Ladies and Gentleman, the title of my upcoming debut CD...

more the engrish!

John's next play...

Washington Shakespeare Company
presents

peace

a new comedy by Callie Kimball

(adapted from Aristophanes' ancient Greek satire)

directed by Alexander Strain

August 28 - September 28

Previews: Aug 28-30, Sept 1 (8pm, pay what you can)

Opening: Tue Sept 2, 8pm

Closing: Sun Sept 28, 2pm

Performances Thu-Sat 8pm, matinees Sat/Sun 2pm

(Saturday matinees are PWYC)

Clark St Playhouse
601 S Clark St, Arlington VA
Metro: Crystal City (Blue/Yellow)
click here for directions

For tickets, call 800-494-TIXS or click here

CAST: Sara Barker (Hermes/Gralea), Joe Brack (Havoc/DJ), Brian Crane (War), Matt Dewberry (Profiteer), John Geoffrion (Graleo), Gwen Grastorf (Refugee/Festival), Slice Hicks (Toonsie/Refugee), Brandon McCoy (Darby/Refugee), Andrew Vergara (Profiteer/Newscaster), Anastasia Wilson (Peace/Eirene), Simone Zvi (Refugee/Harvest)

Graleo, a gentleman farmer, inventor, and politician (who swears he didn't invent the internet) takes an environmentally-friendly hot air balloon to Mt. Olympus to deliver his PowerPoint presentation for the goddess Peace to persuade her to return to Earth. However, he discovers that she's been kidnapped by the god War, his protegee Havoc, and a gang of War Profiteers. Thankfully, it's a work of fiction with no connection whatsoever to our current geopolitical climate. ;-)

Callie Kimball penned WSC's adaptation of Shakespeare's epic poem The Rape of Lucrece, and director Alexander Strain received a grant from the Boomerang Fund for Artists for his acclaimed performance as the title character in WSC's Caligula.

Be sure to join us for our final season at the Clark St Playhouse before we move into our home in Rosslyn! Our season will also include Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well (Nov 6 - Dec 7), Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (Jan 15 - Feb 15), and Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings (Apr 9 - May 10)

More Evidence That I'm Older Than You, Probably

Last night at rehearsal, a propos of something I can't quite recall but made sense at the time, I launched into the prologue of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" from the album Purple Rain:


Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life

Electric word life
It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here 2 tell u
There's something else

The afterworld
A world of never ending happiness
U can always see the sun, day or night

So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby

Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own

And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor


Nobody in the room had a clue what I was talking about.

Tic... tic... tic...

Here's the video, for reference.
http://video.aol.com/video/princelets-go-crazy/1799327

Squishyness vs. My Id

Lately I've been experiencing a long, slow revelation -- more like a sunrise than a lightbulb going off -- about myself and my craft.

I've tended to complain that the characters I play are very passive. Rather than making things happen, things happen to them, and they have to react. I marvelled for a while at just how consistent this was, that I kept being cast in these passive roles, when it eventually dawned on me... the characters aren't necessarily passive, *I* am, and I inject this passivity into my characters.

In my classes with Austin Pendleton, he described my approach as "bringing the mountain to Mohammad," meaning, I think, that he noticed that the characters I played in the scenes I did for him tended to have my personality traits and physical tics, even if they weren't particularly what the playwright had envisioned, yet I still managed to make it work. Usually. (Don't ask about the train wreck that was my attempt at Stanley Kowalski)

We don't disappear into our characters; our characters tend to disappear into us. People with strong, forceful personalities tend to inject that forcefulness into their characters (like Patrick Page, the best Iago I ever saw). People with ebulient, bubbly personalities tend to make their characters chipper and perky. This also is the case for generally inassertive milquetoasts like me. We tend to make our characters inassertive and, well, squishy. It gets cyclic, since casting people tend to assume that these are the only types we can play, thus we get cast accordingly. For me, my greatest thrill is to break out of my squishy typecasting and demonstrate that yeah, I have range, and I can play kings, assholes and villains too.

A few years ago I played King Philip (the young French king) in The Lion in Winter, and I grew a beard and wore a long wig which completely altered my look. Chip Noon made my decade when he told me how he remarked to himself, "Wow, that guy's pretty good. Who is he? (reads program) Oh my God, that's John???" This was one of the first roles where I got to really push myself into some new territory, transcend my own limitations, and actually act. I have an id. It's an impish little shit, and I need to let it out more. Onstage and off.

What My iPod's Album-Shuffle Feature Brings Forth Today

Multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and drummer Michael Giles recorded an album on the Cotillion label in 1970 shortly after leaving the original lineup of King Crimson. Charmingly twee hippy-dippy folky prog rock, with a guest appearance by Steve Winwood, landing somewhere in between Traffic and T-Rex, but lacking King Crimson's sinister edge. Or really, any edge at all.

That said, here's everything you need to know about this album:

In the first verse of the opening song-suite "Turnham Green," when McDonald sings about his girlfriend's "soft pussy," he's referring, without a trace of innuendo, to her cat.

Gosh.

How I Spent My Weekend

An enjoyably busy, mostly theatrically-oriented, weekend.

Friday night I hung out with my favorite radio queers in the dungeon of WGAY-fm, which is far less kinky than it sounds. Dave & Patrick, America's most adorkable married (well, as far as the law allows in Maryland) couple, run a radio show from their College Park basement. Dave has a huuuuuge record collection and plays obscure or geeky stuff, Patrick pulls articles from the most recent issue of Metro Weekly to discuss, and a gaggle of us gather to wax witty and catty.

Saturday I was up early for "Peace" rehearsal at WSC, then straight off to Annapolis for a callback for "True West" at Bay Theatre. They kept me there for an hour, reading several times (usually with Lee Ordeman or Parker Dixon) mostly as Austin, once as Lee. Lucia the AD took me aside afterwards, and told me that although I wasn't right for either role, she strongly recommended that I come back in a few months to audition for Shaw's Candida. I told her I'd done the play before (in '04 with Acadia Rep in Bar Harbor ME, a month before I moved to DC), and she assumed I meant as Marchbanks. She was surprised to hear that I'd played Rev. Morell, which led to my confessing my real age. Lately I've been enjoying watching people's eyes pop when they learn I'm about a decade older than I apparently look. Good genes, I tell them. I never lie about my age. Although I might get more dates if I did...

No tears shed about not getting True West. I'd certainly love to do it, but it conflicts with "Temptation," the first play in Constellation Theatre's 2nd season, and I gave a good enough audition to hopefully merit serious consideration. Allison Stockman (their AD) and I are on the same wavelength; I like her work and she likes mine. If I don't get cast, darn, though I wouldn't mind the rest.

Then straight from Annapolis over to Capitol Hill for a barbecue at Warren and Shannon's. Haven't seen them in months. Only meant to stay for a couple hours, but as Warren's BBQ's tend to go, I left about 10pm (bundled, as usual, with copious leftovers). Amazing to see JP and his wife's nearly 3-yr old daughter walking and taking, when it seems like yesterday that I heard that they were expecting. I've been here that long already. Wow.

And straight over to another party, at Christopher Henley and Jay Hardee's (dubbed Chez Hardley) for a party of mostly WSC people. Lots of the "Red Noses" cast was there, many freshly trimmed at long last (Tom Wood looks twelve). Rolled out around 1am.

Up early for brunch at Dave and Patrick's for our somewhat regular Dr Who brunch. I bring over old or reconstructed episodes, today was a reconstruction of The Macra Terror (no surviving episodes of this story exist, but it has been partially reconstructed from still photos and audio). Sentient giant killer crabs are the secret masters of a utopic human colony. We are such geeks.

So another Fringe has come and gone. I'd yammer about what shows were my favorites, but I must confess I didn't see a single show this year. I feel guilty admitting this, since most of my friends were in one show or another, but between Red Noses performances and Peace rehearsals, it just didn't happen. I also didn't see any Fringe shows last year. My bad. Maybe next year.

On Career Minor-Leaguers, at the Plate and Onstage.

I read my new Facebook buddy King Kaufman's sports column daily on Salon.com, and in recent columns he praises a blog he'd come across written by minor-league pitcher Dirk Hayhurst. Unless that big call comes, Hayhurst is never rising above Triple-A ball. He's largely at peace with this, so rather than waste blogspace whining, he gives us the perspective we never get watching ESPN: the leaky motel rooms, endless bus rides, tarantulas in the bullpen, etc. There are a lot more of these players in the farm system than the 400 or so that are at any given summer evening are suited up for the Big Show, and aspiring athletes should take note, since the odds are that their lives will be more likely to be like his than, say, Derek Jeter. Similarly, drama programs churn out thousands of graduates every year, and somehow not all of them become Robert DeNiro.

His attitude made me reflect on my life, which isn't entirely dissimilar from his (except comparatively I'm chuggin' along in Single-A ball), maintaining my illusions of making it to the big dance, or at least a dance big enough to pay my rent.

I've got some similar life-of-a-struggling actor stories of my own, and that's definitely what I should be blogging about, rather than Youtube clips and LOLcats. To that end I can only say that I've been too busy living that life to write about it, juggling the full-time day job and struggling to turn my evening hobby into a career. My life, with not much exaggeration, is a perpetual cycle of work, rehearsal, and sleep. In the bits in between: feeding the cat, an occasional load of laundry, doing a dish or two, watching Doctor Who, and a lot of Chipotle burritos.

I spent many years in my artsy New England hometown, working in a tiny theatre with a rotating cast of fellow thespians. Although, yeah, technically I guess it was, I never thought of it as community theatre. Along with the requisite handful of incompetents and social maladjusts, many of my colleagues came from reputable arts schools, Tisch (NYU), North Carolina School of the Arts, or spent years working in NYC theatre off-off-Broadway; many were just as talented as any professional 'name' actors working today, or moreso. Yet they chose to come, or return, or remain, here.

This was my peer group. I learned far more by working with and observing them than I did at my undergraduate program (That's not a knock on my particular undergrad program, just a reflection on most B.A. drama programs in general). At the end of the run, we'd get a percentage of the gross, usually under $100. And this theatre was never dark. Each production had a two or three week run, and after one show closed on a Sunday, the next show would tech through the week, preview Thursday, and open Friday. This was my life for nearly eight years. I left seven years ago, and many of those same colleagues are still living that life (though some have passed away, moved to big cities, or are burned out).

A few that I knew tangentially, who usually worked at the nearly-Equity theatre across town, did go on to bigger things; some even to Broadway. Yet most of my peers chose to stay at the level that they are at. It's a question of priorities, I guess. Christopher, the NCSA grad, confided in me one night on a lakeside ten years ago that he wanted to be a Dad more than a professional actor (now he is a Dad, married to one of my undergrad classmates, and is from all I can tell entirely content. He still acts, just less). Kristan, whom I consider the finest actor I've ever worked with, couldn't conceive giving up her house and spacious yard to go somewhere like NYC. Her husband Chris, another fine actor, keeps claiming to be giving up theatre to focus on his painting, but never quite manages to. Eddie the eccentric visionary director (and former costumier at the NY Metropolitan Opera) emerges from his sculpture studio once every blue moon to throw some amazing theatre together on a budget of less than nothing. Tim, the aging Brit ex-pat, is slowly killing himself with overwork, exacerbating his failing health, but who would dare ask him to stop?

Although I could have been relatively content to stay home, eventually I realized there was nothing keeping me there, and I wanted to challenge myself to see just what I could do outside of this self-contained microuniverse. I dipped my foot into the water and got an internship, worked in summer stock, applied and was accepted into the Actors Studio MFA Program at the New School University (though I didn't attend), and finally packed and moved to New York City in the summer of 2001.

The people I met in NYC were a mixed bunch. For every career-focused tunnel-visioned hyper-talented person like my roommate Becki (now seen on prime time TV), there were dozens of talented unemployed (usually in my acting classes; they'd typically turn Equity and drop off the map), and hundreds of unfocused wanderers. The talented unemployed were usually the ones acting circles around me in Austin Pendleton's classes at HB, paying the rent as personal assistants to Oscar-winning actors. The wanderers tended to be grown up child actors, on the rare occasion doing the sort of store-front theatre in the boroughs that my CUA classmate Molly lovingly lampooned in "Ten For Hamlet." One of them told me how much I inspired him, apparently because even though I wasn't knocking on agents' doors, I regularly read Backstage, sent out headshots, and went to auditions. If, like them, I wasn't working, at least I was making the effort. Yet somehow I could never warm to the idea that showing up was particulary worthy of adulation.

My career in NYC was going nowhere so when the opportunity to pursue my oft-delayed MFA came around I jumped ship and came to DC. A two-year grad program later, I was out making the rounds, and almost instantly I was a steadily working non-Equity actor, basically having the life I had back home, just in larger theatres, for a (slightly) bigger paycheck, and getting my name spelled right in the Washington Post rather than misspelled in the Portsmouth Herald.

I'm still comparatively in the Minor Leagues, as befitting my status as a minor-league actor. I work in theatres where rats lurk, where the AC doesn't work in summer, I've had tech rehearsals interrupted by fires, homeless guys leave us roses and beer, and rehearsed in rooms in which we have to stay alert for parts of the floor that are too rotted out to support our weight.

I don't know if I'm a Major League caliber actor. I don't have leading man looks, I'm a decent singer but a terrible dancer, I have some issues with physicality, insecurity, socialization, etc. That said, I'm an intelligent, flexible character actor, can work in a wide variety of genres, have a strong voice and sharp instincts. I'm a well-rounded utilityman, a solid journeyman, not a spectacular power hitter or speedy base stealer. So at best I'll probably be like Dirk Hayhurst, toiling my career away in Triple-A. If I go Equity, I may work, I may not. I can see myself doing low-level Equity Regional theatre around the country. And unlike Dirk, who at my age would be considered at the twilight of his career, barring physical or mental infirmity I can act until I drop dead. So I still am on an upward career trajectory, albeit a gentle slope. I've got time. Knock wood.

Ephemeris

"Ephemeris, ephemeris. An actor's life for me"

from David Mamet's A Life In The Theatre

I have little opportunity to mourn Red Noses which closed Sunday, because Monday night we dove right into our first read-thru of Peace.

Brian Crane and I are the only carryovers from Red Noses (though Amber and Kaleigh will do props, and Jack is now coming up with the season's graphic design), and we both found it very unsettling to come in barely 24 hours later to find the theatre empty. The platforms, drapes and blacks are all gone.

However, they did leave the small prop table and costume rack behind, and it still had a few props on it or near it. Flote's death mask, Toulon's wig and beard for when she played God, Bembo's drum, the Ravens' nooses, some tennis balls, a few damaged plastic noses, etc. A tiny island of memory in a vast empty room.

I think it would've been easier if that table wasn't there. We'll have various memories of putting on Red Noses, some joyous, some bittersweet, others just plain bitter. But there is an emotional pull in seeing those remaining items that I'd prefer not to have to deal with. It's over. Let's move on.

I recall working in an office some eight years ago, and dealing with the aftermath when a co-worker died in an accident at her home, and seeing her cubicle undisturbed for weeks afterwards (apart from flowers and stuffed animals left as memorials) grew increasingly distressing. The more we hang onto the past, the harder it is to move forward.

Impermanence is the nature of our profession. We work very closely, intimately, passionately together for a finite period of time, then we go our separate ways, sometime to work together again, sometimes to never see each other again. One thing I like about participating in a strike (in college or community theatre it's expected if not required) is the ritual of disassembly. It gives a definite sense of closure, like we're giving the production an honorable funeral. As I move up the career ladder of professional theatre, I don't participate in strikes as often; consequently I do miss out on the opportunity to definitively shut the door on one project before moving onto another.

The problem for me is that impermanence frequently bleeds into my 'real' life. For most of my adult life I bounced from job to job; restaurants and customer service for a while, then series of temp jobs with various companies. Working at the same place for more than a year is a rarity. In New York I lived in four different apartments in less than three years. Only one relationship in my life lasted longer than a year. Am I so accustomed to the impermanence of the theatrical life that I instinctively avoid commitments offstage?

Lately that's changed; I've got a full-time job (salaried, with great benefits), a new car, I've lived in the same place for nearly two years. This is the closest I've come to putting down actual roots. As for relationships, well, I'm working on that...

Dream Diary

These days I rarely have memorable dreams, or at least dreams that linger in the memory past my stumbling out of bed. Last night's dream had three distinct chapters, and they were odd enough that they merit repeating. I know that posting one's own dreams is the epitome of self-indulgence on my part - and tedium on yours - but I thought I'd share, just for shitz'n'giggles. Draw whatever psychoanalytic conclusions thou wilt.

Chapter One
I was at some kind of dormitory/condominium complex, watching from my window some sort of festival or gathering on the grounds, several stories below. I recognized, sitting in a large section of aluminum bleachers, a young man that I recognized as a prominent figure in the Russian Mafia. He was short, not fat but could be described as well-fed. He wore a well-tailored dark suit, sunglasses, and long oily hair pulled back in a ponytail. Surrounding him was a rather imperious entourage of bodyguards. I stared at him through the window - I remembered him from an earlier encounter where I'd apparently run afoul of him (either in a previous dream or a bit of deja vu). Suddenly he looked up and pointed in my direction, and several of his entourage immediately broke off and ran into the building, presumably after me. I bolted down the back stairs, certain I'd be killed if caught. I exited the building, and ran through the crowd around back of the bleachers. The Russian Mob Boss also was nearby, but I managed to walk past him unnoticed. Perhaps it wasn't me he was after? Who knows.

Chapter Two

I was reading the Sunday Paper, and much to my surprise was a new Peanuts comic strip. I understood that the strip was discontinued after Charles Schulz's death, but apparently his assistant, after many years of legal wrangling, had been allowed to carry it on. I noted how the characters looked largely the same, but without Schulz's unsteady 'jigglyness'. I noted that it was odd that the Sunday strip was without color. But the most startling difference was the subject matter. Sally tells Charlie Brown she's going to lay down for a while. Charlie Brown goes about his business for a while, then goes into her bedroom to check on her, tries to wake her up, and realizes that she's dead. The last panel shows Charlie Brown cradling her body in his arms and wailing.

Interlude
Vague fuzzy dream where my friends Sean, Suzanne and I are walking through an old train station that had some section converted into some avant garde art museum.

Chapter Three
Another peril sequence of fleeing someone trying to kill me, although I seem to have landed in a cliché action movie. Again the definite sense that my pursuer was a recurring character (though I don't recall dreaming him before). I am halfway up the stairs when he cuts me off at the top. He has a bomb in a suitcase. A shot rings out and he pitches over. Behind me at the foot of the stairs is his girlfriend, apparently having seen the error of her ways. I grab the suitcase and run up the stairs to a cluttered living room where a friend is playing a computer game or surfing the web on a laptop. I open the suitcase and find the device. We have moments to spare, but he's too involved in whatever he's doing to particularly care. I run out, leaving him to his fate.

Fun With Anagrams = Human Was Farting

Clearly I don't have enough to do at work, so here I am playing with anagrams.

This one is particularly clever, but I didn't come up with it.

To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Scramble the letters around and it becomes:
In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

My favorite anagrams for John Arthur Geoffrion:

Father Foghorn Junior
Fathering For Our John
Join A Further Foghorn
John North Our Giraffe
Join Gaffer Hurt Honor
Hot John Fearing Furor
Roof Fear Hurting John
Heating Off Horn Juror
Hanger Jiff Honor Tour
Fourth Earring Of John
Orange Jiff North Hour
Ranger Hoof Fruit John
Hernia Off Thong Juror
Thane Foghorn If Juror
A Fourth Reign For John
Gonorrhea Jiff Hot Run
Urethra Jiff Goon Horn
Innate Horror Huff Jog
Jean Frothing For Hour
A Fuhrer Forgot Oh Jinn
A Goner Jiff Honor Hurt
Hog Off A Thinner Juror
Hornier Fag Fur To John
Honor Giraffe Horn Jut
Thane Griffon Ho Juror
John Foreign Fart Hour
A Foreign For John Hurt