CW/Classes/Auditions

February 25, 2007 by Dennis Baker 

Now that “The Country Wife” is over I am back to full focus on classes. The show was a mixed experience for me. Personally I was able to work on a British accent which was something I needed in my toolbox. I believe it was one of the worst plays I have acted in. The production itself was beautiful, but the play it not that good, and since it is fused with so many references that only pertain to that time period it is hard for a modern audience to truly enjoy it.

Classes are getting busy. We have been working on emotional preparation in acting class. One partner is in the room with independent life, while the other partner must enter with news that causes them to be emotionally full and then must continue on with there independent life that they came home to originally do. This exercise is for us to explore the wide range of territories of emotion. At times the classes have been hilarious, sad, scary, exciting, just to name a view.

The cast list have been posted for the last two main stage shows for this semester, two original MFA III plays. The eligible actors came from the MFA II and I class, as the MFA III actors are busy with showcase. There were six male roles (three in each show) and nine male actors auditioning (4 in the MFA II class and 5 in the MFA I class). I was not selected to be in these shows. The good news is that I will be able to have Spring Break off. I am not done with shows yet, as they have four original one acts from the MFA II and I playwrights, and since there are only three guys left who are not in shows, the other males will definitely be used in those shows.

In other audition news I had my first New York audition for The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey. One of our classmates brought in a breakdown on Wednesday saying that auditions were being held Thursday and Friday. With such a late notice we were afraid the audition slots would be full. I, along with my fellow classmate Sasha Kaye, were able to get two slots for Friday afternoon. The audition itself went fine. I am thinking they want actors for the whole season and not just the summer so I am not expecting to hear from them. The good news is we were able to be seen and begin a relationship with the staff. Joe Discher, Associate Artistic Director, mentioned that he comes visits the third years in the Industry class and his assistant had seen “The Country Wife”, which are all good things as I begin to try and build industry relationship on the east coast.

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Pictures from “The Country Wife”

February 14, 2007 by Dennis Baker 

Below are some pictures taken from the crew up in the booth during our photo shoot.

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Opening of The Country Wife

February 3, 2007 by Dennis Baker 

We had the opening of The Country Wife. It was good show with a good audience that got more into the show as it went on. It took the first act for them to get use to the language and story (unfortunately the half that I am in) and by the second act they were really enjoying it.

I personally like the preview show better. That is the night all the Mason Gross students are invited and our first audience. The good part of that is that you have your fellow classmates in the audience so there is a real warm connection. With that comes the aspect that they will react is ways a paying audience will not. There is usually much more laughs for the preview show as they react to their classmates on stage.

All in all things are going well, just sixteen more shows to go. Below is a picture of me in my rehearsal costume. They had me cut my hair and only keep the goatee so I would have younger cleaner cut for the show. The second picture is of the set. It is a early picture and the set now has more components. I think we are taking production shots next weekend and I will post those when I get them.

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