Monthly Archives: October 2012

Young Alumnae of the Year 2012!

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Bonnie McDonald Grubbs (’08 – Theatre Performance) was named the 2012 Belhaven University Young Alumnae of the Year!  After completing her undergrad work at Belhaven, Bonnie finished a masters in education at Mary Baldwin College before accepting a position at Achievement First, a charter school in Brooklyn, New York – where her class is named ‘Belhaven’ and her student scholars are ‘Blazers’.  We are so very proud of Bonnie’s accomplishments – and pleased to see her continuing to use all of her gifts to do the Lord’s work.

View the video of her speech at the Homecoming Luncheon!

Bonnie McDonald Grubbs and her husband Alex visiting Belhaven for Homecoming 2012

Henry V Painting work

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The painting work for Henry V by Shakespeare has been a several step process.  Whenever there is painting that takes multiple layers to get to your final product, it takes more time to get finished because of paint drying time between layers.  However the end product is always worth the wait.  For Henry V the set is very bare, not many added pieces and most of the stage is set on a rake.  This adds another element to painting because you can not paint on the stage or the paint will run.  So all of the stage painting was done on the floor and added to the stage when it was finished.  It was done as a three tone wetblend, writing was added on top of that, which we sealed with a clear glaze.  After it was sealed the large text was added on top of the main center stage area, than the whole stage was dry brushed with two different glazes.  One glaze was simply tinted black, the other has a textured black metallic paint added to it.  This added a couple things to the stage for us, one, it gave it a rougher finish so that the actors won’t slip as easily, especially working on a rack, and two, it added a bit more shine to the finish.  The finished product has the actors walking and acting on Shakespeare’s words as they perform.  Bellow are several pictures of the process and the finished work.

Step 2 in the painting process, adding the text.

We used this to set up and paint all of the flooring.

Section with the most layering.

Finished floor with rendering. Already put onto the stage.

 

HENRY V tech day!

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Saturday was a low key tech day which is what I always shoot for.  All the sound for the show is live so the big focus was lights.  Kris Dietrich created a space/set that utilizes light beautifully.  There are lovely moments in the play where the intentions are full of meaning and emotion and the lights really deliver.  We started the morning with a classic cue to cue.  Besides a bit of a computer problem it was rather fun.  Most of the plays I directed in LA the designer would come into rehearsals during runs and build the show so I would have seen most of the lights before our Equity 10 out of 12 day.  After lunch we came back, finished up cue to cue and then did 2 runs with notes in between. The actors were exhausted after running a fast paced Shakespeare in which they play multiple characters, have many costume changes, fight & sing.  Sunday was a day off and tonight we do our first run with all the elements adding costumes, makeup, hair and final props.  We have 2 nights before opening to fix any problems, make any final changes and learn more about the story.  The actors have been completely dedicated to the story and the process and this makes for some smooth sailing.  Here’s a pic from tech!

Improv for Homecoming!

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Friday night.  Homecoming.

What says “welcome back” more than uncomfortable silence followed by uproarious laughter?  Not unlike most family reunions.

Students in the Improv Acting class, combined with a few veterans of Belhaven improv, showcased their skills of… um… well… making things up… in front of people.  They poured their hearts and souls into that performance, and people just laughed at them.  Laughed, I say!  Which was the point – so, good job!

We were all amused by:  The Illiad from the point of views of Achilles, Helen and Paris, the first time Murphy ever ate bananas while riding a bike, a visit from Selena Gomez (kind of), superheroes fighting a more ordinary kind of toxic gas, and the story of Detective Octopus.

Devised Theatre Workshop with Alex Grubbs

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Alex Grubbs instructing students on principles of Devised Theatre

On Friday, Oct 12, we had a visit from one of our alumni, Alex Grubbs (’08).  Alex and his wife Bonnie (who is receiving the distinguished Young Alumni award from Belhaven this fall) now live in NYC after completing their masters educations, Bonnie in Education at Mary Baldwin College and Alex in Acting from the University of Virginia.

Students showcasing their combined Devised works

Alex led a workshop of students combined from several classes in exercises in Devised Theatre – a process of collaborative creation for works of theatre.  After some brief introductory exercises and discussions, students developed short works based on personal stories of their fellow classmates, then combined those individual pieces into group performances.

Students working with Alex Grubbs on individual pieces of Devised work

Stage Combat

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At the core of every individual there is an inherent biological response called fight or flight. It is the moment when we physically sense danger , our heart beats faster, adrenaline kicks in and we make a split decision whether to run away from danger or confront it-head on. This response usually occurs when all attempts of talking things out and verbal communication fail and we make that choice to run or fight and in choosing to fight we start to communicate with our fists. For the combatant there is no other choice but to confront and only through this act of violence that our conflict can be assuaged. It is at this crisis that training in stage combat begins. A quick survey of plays that centers around acts of violence are: Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry V, The Importance of Being Earnest, Marisol, Streetcar Named Desire…etc… How does an actor approach this in a safe way so as to not actually harm your partner or yourself? The core of training helps the actor to produce the physical acts of violence by providing the ideas of fighting distance, masking, eye contact, and communication with your partner help to not only create a realistic fight but also help to keep the actors safe.

HENRY V REHEARSALS

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We are heading into the breach dear friends.  Week 5 of rehearsals for our lean mean production of HENRY V.   This cut is designed for 8 actors (4 men/4 women) to tell the story of King Henry the V.  He wasn’t King for long but during his reign he took France for his own.  This is one of Shakespeare’s history plays which are full of humor, action and romance and this play doesn’t disappoint.

All 8 of the actors get a shot at playing King Henry.  (Henry has 8 scenes in the play)  Next week I’ll post a video from rehearsals…

This one hour and forty minute cut was done by Hisa Takakuwa with some help from me.  We produced it at Actors Co-op in Hollywood, CA in 2005 with Ms Takakuwa directing and myself acting.  It was a very low budget second stage production that really hit home America’s situation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is no intermission and the play moves quickly.  The actors get a chance to play followers and leaders which really highlights the questions:  What does it mean to be a follower?  What does it mean to be a leader?  What if you are asked to go to war?  What do you do if you no longer believe in that war?  What does it mean to be conquered?

There will be a discussion after every performance and we’d love to talk with you about the play and how it resonates with you.  Follow!  Follow

A different kind of performing…

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Most people consider the task of ‘acting’ or ‘performing’ to be to create a sense of realism – to act as a real person and establish the illusion that ‘this is happening right now for the first time’.  Stanislavski, and many others like him.  This is the traditional view of what it means to be an actor or performer.

Director/ writer/ theatre artist Robert Wilson (along with several other contemporary theatre artists) look to break the theatre away from this sense of the ‘real’ and, in their work, seek to establish a heightened sense of theatricality that, they believe, open the doorway to a more poetic sense of meaning.  Highly visual, highly stylized.

But to perform in a work of this genre, an actor cannot apply the kinds of methods that serve the more ‘realistic’ performance of a traditional play.  The New York Times interviewed an actor, Helga Davis, who is currently performing in the revival of Wilson and Philip Glass’ operatic work Einstein on the Beach at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Here is the article.