Tuesday, March 27, 2007

An Evening To Remember: Some Enchanted Evening; The Ritz Theatre January 2005



























In November 2004 near the close of Main Streamed, I got an email from Pat Mangano, the production manager at the time, to audition for the Ritz's production of Some Enchanted Evening. I ignored it. I was well aware that the Ritz was opening their 20th anniverary season with the show but knew it was a very "white" show. I just thought she emailed me to be nice. Sometimes theatre companies will call black actors to audition for white shows so they don't seem like they are ignoring ethnic talent. I find this annoying. It wastes my time. There was time when I would go audition for these types of shows. I don't anymore since I do my research on shows before I audition for them if I'm not familiar with the show. Some Enchanted Evening is a musical revue like Ain't Misbehavin' and Smokey Joe's Cafe. It puts 40 songs by Rogers and Hammerstien in a loosely themed concert. Songs like: Sound of Music, Oklahoma and of course the title song Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific. These shows are predominantly cast with white actors so I didn't think the Ritz was really interested in using me in the show. Pat called me twice before I called her back. After she called me the second time I realised my performace in Ain't Misbehavin' really opended some eyes at the Ritz and they wanted me to do the show. So when I auditioned it felt like a formality. There were a lot of white male actors at the audition but I knew they really wanted me. After my audition Bruce Cureless ( who directed me in Ain't Misbehavin' last year) asked me to come to the call back audition. I told Bruce I couldn't make it. I honestly didn't feel like going all the way to New Jersey to audition again when I knew they were going to cast me anyway! Bruce said that was fine and said he would be in touch. He called me the next week and offered me the singing role of Billy. It was a five actor musical revue. The cast was Maureen Corson ( who's brother stared on ER as the doctor who had a helicopter fall on him), Janet Wilkie, Fernado Gonzalez, Ellen Kirk and me. They were alot older than me and they could all read music fluently. I was behind my music by week two of rehearsals and Ellen secretly went to Bruce and suggested he replace me. I found out from Bruce. I wasn't offended. I understood. I am an extremly confident perfomer and I have a bad habbit of not going all out in rehearsal. I tend to mark myself. I'm a gamer. I need an audience. Rehearsal tend to bore me. So I took it as an challenge. Four weeks before the show opened I was off book before everyone in the cast. I knew my lyrics, harmonies and choragraphy and quickly regained the confidence of my castmates. I have genius when it comes to acting and performing. I just know how to do it well. I never had the training of my counter parts but I could allways hold my own and out shine them. Not upstage them, out shine them. There is a difference. I am a generous performer. I learned early on that you can never over commit to a role only over act. You over act when you haven't totally commited. I was totally comitted. The show opened to very good reviews though I recieved a luke warm review in the local newspaper. Robert Baxter who gave me a glowing review in Ain't Misbehavin' the year before gave me a medicore one for this show. It was jaring at first but I didn't have a good show by my standards the night he came so I agreed with him. Our last performace was actually after the run at the theatre had closed. We had a mini concert at the Kimmel Center for Perfoming Arts downtown to close the run. My next show was the role of my career...

Main Streamed: Amaryillis Theatre fall 2004




Every year in Philadelphia the theatre communtity has annual audition called the TAGP auditions. That stands for Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. They have this big audition where representaves from 60 or more theatre companies gather together in one location and hold auditions for Philadelphia actors. I did the auditions every year and would allways get alot of calls from theatre companies. This year was no different. After my audition I got a call from Amaryillis Theatre company to audition for their touring production of Main Streamed. It was a musical about the deaf community and the "hearing world" and how difficult it is for the two worlds to co-exist. The story took place in a highschool where two students, James and Allyssa, become friends but first have to get over the obstacle of Allysa being deaf and James hearing. I auditioned in August of 2004. A week later I was offer the role of James from the late Veronica Griego (she was killed in a car accident in November of 2006) the production manager of Amaryllis Theatre. The show was directed by Stephen Smith. This was a unique production for me because I was working with deaf actors. Half of the cast was deaf. The deaf actors were Tracy Webber ( Allysa) and Robert DeMayo (Tony). David Stanger (Allysa's father), Sara Doherty (Denise) and I played James. My charecter in the show was learning sign language so I had to learn it too. That was hard! Fortunately because my charecter was supposed to be learning sign language in the show I didn't have to be perfect but it was still hard. I still had to learn my lines and music! The show was going to tour highschools in the Philadelphia area in September and this was August so we had alot of work to do. We had sign language rehearsals seperate from the regular rehearsals. This show was one of the most unique experiences in my career. I learned alot about acting with deaf actors and the deaf world in general. Once we had a show in Manahtten and after the show we had a radio interview and Tracy said she loved being deaf! She went on say that if she could change being deaf she wouldn't do it! That was also a topic in the show. This show will allways special place in my heart.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Behavin' Badly; Ain't Misbehavin' January 2004



























During the fall of 2003 I was teaching drama at Ludlow ES in North Philadelphia with a program called the Best Program. It was a program designed for students with behaviorial problems. It was very challenging. These students didn't care about consequences or themselves for that matter. So it was a challenge to get them to care. I was also teaching drama at Congreso de Latinos Unidos after-school program also in Noth Philly. I started teaching there that summer and was hired on in the fall. So it was a long day. During the fall of 2003 I did two forgettable shows I'd rather not blog about. I did an outreach show called Speak For Youself with Holcomb Theatre Out Reach ( I would actually do the show again three years later but with a much better script) and a very bad production of Smokey Joe's Cafe with Triple Threat Theatre in Cherry Hill, NJ. It's a great show but a bad production. Sometimes an actor should just say no to a gig. However in January of 2004 there were two productions of the Fats Waller musical revue show called Ain't Misbehavin'. One was at the Ritz Theatre where I did Dream Girls the year before and Birstol Riverside Theatre company. I told Shavonne in the summer of '03 I would definitly get one of them. She thought I was being arrogant. Maybe I was. I was very confident. I never got a chance to even audition for the Bristol River Side production in Febuary of '04. I auditioned for the Ritz production in January of '04. I sang "Love Me" an Elvis song from Smokey Joe's Cafe. It went very well and I was called back for the dance audition. The Ritz cast me two days later. The first thing I asked Bruce after he called me to tell me he cast me was who else was cast. It was Keedra Carroll, Sheree Monique-Roberts and Andre Beckett who were all in Dream Girls with me last year and Gnomia Gre (Lauren Brown). I was very excited about this show. For one it was great show and it also gave me a chance to show the Ritz I had the talent to carry a show. I admit I had little chip on my shoulder for being over looked over for the role of CC in Dreamgirls the year before. Especially seeing as though actor who landed role, Selassie Amanna, wasn't half the singer or actor I was. So I was out to show the Ritz what I can do and this was the show to do it. The stage show of Ain't Misbehavin' is a vibrant musical revue and tribute to the black musicians of the early 1900s. Bold, bright and told with the cheeky humor for which Fats Waller was known, Ain't Misbehavin' is sure to bring the house down! Seeing as though this was an musical revue which means there is no script but forty songs of Fats Waller strung together with a running theme. It was the most challenging show I had ever done by far! I had to learn all my lyrics, chorography, harmonies and staging in a month and half! It was hard but I up for the challenge. Every musical I'm cast in I'm at a disavantage because I don't fluently read music. I tell people I read music on a hook on phonics level. I learn entirely by ear. Imagine learning harmonies for twenty something songs by ear?! I had to work twice as hard. I was the second actor off book after Sheree. Also, three weeks before opening night my first daugther Miciah Reigh was born! The Ritz was nervous she would be born during the run and I would miss shows. They offered me a week off from rehearsals but I wouldn't take it. I had too much to learn. Miciah was born on April 3rd, 2004 on a Saturday morning. I was at rehearsal that Sunday night. I didn't miss one rehearsal! I couldn't wait for opening night. This was also the first time I was personally reviewed in the local newspaper. I was nervous. Wondering what he would write about me in the newspaper. I got a good review. That felt really good. That summer two moths after Ain't Misbahavin' closed the whole cast was contracted to perform the show at the Dell in Camden for a weekend in August. This was an out door theatre and was free to the public. So we came in and rehearsed for a week at the Ritz to brush up and then did three shows that weekend. I loved that run. The space was great and they had a great sound system. It was the perfect way to end the run...