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...

Legacy of Oden

This is a basketball highlights video produced by Bryan Hiltner.  In it, I narrate the triumph and tragedy of Greg Oden's ill-fated career with the Portland Trail Blazers.  Michelle Vincig photographed my sections.


LEGACY OF ODEN from Bryan Hiltner on Vimeo.


Bryan posted this on several Blazers fan sites, and it had over 2000 viewings in the first two days it was on line.

C'mon Doll

Earlier this month I performed in a music video for the Seattle band My Goodness.  This video was conceived, directed, photographed, and edited by the amazing Jon Meyer.  It turned out wonderfully well, and has been released on the U.K. music magazine web site NME.com to promote the band's upcoming U.K. tour.



Last fall, Jon Meyer had asked me to perform in a music video he was planning because he wanted an actor who could handle some aerial work.  I enthusiastically agreed.  Unfortunately, the project never received funding.  Eventually, that project evolved into the one you see here, and luckily for me, Jon decided to keep me as the lead character.  Working with Jon is always rewarding because he is willing to take risks and exploit the synergies that develop between his actors and the material.  Yet even when we were improvising, he maintained a very clear sense of what was working and what was not.  This allowed a great amount of freedom in developing the performance.  The other aspect of this project that was unexpectedly interesting is that since we had no live sound, Jon was able to direct us from behind the camera as we were shooting.  It was not unlike the way the way silent films were directed in the 1920's.

Update:
Since its initial release, the "C'mon Doll" video has made it onto a number of music web sites.
Here is a short "behind the scenes" video about making the video:

Fertile Ground 2012

Portland's Fertile Ground is a 10-day festival of new plays that takes place in January each year.  This year there were over 100 productions on the boards, ranging in scope from staged readings up to fully staged productions.  I was fortunate to be cast in three projects this year:  "Triptych Americana" written and directed by Karen Alexander-Brown, "Fully Loaded Russian Roulette" a collection of six one acts produced by Edward Lyons Jr. and Dug Martel, and "Jerusalem Story" written by Sharon Sassone and directed by Jeremy Benjamin.

"Triptych Americana" is composed of three short vignettes of American life. In "Precipice", I played Benny, a man whose marriage and life are on the verge of falling apart after the onset of medical problems.  In "Transparent" I played Rich, a businessman who is too busy and self absorbed to notice the things around him.  In both of these pieces, Pat Janowski played my wife.  Two very different relationships, same actress.

Jack Wells, Tom Stutzman, Gordon Romei, Karen Alexander-Brown, Pat Janowski, Jon Farley, Angela Freeman

"Fully Loaded Russian Roulette" was a collection of six one-acts, each by a different author.  I was in two of them.  One of these was "Breakfast Knives" by Wally Jones.  I played "Dream Jillian", the dream counterpart to the character Jillian in the story.  The main story and a dream were enacted on stage simultaneously, then eventually merged into a single crazy finale.  The other one-act was "The Good News" by Dyami Clement.  The play is a farce which concerns two young men and the mother of one of them who is lying dead on the floor.  What exactly caused her death and was it murder?  I played a police detective who investigates briefly, then decides to get out quick.  Karen Farley played the deceased mother, who talks to the other characters from beyond the grave.

Me as the noir'ish police detective in "The Good News."

Karen Farley as Martha,  Jon Farley as the cop

"Jerusalem Story" is a re-setting of the Romeo and Juliette story into modern-day Israel.  I played Rabbi Lawrence, a prominent figure working to bridge the Isreali-Palestinian divide.  Though effective in winning many considerations, he ultimately is unable to prevent the demise of the young lovers.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of this production.