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.