 3 or 4 days.

The long and the short is, everyone is amazing, I barely know anything about them, and I Freaking love them.

Kerri

Alexander

Victoria

Alvarez-Chacon

Monica

Bergstrand

Dinah

Berkeley

Martina

Bonolis

Jordan

Brodess

Daniel

Desmarais

Havalah

Grace

Rebecca

Haden

Ellen

Haun

Alex

Hernandez

Emily

Kunkel

Devin

Olson

Sean Michael

Palmer

Brandon

Peters

Elizabeth

Schwarzrock

Alex

Stage

William

Steele

Scott

Swezey

Peter

Vergari

Zachary

Virden

Ryan

Westwood

  

Cast in Dracula! An Audition, Magic, and a Lesson.

Big news everyone. We had auditions for Dracula and The Mystery of Irma Vep last Thursday and Friday.
I GOT CAST AS BRIGGS IN DRACULA. I'm freaking out. Kinda literally.

    When we got the sides for DRACULA. They came along with some directors notes. In short, the notes stated that the play was gona be put up as a terrifying production. Every element would fall into place to scare the crap out of the audience. There is a bet that goes on in the cast each year regarding how many kids are going to wet themselves. Big money bet. Also - The audition for the role of the MONSTER - which is Dracula's demon side consisted of running as fast as you can, jumping as high and fast as you could and simultaneously letting out a blood curdling howl. The second round? A chase scene created by two actors where the MONSTER eventually catches his prey and sucks the life out of her. - Yeah.
    So - BRIGGS, the character I'm going to be playing, is really sarcastic. The director, in his notes, asked that we take this scene as seriously as possible. Toss out the sarcasm and really feel out the reality, and the terror of the situation the characters are in. My scene partner Ellen Haun and I tried to do just that.
   We got together last Tuesday, (and can I say how refreshing it was to be working again? first time since march.) and we just worked it. The great part was that everything just kinda came out naturally. We only worked for half an hour but we felt like we had a really good handle on the scene. It was just real, objective was obvious. So - jump to Friday, (the 13th, by the way) ~~~The auditions for BRIGGS, went three rounds.

Ellen was partners with another guy as well, Daniel Desmarais, and the director, Bill McNulty,  had already kind of worked with her. So when we went in to do our scene, he directed most of his comments to me which was crazy intimidating. So, we ran through the scene and he stopped us 2/3 the way through and asked us to go back to a little section before. Bill said, "Ok Ryan, I get the fear part of it, I'm level with you on what you're doing there, and its right. But there is a level, a part of this guy that is sarcastic, and that's how he deals with the fear, but it doesn't always work. So, throw some in there, and let me see how it looks." So I tried to do just that. I took every line that I thought could be taken as a joke, and I threw it out as sarcastic to defray the reality of what Briggs was feeling - and, just like he said - sometimes it didn't work. Those were really fun, and sometimes funny discoveries. I must have given the director what he wanted, because I got called back.

Next, I was reading with Lizzy Schwarzrock. We had enough time to run through the scene together once before we went in. So we ran through it, and I tried to hang onto the notes I was just given. It was wonderful doing the scene with someone else in an audition setting. Not because I didn't LOVE working with Ellen, but because it opened up a whole world of choices and tactics I'd never thought of before. She'd give me something, and I'd have to give her something back that matched it, almost off the top of my head. So - we went in and let that roll out.

The next note I got was to take the air out of this paragraph, (please god, save me from any sort of copyright laws)

"Wha'? Trouble 'round our quiet little cottage by the sea? Oh, we can't 'ave that, now, can we? Not when this is going so lovely. What with one dead and one dyin' of God knows what, shots bein' fired in the night and young Mr. 'Arker turnin' up lookin' like Robinson Crusoe. What could be more restful?"

I'd been taking a lot of time in this to really let myself feel the reality of death, danger and surprise; Also, to make sure I wasn't letting the obvious sarcasm take over completely. So when he said take the air out of it, I gave it the speed and the natural build it has in crescendo and tempo. I just let loose. Then - and here is where the lesson I want to take from this is - I let that speed, that rhythm, that pace lead the rest of the scene. In college, my professor Cory Johnson, told me that what a director wants is to give you a note, and then see you take it further than they expected. - She must have been right, again, because I got called back for the last round.

The last round was just me, and Havalah Grace, who is fantastic. Havalah and I did not work together at all before we went into the auditions. There was no time. we walked in, and the director asked me to take off my glasses again (I neglected to mention that it had happened in round 2 as well. - Left my toiletry bag in Iowa, with my contacts..) and Havalah took hers off two. I made a joke about how things were going to get really good with two "blindos"  up here and Bill came back with, "Well, we'll get you some seeing eye dogs, that should help." After we stopped laughing, I took a good moment to pull myself back into this world of terror, and dove in, keeping the mixture of fear, sarcasm, and pace that I'd adapted to in the rounds prior.

Havalah and I had. We'd never worked together before, but it was there - and that was strange, and exciting, which i think guided us to the level we were at. We finished the scene and Bill gave me one last note concerning this sequence-

Sullivan: Don't be superstitious.
Briggs: Superstitious am I? Look out that window. Look at them dark clouds gatherin'. Pitch black clouds against a sky the color of a tombstone.
Sullivan: There's just a storm brewin, that's all.

It is not just a storm. Its a hellish sky full of nightmare that Dracula was conjuring up. The note was this - Take a moment to really see that sky. See the nightmares in it. See the terror, and let me see that picture in your eyes. As soon as he said it I thought, "God why didn't I think of that? That's why you have a director Ryan."

So we ran through it again, just that small part, and I let my daydreaming eyes go. I took moments to see everything, swirls of black and silver, ghosts rising through the mist, a moon the size of the sun, fire bursting through the atmosphere, and a pair of red eyes, glaring, fixated back at me. I could feel the room darken - You know when its twilight, and you stare at the same place for 3 or 4 minutes, fixated, without blinking and everything goes dark - That was happening. Direction, preparation, and the chemistry Havalah and I allowed it to happen I think, and it must have been great because -

WE GOT CAST~!


Havalah was one of the two apprentices that I found a connection with before I got here. Her and Scott Swezey. Now, as it turns out, Havalah and I were cast opposite each other, and Scott is understudying Briggs.

I don't know how I feel about fate anymore ~ but regardless of whatever power is out there - There is something to be said about trust and connection on stage; It affects everything. I can't speak for Havalah, but in my case - connection, as an idea and a subconscious force, undoubtedly aided in me getting this role.

I re-read the script last night and realize I'm playing the character that is killed by- well, here are the stage directions in regards to Briggs death
- "MONSTER shakes him(Briggs) furiously like an animal with its prey until he is completely still and limp"

Terrified? - Yeah, that makes two of us.

5 days as an apprentice, and OMG batman. Amazing.

So, here I am in Louisville Kentucky. I'm an apprentice at the leading regional theater in the country and life, really couldn't be better, well, thats a lie, but we won't get into that now. What we will get into is what has happened, and what is happening.
So much is happening - :)

For all you bloggers out there... Bear with me, this is my first time.

I've been in Louisville Kentucky for 5 days now. Its now the 12. So I got in Saturday night after driving 7 hours with no air conditioning. Amazing. :) My place is great. I'm living at the WG - definition of the acronym to come later. :) Its the 10th floor of an apartment building that is set up as a dorm for apprentices. So all the rooms are on the outside edge so they have windows and all the bathrooms are on the inner edge of the hall that wraps around. My room is huge. 250 ft X 250 ft. I know thats tiny, but for me, its all the space I could imagine. Theres a full size bed, not a twin and that makes my life complete.

Sunday night, the 8th, the associates, which are volunteers for the theater threw the apprentices a welcome dinner. It was super! They were all super nice, and were so happy that we were here. Thats the funny thing about being here, everyone at the theater waits for the apprentices to show up. Like, we've been told by several people that we bring an energy here, and after we leave, its gone, and they all miss it. We're the life blood of the theater season after season.

Monday - Pool freakin party. Oh man, it was sweet. We went to this rich dude's house who loves the theater and had us all over. As we walked into his back yard, which was beautiful by the way - flowers everywhere, we noticed there was kind of crazy music playing. Like, techno, music - like remixes you'd hear at a rave where X was being passed around. Really odd. It never happened, but we half expected him to start serving pills on a gold platter - Kind of  weird i know, but, if you'd have been there, you'd have gotten the vibe.
Pool party was great. He served chicken tetrazini - Delicious.

Tuesday - Long. Ass. Day. We sat, for 9 hours, and listened to policy that was thrown at us. Nothing really happened this day.
Wednesday - Today we started the Apprentice Ensemble Project. Its the first project.
Wednesday will have to wait until tomorrow. Its midnight, I have to be up at 7 to audition for Dracula. Wish me luck! and - Good night.