Welcomed Distraction

So, there's a very good reason I haven't posted in a couple of days. This:



Netflix has decided they would make the Playing Shakespeare series available to their online streaming customers. I really picked the wrong time to be busy.



peace.

The Rhymes of Our Lives (Audition Special)

I usually don't like to do "Rhymes/Lives" segments twice in one week, but this time I couldn't help it. I'm super-excited!

Tomorrow I have the pleasure and privilege of kickin' a rhyme in an audition. I've been waiting 15 years for this opportunity. He's what I've picked.

The Pharcyde - "Passing Me By"

I have an audition in the morning for a play called The Bombitty of Errors, which is a retelling of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors in rap verse. The audition notice requests the actors bring one comedic monologue and one hip hop verse. Now, the monologue I've been exploring for a little less than a year now; Charlie from In Arabia We'd All Be Kings. But the verse (the last one on the track by Fatlip) has lived with me for well over a decade. I remember my friend Miguel buying The Pharcyde's debut album Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde back in 1992 and playing this track like it was the only music that had ever been created. Our pre-teen brains soaked the lyrics like sponges.

By the time college rolled around, and the era of Napster, I had rediscovered this tune, eventually purchasing the album myself on CD. Needless to say it was rotated substantially during those years.

I can't wait for tomorrow. This is going to be fun!

peace.

Quick Study

In preparation of working at the Voice Intensive this summer, I've been reading the plays chosen to provide material for the program's text-based explorations. Each year, four Shakespeare plays are used as the source of all the scenes and monologues examined by the participants. This year the four plays are:

Julius Caesar

Antony and Cleopatra

Twelfth Night

The Merchant of Venice

Tonight I would like to take the opportunity to advocate a Shakespeare resource that I have found exceedingly valuable in getting through these plays, The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare.

The Arkangel is a collection of unabridged, fully dramatized recordings of all 38 plays in the Shakespeare canon. There are close to 400 actors in the series, most of whom are current or former members of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Reading an entire play by Shakespeare has always been difficult for me. It's incredibly easy to be swept away by the poetry and imagery, eventually losing any sense of what's actually happening. In addition, keeping up with the meanings and contexts of some of the more antiquated words and phrases can be quite a task that almost always requires two or three readings of a passage or scene.

However, since I've been listening to the Arkangel recordings and following along with my text, I haven't had nearly as much difficulty as I would with the script alone. The story has actual movement and texture due to the opportunity of listening while reading. I can more easily differentiate the characters; their voices don't get lost in my own. And the language isn't as laborious now that actors are there to give it context. I'm finally able to experience the plays as an audience member rather than a scholar; it's much more satisfying.

I've already gotten through Merchant and am now making my way in Antony. And I've been able to read them in record time. If you have the means and the need I wholeheartedly suggest picking up this series. It's fantastic.

peace.

Voice Intensive, I miss you.

Canada's National Voice Intensive is a five-week voice, speech, and text workshop that's been happening in Vancouver, B.C. every summer since 1986. Under the brilliant direction of master voice teacher David Smukler, the Intensive has served as a safe and accessible laboratory for participants and instructors to explore and examine the limitless textures and nuances of the human voice. Although CNVI is primarily focused on voice for the actor, it has served participants from numerous professional disciplines.

I've had the unique pleasure of attending in the Intensive twice; once in 2006 as a participant and again as an associate instructor in 2010. I have little doubt my path will guide me there again in the near future.

Today I had the chance to reconnect with a couple acquaintances from both of my CNVI experiences. I am always pleasantly surprised at how much these conversations allow me to remember ('re' as in 'again', and 'member' as in 'body'; so 'embody again') the wonderful and inspiring times I've had in Vancouver at the Intensive. I'm pleased today.

For more information on Canada's National Voice Intensive, have a look here. I'm on the homepage!!!

peace.