Best Gathering of all time…

Wed evening's Gathering.
Top: Chuck, Edgar and Nonnie.
Middle: Lorne and David.
Bottom: Sharon and Julia

What a great couple of Gatherings we had this week! I must say, Wednesday night was the best one ever: not only for the number of participants (which allowed us to work for 2 great hours) but also the quality of work that was shared and played with. David Calderisi had 2 of his scripts roughly put on their feet with staged cold reads by Chuck and Nonnie doing one and him and Julia playing the other. It was quite the show. Sharon and Edgar met for the first time and started work on another Harold Pinter scene from Betrayal. Then I got a chance to work on a couple of monologues (N. Richard Nash's Rainmaker and Landford Wilson's Burn This) that I was preparing for an upcoming general audition for London, ON's Grand Theatre.


On this last point, I have to say that Actors' Playground is quite the God-send! Working on monologues by myself for an audition has always been a major disappointment for me. It's such a different energy and there is no objective feedback to help point out where things are not as clear as they could be. But when I did my monologues at the Gathering and asked, "Comments?" it was such a wonderful moment to hear observations. 


Let's face it, doing a monologue is not the same as doing a scene. There is no one to work or react off of and 90% of it relies on imagination. Now to be clear, no one was telling me how to act. I was given specific answers to specific questions around clarity in regards to what I am communicating and believe me, it makes all the difference in the world. Also, one of the pieces was brand new to me. So to actually do it in front of people before an audition gives me an experience that really prepares me for when I'm to perform it in front of strangers who can give me a job. And when I do it at the Playground, I'm doing it in front of peers rather than friends, spouses or relatives who wouldn't know what to say.

Thur afternoon's Gathering.
Lorne and Alex

The next day, I spent an hour for a Thursday afternoon Gathering with Alex and we practiced a scene from David Mamet's American Buffalo. I only know Alex from a performance I saw him do… I think it was 2 years ago. He reached out to me via email and told me he wanted to be involved in what I was offering. So I sent him the scene and we did nothing but cold reads. What I loved about this Gathering was that we did thorough exploratory work with the text without discussing, planning or telling each other what to do. Essentially, we did what Harold Guskin refers to in his book, How to Stop Acting, as "taking it off the page." This opened up a lot of spontaneous and unpredictable responses. We kept remarking this and have committed to meeting up on a weekly basis.


Nothing beats communal practice!


To see photos of this and other Gatherings, just go to actorsplayground.ca and click the Photos tab near the top of the page.