Los Angeles

I'm in L.A. now.  It's amazing.

The Weather
I was secretly terrified of the weather, that it would be like summer year-round.  Dismally hot and sticky, with deadly strength-sapping humidity like I'd become accustomed to after 8 years in NYC.  Actually, here it's closer to my favorite time of year, Fall, mostly cool and breezy but nice and hot in the sun.  Well, the sun is everywhere.  My favorite phrase to describe the sun in the time I've spent here is, "It's beating down on me!"  I usually say this in the car with Kate because she blasts the heat no matter the season or time of day so that adds to the effect.

This is right outside our house from the porch.  We also have a backyard complete with lawn chairs from the previous tenants.

The Neighborhood
I am living with Kate and two roommates in a big-ish place in Silverlake.  Silverlake has ritzy spots and depressed spots but we're in a great family neighborhood on a tree-lined street minutes away from Brooklyn-esque culture like coffee shops, thrift stores, vegan restaurants and a great vintage movie theater.  Our house is in the vicinity of Los Feliz, Echo Park,and Sunset Junction, so there is a lot of great people watching and atmosphere.

Santa Monica Blvd and N. Hoover St.

Business
I've had the good fortune to be able to connect right away with friends of mine who've made the trip out before me and their wisdom has been invaluable.  Getting to know a whole new business culture and entertainment industry protocol is going to take some time, but thanks to my friends going to endless coffees and hang-out dates with me, it won't take as long as it might otherwise.  If any of my New York theater friends are reading this and thinking of moving into film, start now with your on-camera projects.  Having a reel is absolutely critical.  Go to NYU or Columbia or wherever you need to to get yourself on film.  I've seen a bunch of really cool independent actor-generated footage and I encourage you to make that kind of stuff or find it in NYC.  I was fortunate enough to have an NYU thesis film, a Law&Order, and some good indie stuff in the can already, so I'm assembling it now and putting my own together.  More on that soon.

Vegan Restaurant

In New York, "one-on-ones" are the meetings you can take with Casting Directors and Agents.  Here, they're called "workshops".  I've been doing a lot of these in an effort to jump start my name-recognition for pilot-season given that I've only just got here. 

I've also got a profile on Casting Networks (you have to sign up again if you've already got one on the East Coast--"different servers" they said) and have been submitting myself to some cool projects.  I've been called in for a bunch of things and booked most of them, although whether or not I opted ultimately to DO them has been mixed.  The film work I have is mostly from 2005-ish, so the more I can get myself in something recent, the better.  Nobody cares about Off-Broadway because they don't know what it is.  If they can't put it in a DVD player, it never happened.  Awesome.

Kate on a picnic this summer

With Dalton at Venice Beach

Griffith Observatory, right by our house

Dalton and Louise on their visit

I played a DP in a plagued student film, here's my cast shot for the credits.  Broad comedy, people.

More to come!

More Assorted Research

Subterranea is trying to get off the ground and here's some funny things that have crossed the ol' path over the course of some research.

Confluence

I checked out a friend's blog last week and saw the "It Gets Better" video from Jon Berry, the director of the US Office of Personnel Management.  As with the others, it's a very affecting testimonial, but my friend picked up on something he said which is still with me a week later: God doesn't make junk.

The simplicity and far-reaching implications of this statement are so profound, and again I must give props to "E" for noting how universally applicable it is.  It is perhaps the best catch-all personal affirmation I have heard, no matter the circumstances.  Unless those circumstances involve you not believing in God.  Hm.  

The week I saw that video was the same week I went to an open call for The Public Theater's Timon of Athens.  I hadn't read it, so in preparation I went over the text on my Kindle (excellent for portable collected volumes of public domain texts like Shakespeare) and in doing so came across this line:

"Why dost thou call them knaves? thou know'st them not."

The context in the play doesn't really have much to do with the American culture war, but in the abstract it seemed immediately resonant with regard to adolescent bullying and the thinly-veiled homophobia in congressional politics.

The man was a genius!

November

October is drawing to a close and the million things that were so important that had to be done this month have, in the main, been taken care of.  Here are some of the things I am thinking about.

Getting out to see Kate in her new apartment and seeing what we can get up to in the neighborhood.

Getting better at driving.

Finishing my reel.

Visiting at home and seeing friends.

Prepping Subterranea for a limited production next season.

I think the most dangerous place to be in November will be between me and a camera.  Got a lot of learnin' to do, and hours logged is the only way to get comfortable.  That and classes, I suppose.

Had a very fruitful past few weeks including 

readings of Lloyd Suh's Great Wall Story and Larry Kunofsky's The Myths We Need, 

workshop performances of Qui Nguyen's The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G, 

and seeing some great new work from The Vampire Cowboys Saloon artists and David Deblinger (his one-man show Beyond Measure was directed by my friend Aaron Weiner for a few nights at Nuyorican Poets Cafe).  

Oh, and almost winning an Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in last season's The Brokenhearteds by Temar Underwood.  

Missed it by thiiiiiiiis much.

You know what else is interesting? Kate said something enlightening to me about my approach to Shakespeare.  My position was that the writing is poetry, the most beautifully constructed sentences in English, and the audience should be able to hear you honoring that in your delivery of it.  Not recitation or too flowery, but understanding the depth of the verse and employing it in such a way that they know you know it.  She said, playwrights do not want to hear their lines read as poetry, they want to hear them read as lines.  Like, between people with needs.  

That's horribly simplifying it, but I think she's right.  Every time I approach Shakespeare I feel this American Standard voice coming out of my mouth and not necessarily the character.  Mostly because I want to do justice to the language I love so much, but that's not even how Shakespeare would've wanted it to be done.  He'd be onstage using the language to compete with drunks, animals, political maneuvering and the talkative crowds.  There may or may not have been any poetry at all when you might get a tomato thrown at you for being boring.

Internet Research

The fastest way for an actor like me to get immediate dramaturgical immersion in the crazy ass world of a play like Agent G is to hit up Wikipedia and Youtube.  Here is some preliminary research I've culled from The Cloud.

WIKIPEDIA
The Vietnam War
This page is historical background and major events.

Boat People
This one has a wealth of "External links" to follow up on the Vietnamese immigration experience (some of them first hand accounts).

Viet Cong
The villains of Agent G.

South Vietnam
Basically background on the South before the Fall of Saigon, which effectively ended the war and led to the reunification of North and South.

YOUTUBE
Choson Ninja
This is a Korean "ninja technique" tutorial channel with some very strange but interesting moves.  The earlier videos are interesting to me.

"California Gurls" Katy Perry(feat. Snoop Dogg)
They wouldn't let me embed this video, but you can watch it here.  Then again, you probably know the song already.


viewer discretion advised

The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G: First Bite

art by Jeremy Arambulo whose stuff is consistently amazing

So this is the poster for Vampire Cowboys' next show (lovingly amended to "Agent G")  the First Bite workshop of which will be next week at the Battle Ranch at 8pm Monday and Tuesday.  The website has all the details.

It's been a long time in table/reading development and we're hard at work trying to give it a stage life now.  We'll probably be presenting only the first act, but already there's film noir, sci-fi, Miss Saigon, James Bond, Pirandello, Katy Perry and horribly funny plays within the play.  Oh, and some amazing fights that take place basically in a box.  No shortage of edgy, fun theatre candy here.

The action sequences are really good so far and I thought I would preview the process a little by offering my notes on what is historically known as "The Beer Fight."  

SECTION ONE

1. Ninja Running w/ looks and katas

2. Two sword dodges (Amy)

3. Nunchuck dodge into left crescent (Jon)

4. Right roundhouse (Amy)

5. Paper block/hand block/paper strike (Bonnie)

6. Nunchuck dodge/paper parry/nunchuck dodge/paper tap (Jon)

SECTION TWO

1. Right sword kick parry into left crescent (Amy and Jon)

2. Simultaneous knife disarm and paper strike (Bonnie)

3. Sword block, twisty move, spin paper strike (Amy)

4. Take nunchuck hit into running (Jon)

SECTION THREE

1. Triple paper/knife attack (Bonnie, Amy, Jon)

2. Hand grab into double hand neck chop (Bonnie)

3. Backward dodge (Jon and Amy)

4. Head/hair slam (Bonnie)

5. Outside shoulder tap, inside fist (Amy and Jon)

6. Take stomach hit into running (All)

SECTION FOUR

1. Running sequence right then left

2. Pop up into right cross (Bonnie)

3. Catch return punch, fist crunch, domino kick 

4. Take superman punch to the ground

5. Neck grab, human shield left then right

6. Right kick and toss away

7. Nunchuck dodge left and right, disarm, right nuts kick

8. Over the shoulder reset

9. Nunchuck strike right (reset under), strike left (reset under), strike left with nunchuck pop out

10. Flourish!

By this time I will be a complete mess, but the show must go on.  We'll all be addicted to five-hour energy shots by the end of this week.  That's three weapons, unarmed combat and a shitload of running.

Feel free to print this out and bring it with you if you would like to follow along ;)

SUBTERRANEA

Ensemble Studio Theatre's Octoberfest reading series is under way, and Subterranea was performed twice last week to great success.  I would have posted about it here, but Jon and I literally were staying up all night making changes and revising based on what we learned in the rehearsal room.  Octoberfest is a pretty amazing event with about a million shows going day and night.  We were nestled in between some of the most exciting playwrights out there now, all of us giving our shows another baby step forward in development.  It felt like the big leagues.

The team was as follows:

Nick: Paco Tolson
Dick: Jon Hoche
Ensemble: Erica Swindell, Julia Crockett, and Amy Waschke

Director/Stage Directions: Robert Ross Parker

These actors gave so much, and rolled with our punches every time we met.  Trying this, trying that, getting out of the comfort zone, dealing with cuts, trying out dialects...it was amazing to watch them tackle all of that and we were honored to have them aboard.

We are also proud to announce that the machinery of production is revving up, and we are actively meeting producers to get this thing off the ground.  It's an extremely exciting time.  Thanks to Graeme Gillis, Annie Trizna, Tim Scales, Kate our stage manager, and Heidi Handelsman for their staff support at EST.