New sLipPage Trailer

Post production work is proceeding on the feature film sLipPage.  Here is a newly produced trailer for the project:


sLipPage - Teaser 3 from Bryan Hiltner on Vimeo.

Hey, Hey, Hey

I have always found it rewarding to work with Jon Meyer.  I've appeared in several of his projects.  He is great to work with, and the results are always fantastic.  In this music video for the band The Quick and Easy Boys, I play a mysterious man in a parking garage handing off an equally mysterious package to the lead character.  I love the images in this one!  This video premiered on The Huffington Post on June 17th.

Beaux Arts Club at Imago Theatre

In February, I went to the general audition at Portland's Imago Theatre.  From this I was invited to audition for Carol Triffle's latest play "Beaux Arts Club," and after several call-backs, was cast as the character Humphrey.  The rehearsals for this show also served as a script development workshop, and the character of Humphrey changed a LOT before we opened.  There were several weeks when I would have new lines at every rehearsal.  Eventually, Humphrey transformed into a mob enforcer who brought an element of realistic danger into a story that was mostly absurdist farce.  It was sometimes nerve-wracking to keep up with the changes coming at me, but in the end, it was a very rewarding project, and I feel quite lucky to have had a part in it.

Learning the Long Monologue

After the run of For The Time Being, I decided to write a magazine article about the memorization process I had used in learning Herod's 1600 word monologue.  I submitted the article to Dramatics Magazine, and to my great surprise and delight, they published it in the May 2013 issue under the title "Learning the Long Monologue."  I am very pleased to have been able to make this contribution to the acting craft.

Premier of Let's Bury the Hatchet!

Sunday, April 21, 2013 Bryan Hiltner's latest film "Let's Bury the Hatchet! (Deep in Your Face)" will have its premier at the Clinton Street Theatre in Portland.  The show starts at 1:30PM and includes two of Bryan's short films, followed by the premier, followed by a Q&A with the cast and crew.  I'm really excited about this.  I play a lead in this film, and this will be the first time I've had a theatrical premier of one of my projects.  The cast includes an ensemble of many of Portland's finest actors.  It's great company to be in.  You can scroll down a couple of entries in this blog to view the trailer.  If you are in Portland, I hope I will see you at the theatre!

*Clinton Street Theatre trivia:  This theatre has had the longest continuous run of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (probably in the world).  It has been shown here every weekend since 1978!

C'mon Doll Wins!

Last weekend, the music video "C'mon Doll" won Best Music Video at the Northwest Short Film Festival.

The website for the festival is here:  http://www.nwshortfilmfestival.com/2013-winners.html
You can see my earlier entry about this project here: http://jonfar.blogspot.com/2012/04/cmon-doll.html

And a huge thank you to Jon Meyer and Rachel Sharkeye of Vanjam Productions for asking me to be part of this project!  You guys rock!  https://www.facebook.com/VanjamProductions

Let's Bury the Hatchet

Coming up this spring will be the release of a mini-feature I did with Bryan Hiltner and Michelle Vincig called "Let's Bury the Hatchet! (Deep in Your Face)."  This is a revenge comedy.  In it I am Amil Portraine, a small-time theatre director with big ideas who is facing the wrath of a "stage dad" whose daughter didn't get cast in my latest production.  Bryan and Michelle put together a great cast of Pacific Northwest actors for this, which even includes the Keep Portland Weird super anti-hero Frogman.  The snippets of footage that I've seen so far look really good.  Here is the trailer:


Trailer for LET'S BURY THE HATCHET! (DEEP IN YOUR FACE) from Bryan Hiltner on Vimeo.

For the Time Being

I worked with Claire Willett a few years ago on a reading of her play "How the Light Gets In."  I was newly returning to acting at the time, and was very happy to have the opportunity to be on stage.  When I saw her casting announcement this year for a staging of W.H. Auden's Christmas oratorio "For the Time Being," I sent her a note asking to audition.  She wrote an enthusiastic reply saying that if I hadn't contacted her, she was going to contact me.  It turns out that she had had me in mind to play Herod ever since that previous project we did together.

Herod is a challenging part.  He doesn't appear until late in the piece, then his entire contribution is a 1600 word monologue in which he rationalizes his decision to order the Massacre of the Innocents.  Herod's scene causes a huge shift in tone within the poem, and is there to place the overly familiar and sentimentalized scenes of the Nativity into a modern context.

Herod

I spent two months learning the monologue.  I knew I had to have it completely in my bones.  It took a lot of work, but along the way, I learned quite a bit about how to do memorization.  I was very happy with the results.

24 Hour Play Festival

This past December, I participated in my first 24 hour play festival.  These events are marathons of dramatic effort.  A group of actors and playwrights convene at 10:00PM on a Friday, and by 10:00PM Saturday, they have written, rehearsed, staged, and performed an evening of one-act plays, complete with costumes, lighting, props, and completely off-book.

I played Wesley, a deceased secret agent returning from the other side, in a piece called "Across the Veil" written by Logan Loughmiller.  As seems to be my fate these days, I had several monologues to learn.

Mikki Lipsey, Summer Olsson, Jon Farley, William Wilson, & Logan Loughmiller

The whole evening came off wonderfully well.  The scripts were surprisingly strong, and all of the actors were up to the demands of the utterly relentless schedule.  Nick James of Jamestown Theatre Productions and his crew made everything run flawlessly.  It was a great experience all around.

Throng: It's a Lie!

A few months ago, I was invited to audition for a film.  I was assured that it had a part for me, and that I would be perfect for it.  Being fundamentally vain, as I suppose most actors are, I felt flattered to be asked.  From the script fragment I received, it looked as though the film was a science fiction / fantasy story.  There would be motion capture involved.  I was asked to wear all black to the audition.

Well, I did get the part.  It didn't turn out to be quite what I expected, but I've mostly recovered from the trauma...