Being in a Play

I know that some people are absolutely terrified of the stage. I was staggered to find out that there are some people who act IN SPITE of this crippling fear, to the degree that they may vomit before going on stage. I knew that fear existed. I had no idea there were actors who embraced it and triumphed over it.

So that got me thinking, because I'm always a bit narrow in my perceptions. For some reason I always assume that everyone has the same experience as me, or that no one could possibly understand my experience, there's never a middle ground. I have to keep reminding myself to look for one.

So pretty clear, not everyone has the same experience of being in a play, or involved in a play, as I do. I asked some of my very talented friends to share what their experience of being on stage is like.

For me, as a director, it's like building a temporary family. Even when people get along in different ways or on different levels, you're still a unit. Sometimes it's just like being the engineer on a runaway locomotive, you just hope to stay on the tracks and arrive at the right place intact.

As an actor, I'll use a really big metaphor. Preparing for a show is like spending months doing breathing exercises to try to break a world record where you hold your breath longer than anyone else. You try new things, you expand your lung's capacity, maybe you hurt yourself, maybe you learn better how your body works, other people tell you how THEY breathe, and so on. But it's not till opening night that you really get to do what you've been practicing for. The lights go down, and you realize that you've been holding your breath by accident, and you don't know for how long. Then the lights start to come up, you take a deep breath, there's a head rush and then... you see what happens....

Scott C. Brown most recently played Michael in our production of Two Rooms and will be seen this fall in Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. He has also been seen as Salieri in Amadeus, McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest, and Flynn the Bard/Leo in Gamers films. He handles IT and does a lot of support work for Confrontational Theater Project. 

Being in a play is, for me, a chance to tell a story. I am not much of a writer of my own words, but to take the words of a playwright, and to perform those for an audience, to give them life, is a great honor and responsibility. It is getting to crawl into the skin of another person, or as I like to believe, it is letting "that" part of me out for a short time to live. It allows me to experience, in some small degree, a life I could have lived, might have lived. It allows me to communicate to the audience a story that someone has written to tell. And there is a great sense of responsibility in that, to do justice to the words, the story. I hope that my performances are true to the playwright's intent and vision, and most times, I don't know if that's true because they aren't there. But I try to give to each role a sense of honesty and truth that I can only hope rings faithful to the intent of the author. It is the job of the actors and director to bring that out, to the best of our ability. It is a privilege to be able to do that.

Thomas Brophy runs the Seattle Theatre Readers (theatrereaders.com) and was a featured performer in Confrontational's Veteran's Day Project. His next project is The Purification Process. 

Being in a play is like planting a garden; it starts out with seeds going in the ground. Rehearsal is the care of the new crop and then opening night is the harvest. It's a gentle but amazing process to be in a play. There's no feeling quite like working on a project with your little microcosm of a community, comprised of actors, producers, director, and the playwright and building something from scratch. Seeing it all unfold and laughing, crying and working your ass off and then it always amazes me to see it all come together. And then I get to work off my partners on stage in real time. It's a mash up of joy, fear, elation, terror and love all under one giant umbrella. It's a beautiful thing. 

Megan Jackson played Beatrice in Paper Bullets in the spring for Ghost Light Theatricals, and she was just seen in a short piece by Pony World at Northwest New Works at On The Boards. She is one of the founders and directors of Blood Ensemble, who are developing a contribution to a piece this winter for STAGERight.

Performing a play feels a lot like a game of Tetris. You're constantly assessing a slightly different version of something you think you know coming at you and deciding what to do with it. You take the briefest moment to live with what is either flush or decidedly not (which can be interesting, too) and then look to what's headed your way next.

Dayo Anderson recently played Hamlet at Ghost Light Theatricals, and is one of the founders and directors of Blood Ensemble.

Being in a play is like having the most fun ever at a masquerade ball. You are someone else for a few hours... and in that time, you are free to do what someone totally unlike you might do. It's your one chance to literally wear someone else's shoes... but they happen to fit your feet quite nicely. Being in a play is also a lot of moments where you're not actually on stage and your main prerogative is to maintain a high energy level for when you ARE on stage. It's waiting in the wings, listening to your friends say their lines. It's doing a 20 minute scene you've practiced every day for a few months, and then it's over. Being in a play is like a sport where you are either on the field acting, or on the bench waiting to act. Except you know exactly where you're supposed to move, what you're supposed to say, and exactly what your opponent is going to do. Most of the time. :)



So there you go, five different perspectives on exactly what it's like. If we get a bunch more from other actors, we'll do a second edition, I'm sure.