"Strong reasons make strong actions." King John

I couldn't resist this title and can only hope to be forgiven.

Straying for the moment from strict Apprentice Company business, here is a message about the birth and the mission of NBTF from one of its two Artistic Directors, John P. Keller:

"Friends of Culture,

It is hard for me to express what it means to be writing this blog entry. I have been keeping tabs on the amazing work that Jen Ring, our Director of Education, has been doing to get this blog up and running and her gentle if not firm suggestion that we all share more about what we are about has inspired me to write this long overdue introduction. It is so easy to get swept up in all of the hours upon hours of behind the scenes work required to get this kind of project off the ground, but it's so important to stop every once in a while and remind ourselves of why we do this kind of work in the first place and how we got started.

My name is John Keller and I one of the madmen behind this project. About a year ago fellow Artistic Director Dan Swern and I were having one of our midnight, caffeine induced brainstorming sessions for Collaborative Arts and we started talking about an idea that eventually became the New Brunswick Theater Festival. As much as the idea has evolved and grown, little has changed since that first conversation in relation to what we wanted this company to be. We wanted it to be three main things: 1) Inspired by and reflective of of the New Brunswick community. 2) Equal parts professional production and educational outreach. 3) To draw upon the artistic talent that lives, works, and trains in New Brunswick. So why the obsession with New Brunswick? I am a New Brunswick native. I was born in St. Peter's hospital. I went to St. Peter's Elementary and High School (the fourth generation of my family to do so), and I am recent a graduate of the M.F.A Acting program at Rutgers - Mason Gross School of the Arts. My classmates at Rutgers call me the New Brunswick tour guide and I can't tell you how many late night phone calls I have received from conservatory students asking for the number for late night Chinese food or the name of a good dentist. I have seen this city change from an after hours ghost town to an urban arts, buisiness, and educational center that has a life at all hours. I have seen George Street evolve from the neighborhood playhouse to a major regional theater. I remember attending school shows at the State when it first re-opened and the interior was a very vivid turquoise. When I was a kid, New Brunswick was for many a place to be avoided. Now it is a place that sparks curiosity. Growing up I couldn't wait to go off and see exotic locations. Now that I have moved back I find my home town is a place where people choose to live, work, and play. I have also discovered I have something to contribute both personally and professionally to the continued growth and constant re-birth of this urban hub.

The whole Mason Gross thing. When I was a kid I heard of Mason Gross. I will, however, shamefully admit I never once stepped foot on the campus. I didn't even really know where it was. Three years ago I decided that after a stint of traveling and working with regional theaters it was time to go back to grad school for Acting. I applied to several schools, among them the mysterious Mason Gross School of the Arts. By some twist of fate I found a perfect fit at a world class arts conservatory...a block away from my childhood home. So here I am. A few weeks out of grad school and (almost) 30 years of New Brunswick life experience. Along with the hundreds/thousands who have gone before me I have two choices. 1) Move to NYC, live in 20x20 windowless overpriced box of an apartment and get an underpaid service job. All the while killing myself looking for artistic employment while trying to maintain the previous two things. OR 2). Keep living in my much more reasonably priced apartment only a 50 minute train ride from NYC, and work on developing quality, professional, grass-roots artistic projects with local arts organizations, Rutgers family, and New Brunswick natives.

So here WE are. It turns out I am not the only person who feels this way. As Collaborative Arts grows we see that New Brunswick is hungry for the kind of arts organization that puts so much emphasis on nuturing young artists. It is my firm belief that the best way to build an organization is to have projects that are ambitious and demanding of both the artists, the administration, and the donor base. So here we go. Head and heart first into a summer and beyond that is going to test our abilities in so many ways. I hope you will join us for the ride.

Best,

John Keller

New Brunswick Theater Festival, Artistic Director

Collaborative Arts"

As always, keep checking in.

And if you're in the New Brunswick area and looking for something to do tonight: TONIGHT! (Friday, July 23rd)

"Adopt an Artist" Collaborative Arts fundraiser
PJ's in Highland Park. 7pm to 10pm $20 at the door = open bar, food, live jazz and good company.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit NBTF.

-Jen

"...you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection..." Julius Caesar

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Ashley N. Everage, a third year MFA candidate in the acting program at Rutgers, a beautiful actor, generous teacher, and for the purposes of Romeo y Julieta, Juliet's Nurse. Many thanks to her for taking the time to share her thoughts on working with our Apprentices.

"When I was first told that there would be an Apprentice Company joining the production that was comprised of high school students and recent high school grads I thought "oh, this should be interesting." We met over pizza and I was highly entertained and immediately brought back in time, in the best possible way. The inside jokes they share, their nicknames they had for one another and carefree natures they possess sent me to a simpler time. Oh, but don't get me wrong, these are not sheltered children.

They are hilarious, honest, opinionated and call a moment like they see it. When an 18 year old tells you, your Spanish is alright but it needs a lot of work because you sound French, you take that as truth and get down to business. And when they tell you that you are really great to watch and they really like your character, you thank them and your lucky stars and get back down to business. As I have worked with this group of individuals I see a group of young adults who need to be treated as such and I see a group of young Professionals who need to be respected as such.

John Keller and Jen Ring have provided a safe space for these young artists to trust themselves and each other as they stepped outside of their comfort zones and began to tackle this beast we call Shakespeare. I am having a great time with such a dedicated group of young people. And to be completely honest their acting ain't half bad either There is an enormous amount of raw talent within this group, so whether this artform becomes a hobby and a creative outlet or a career choice I have no doubt that coupled with hard work the possibilities are endless and wish them all the best of luck in the future. "

~Ashley N. Everage
NBTF Professional Company

Stay tuned for more of my thoughts, check-ins from other PCs and to meet the ACs in their own words (as soon as I figure out my video editing software.)

-Jen

"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie." - All's Well That End Well

Good evening!
Well... perhaps I really should say "good morning," as we have already ventured into the wee hours as I begin to compose this post. I'm sitting beside our fabulous Production Stage Manager, John Nehlich, who is still up finishing paperwork and finalizing tomorrow's schedule. He has been sleeping on our couch on the nights we rehearse to cut down on travel time and the expense of NJ Transit tickets out here from his place in the city. Stage managing a show the size of Romeo and Juliet that utilizes texts in two languages, multiple translations, and a hodgepodge of actors ranging from Equity members to high school apprentices is more than a full time job. John, like the rest of us, is donating his time and his talents because he believes in what we're doing, and I must say that he is proving to be an uncommonly delightful house guest.

There's too much to say about how rehearsals are going and too little time before I start passing out at the keyboard, so I'll try to take you on a brisk walk through our woods as opposed to a leisurely stroll. Our second Apprentice Company rehearsal with Dan and the rest of the cast was our first on our feet. The ACs have yet to visit the real performance space (we're rehearsing in a studio for now), so the session began with a description of the church and an explanation of the tape lines on the floor that represent stairs/set pieces etc. Dan worked with us on staging or " blocking" the opening exchanges and the very end of the play, two scenes in which the AC will play vital roles. The confidence the younger actors gained over the course of the two hour session was stunning. One of our more reluctant actors, a young lady who signed up for the project because of her talent for working behind the scenes, started out the night nearly whispering her lines. After some coaxing from Dan and myself and not a small amount of ribbing from her older sister, she ended rehearsal smiling, having landed some great zingers on her cast-mates.

The biggest problem we faced last night was with our Spanish translation of the scene at the top of the play between Sampson and Gregory. It's quite funny in English, but the Spanish version we've been working with is dry and not exactly actor-friendly. The ACs have found a fun sense of play speaking the English version, but as we've worked their lines in Spanish, their performances have flattened out. John Keller and I haven't had any real way to address this due to linguistic limitations. Fortunately our Lord Capulet, Claudio Mir, heard the need for a more dynamic translation and found us a new one by this morning. The AC's say it'll be much more fun to act this version, and they don't seem even slightly annoyed by having to start memorizing another script.

Things are definitely moving forward. We did a lot of stretching and movement work tonight. The ACs resent me a little, I think, for asking them to perform such super-human feats as forward bends, lunges and child's pose. I'll have to console myself with the fact that they do seem to enjoy doing the exercises we lead them through in spite of their claims of fatigue. Last night we began to introduce some of the basic principals of Michael Chekhov movement technique in order to give them some physical tools to bring more life into their scenes. We'll continue with this and the stretching so that they're better prepared for the real tasking physical stuff we ask them to do when our fight choreographer arrives.

Stay tuned. You'll be hearing more from us soon.
Happy Friday, friends of culture.

-Jen

"When you do dance, I wish you a wave of the sea..."

Have I kept you all waiting long enough?

I thought so.

I had hoped to conjure some deeper voices in this second entry by giving our company members the opportunity to tell you a little bit about themselves, but everyone, myself included, is extraordinarily busy balancing multiple day jobs, life’s little disasters and wake up calls, and family commitments galore as all of us must, in addition to the not exactly cake-easy work of fundraising and putting up the very first production of a not-for-profit theater company. Their entries will come, and very soon I hope to post excerpts from the journals some of our apprentices are keeping of their experience so far. But for now, you’ve got me. *

I’m very happy to tell you that we have finally assembled all of our apprentices and worked out everyone’s schedules, transportation and individual goals. We’ve spent about a week’s worth of evenings sharing some of our tools for deciphering the clues hidden in Shakespeare’s texts for actors, working on speech and movement, playing theater games and learning to work as an ensemble. The enthusiasm with which this group has attacked the work is inspiring. Speaking very personally, it’s a real gift to come out of an intensive three-year masters program and be immediately surrounded by so much curiosity and so many refreshing, unique perspectives on the work we theater makers do, and more importantly, why we do it. 

Last night marked the Apprentice Company’s first official rehearsal with the Professional Company. We met early last week for pizza and introductions, but this was our first working session together. It’s been fun to listen to the ACs come back from breaks exclaiming “I just saw Juliet!” and “Did you see Tybalt’s car?! It’s perfect for his character!” The fact that we’ve been working in the same building with the PCs has added an element of excitement and intrigue to the process so far. That said, the prospect of actually approaching their roles for the first time at the table with our director, Dan Swern, was daunting for some of them. I’ll admit to being a little bit nervous myself. It’s rarely easy to mesh two ensembles at first, and that is effectively what we began doing last night.

The work John Keller and I have done with the ACs on text has been mostly oriented toward getting them comfortable with iambic pentameter, introducing them to some of the things that can be learned from the way lines are punctuated, and helping those for whom classical text appears on the page the same mocking way any sort of complex mathematical equation does to me. They're learning to take deep breaths, dive in and start speaking.  Last night, Dan began delving into circumstance with them. That is to say, he started asking them to imagine what it would mean to actually be the characters they’re playing. The ACs will be opening the play as the local youths who get into a brawl because of the feud between their “houses,” which in this production represent the ethnic division of New Brunswick.  It’s tough to ask a high school student to imagine the truth of fighting to kill or seeing a friend’s body laid out and seeking revenge, but that’s some of what they’ll be asked to do in order to tell this story. They’ll get to imagine themselves in happy circumstances as well, but Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy and last night was the first night the weight of that sank in for them. It’s one thing to sit in a room and talk through the circumstances of the play, and it is another to see it acted out in front of you. Before last night, when we talked about the fights there was a lot of giggling and “I’m going to kick your @$$” talk thrown around, but with the professional actors in the room the story of Romeo and Juliet began to come alive in a way it never could in an English class. Not that I have anything against English classes. Believe me.   

I hope you’ll hear more from the individuals themselves because I don’t like speaking for them, but I should tell you that some of our ACs are pretty insistent about only wanting to act in Spanish. This is something many of them will have the opportunity to do in our show, but it’s almost certain that each of them will have to speak at least a few lines in English in group scenes where they are communicating with a mixed crowd.  Speaking up in a first rehearsal when you’re not entirely sure you know what you’re doing yet and having to do some of that speaking in a language other than your first can be very scary.  Our ACs behaved professionally and met the challenge head on, taking adjustments from Dan and asking questions when they needed help with things. As we go deeper into the process I think it will be great for them to see how this is what all actors do and that having questions about circumstances and language is a good thing. They’ll get to see that they aren’t expected to know how to do everything right when they walk in the door. That’s why there’s a rehearsal process. It’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn as an actor and I’m still learning it. It’s all too easy to shut down and be hard on yourself and make no choices in rehearsal because you’re afraid of making the wrong ones, but as so many brilliant teachers have told me, you have to make those wrong choices in order to find the right ones. Nothing comes of nothing. As Deborah Hedwall would say, you have to jump. So far the ACs are jumping. I can only hope they’ll keep asking themselves to jump farther. 

The language issue is kind of fun. I’m experiencing a taste of healthy discomfort myself in that my character will be speaking some lines in Spanish in this production. Despite having grown up in Miami, I speak no Spanish. I understand some. I’ve watched my share of Sabado Gigante. I speak none. French, un petit peu, Spanish, not at all. It’s great. We spend a couple of hours working on the ACs' roles and then I say “Ok. Now you guys have to help me.” According to them, I still sound French. But I’ll get there. They believe in me.

On a sadder note, this week marked the passing of an extraordinary mentor and director, whom many of the members of our company will sorely miss. He implored his students to be “friends of culture.” I am very grateful to have known him.

Israel Hicks.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15436162?source=sb-facebook

*Please forgive the grammar. I like to start sentences with “ands” and “buts” sometimes for emphasis. If any of my beloved English professors are reading this, I know.  I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. I like to think Shakespeare would approve.

 Jen