The Understudy starts performances this week!

We’ve been remiss in getting our journal updated, sorry about that!  But we’re back, and in a couple of days we’ll go into Previews for this funny, insightful, thoughtful, moving show!

Here are a few pictures from the tech weekend, just for fun:

Sunday, May 20th from 5-10 p.m.
at Williamston Theatre in Williamston

Monday, May 21st from 12-8 p.m.
at Tipping Point Theatre in Northville

Tuesday, May 22nd from 12-8 p.m.
at Performance Network Theatre in Ann Arbor

Wednesday, May 23rd
at Jewish Ensemble Theatre in West Bloomfield

Williamston Theatre Theatre is seeking male and female actors over 21 years of age for its 2012-2013 Season.  Both Equity and non-Equity actors are encouraged to audition.

Please prepare two contrasting monologues.  One song (16-32 bars) may replace one monologue.  An accompanist is not guaranteed.  A CD player and piano will be available.  Total audition time must not exceed 3 minutes.

Please bring three copies of a current headshot and resume.

Auditions are by appointment only.  All three theatres will be present for each audition session.  Please do not make more than one audition appointment.

To schedule an audition, please call
BEGINNING TUESDAY, APRIL 10TH
Williamston Theatre: (517) 655-7469, during office hours, Tuesday through Friday, noon-6pm
Performance Network Theatre:  (734) 663-0681
Tipping Point Theatre:  (248) 347-0003
Jewish Ensemble Theatre: (248) 788-2900, 10am-4pm

ROLES AVAILABLE IN THE WILLIAMSTON THEATRE SEASON
Please click here for a listing of the full season and performance dates. Rehearsals begin approximately three weeks before the first performance.

Boom
Jo (female): early 20′s, an undergraduate journalism student
(Jules and Barbara already cast)

Ebenezer
Ebenezer Scrooge (male): 60′s-70′s, retired business man
Tim Cratchet (male): 20′s, soldier
Miss Poole (female): 20′s, nurse

End Days
Rachel Stein (female): 16, nihilistic Goth, feels angry and orphaned since 9/11 because both parents have withdrawn into their own worlds
Arthur Stein (male): 40′s, Rachel’s father, deeply depressed
Nelson Steinberg (male): 16, new neighbor, passionate about science, dresses like Elvis, loves Rachel
Jesus and Stephen Hawking (male): played by same actor
(Sylvia Stein already cast)

10:53
Zoe (female): early 20′s, daughter of Kathryn
Chris (female): 20′s, friend of Zoe
(Kathryn and John already cast)

For those of you who haven’t seen the show…why not?!  Also, before I go any further, you need to know that our production of Dead Man’s Shoes is framed as a play within a play, performed by a troupe of actor’s straight out of the Wild West.  What you probably don’t know, because almost no one does, is that early in the rehearsal process, my brilliant director, David Wolber, introduced the idea that the story of Injun Bill was actually a real story from the life of the actor playing Froggy (me).  Now, the reason most people don’t know about that little fact is that after the initial introduction of the concept, little was done to flesh it out.  So it’s not something that I think the audience would ever pick up on, or does it need to be, but to me, it is everything.  Actors can never “BE” anything.  They can only “DO” something.  Acting is, well, active.  So sure, as Froggy, I try to appease Bill Picote, I try to comfort  the pox-ridden Sheriff, I try to disarm the hardened hotel owner, Martha, but behind it all, is a nameless actor, trying desperately to continue the legacy of his best friend.  By telling this story, my friend continues to live…and this has had a profound effect, not only on my character, but on me as an actor.  The only moments you might see this nameless character is during transitions, when I’m moving a barrel or resetting a bench.  At the start of the play, these transitions are fun, playful, and lighthearted.  The fourth wall is broken, and I’m able to connect to an audience that is starting to get swept up in and fall in love with our story.  But as the play turns a corner, and the fate of my friend creeps ever closer, the audience disappears.  I am no longer a traveling actor, hoping to entertain and enrich the folks who’ve been kind enough to show up.  I become a helpless bystander, watching the dominoes fall towards the play’s inevitable conclusion, wondering what I could have done, why I did what I did, and desperately wishing that for just one brief moment, I could see my friend again.  That’s not easy to live through every performance.  But I love it.  Famous actor/director Constantin Stanislavski said, “Ideally an actor should be carried away in his part, by the subconscious (as long as it carries him in the right direction). But it’s impossible to control the subconscious without destroying it.”  So even though I don’t plan on feeling anything when I start each performance, by the end I have been frightened, excited, fallen in love, faced my own death, but most importantly, re-lived, for just a couple hours, the most important friendship of my life.  So i just want to thank everybody: the writer, the director, the designers, the production team, the AMAZING cast, and the audience, because this incredible roller-coaster ride would never happen without them. 

Ebenezer 

Howdy, all!  As the Apprentice at Williamston Theatre, I’ve had a very unique perspective of Dead Man’s Shoes.  There’s no such thing as a “typical” day for someone who works in the theatre industry, and that statement holds especially true for an apprentice.  By day, some usual tasks I might have are taking ticket orders and preparing the building for rehearsals and performances.  By night, it’s on with the show!  But both day and night, the thrill and challenge of live theatre keeps everyone on their toes, and an apprentice, who has an ever-looming presence any time the theatre is active, usually has a hand in all the goings-on… from the smallest errands to some hefty responsibilities.

I’ve been working behind the scenes of Dead Man’s Shoes as a Production Assistant to the Stage Manager (or PASM) and on the running crew.  This entails everything you don’t see during a show.  With the guidance of an outstanding Stage Manager, and the assistance of two other PASMs, we help keep the show on its feet.  From setting and maintaining props and costumes, to becoming masters of the quick-costume-change for the actors who need it, the four of us keep the gears turning backstage while the actors keep them going onstage.

And speaking of gears, how about that scrolling backdrop, eh? (Re: hefty responsibilities.)

This is the first “world premiere” play I have worked on, and I found it fascinating to watch the process of discoveries taking place by the actors, director, designers and the playwright.  I like to think that part of my job is being a “lucky observer,” absorbing as much information that I can from anyone and anywhere I can get it in the theatre.  Simply standing by, watching, and studying the jobs and actions of everyone involved in Dead Man’s Shoes has been one of the most valuable learning experiences I’ve had in this industry.  Not to mention, I’ve learned some pretty interesting Old West history!

Dead Man’s Shoes is the last show I will be participating in at Williamston Theatre.  I’m happy to say that former apprentice, and my friend, Alex Gay is returning take over the apprentice position.  So I’d also like to take this opportunity to express what a pleasure and honor it’s been to work at such an amazing place. Williamston Theatre, and Dead Man’s Shoes especially, has introduced me to so many wonderful and talented Michigan artists and theatre professionals.  I’ve learned so much during my time here and I’m excited to apply that to my future theatre endeavors.

I want to add a final and enormous THANK YOU to Tony, Chris, John, and Emily.  It’s been a blessing and absolute privilege to work with you all.  You are my Michigan family.

Thank you again, and as always, ENJOY THE SHOW!

Laura D. Thaisen

During the production process of Dead Man’s Shoes, we’re posting a number of journal entries from folks working in different areas of the show.  Here are some thoughts from Drew Parker, who plays the lead role of Injun Bill Picote in Dead Man’s Shoes.

Dead Man’s Shoes (DMS) has become my latest obsession. As a kid, my earliest obsessions were collectibles. Usually baseball cards. I would stay up all night flipping through the sleeves in my binders of Topps, Donruss, and Upper Deck, pining for the cards I needed to complete my sets. I wasn’t just limited to sports either. In fact, the first time I was ever arrested, was for stealing Batman movie cards from my local grocery store. I could’ve saved my allowance to buy them, but my obsession had no patience. When I first read DMS, just about a year ago, I knew it would become an obsession. Bill Picote is the type of character I became an actor to play. I’m reminded of Willie Nelson singing, “My heroes have always been cowboys…”. I’ve always been attracted to the archetype of the solitary, quiet man. Add that with Bill’s; deep, dark anger; his unrelenting focus on his mission, and his dangerous and violent struggle with his personal demons; and you’ve created the perfect character in my mind. Pretty sure Joe Zettelmaier knew how I’d feel about the opportunity to play Bill when he presented me with the script.

Joe and I were working on the show The Sins of Sor Juana at Performance Network in September of 2003. During breaks at rehearsals Joe & I spent our time coming up with plays that would never be made, swapping stories about women, quoting movie lines to each other, and sharing our musical interests. The one name that always got brought up was Johnny Cash. We shared a deep admiration for Cash, the stories he told in his songs, his sense of style, and the type of man he represented. It was on the 12th of that September that Johnny Cash died. Joe didn’t know when I arrived at the theatre so I told him. He didn’t believe me at first. Rehearsal that day was a bit somber. Throughout the rehearsal process of Dead Man’s Shoes, Cash has been brought up often by Joe & I. He’s talked about how great a young Cash would’ve been in the role of Injun Bill, & even said that the West that Joe talks about in Dead Man’s Shoes is, in his words, “Johnny Cash’s west.” For my part, my own portrayal of Bill is heavily inspired by the songs of Johnny Cash because, like most of the men in Cash’s songs, Bill is capable of the most horrendous of evils and the most saintly of goods. He battles between the demons and angels inside him and, in the end, finds resolution and peace with himself. Listen to the entire catalogue of Cash’s music & that’s the story you’ll hear in DMS.

As of my writing this blog, we are in the final week of the rehearsal process. We haven’t officially opened the show yet, but I already feel the deep longing I’ll have when we close the show in April. Plays like this, and characters like this, haven’t come around that often in my career. Joe knows how much this role means to me and even teased how hard it will be for me to move on to new shows after playing Bill. He’s right though. It’ll be damn hard. Bill Picote and Dead Man’s Shoes have been my obsession. I watch 4 to 5 westerns a week and have music playlists with songs like “A good day to die”, and “Burn my Body” that I listen to everywhere I go. I don’t do it as a “method”, or simply as a way to get into character. I do it because I love this western genre and I love this show. I’m so thankful and humbled to be surrounded with actors and friends like Aral, Maggie, and Paul. This rehearsal process has been the most fun I think I’ve had in my life, in or out of theatre. I appreciate David and Rochelle giving us the freedom to play. I appreciate Tony bringing an incredibly insightful perspective and supportive word. Finally I want to thank Joe for writing this play and trusting me with his words. It means so very much to me. I hope audiences enjoy this joy and experience as much crazy fun as we’ve had bringing it to life.

-Drew Parker

Hi there. Joseph Zettelmaier here. I’m the writer of Dead Man’s Shoes, and also of this rehearsal blog for Williamston Theatre. I think I can still safely call it a “rehearsal blog”, as previews still count as rehearsals.

I began writing Dead Man’s Shoes in late December of 2010. It was my first foray into the Western genre. Why a Western? Because I’d never written one before, and that’s a big motivator for me. Whenever I start a new project, I try to explore things that I’ve never tackled before. I believe if theatre artists don’t constantly challenge themselves, then they can’t really challenge their audiences either. As I researched the material, many things rose to the surface. It became clear that most of the great Westerns are revenge stories. They also have a surprising amount of humor, albeit very grim humor. I immediately decided to tell the story from the point of view of a “black hat”. The outlaw can be a lot of fun to write, especially when they are products of a morally gray world. And so Injun Bill Picote was born.

Is he a good man? Absolutely not. He’s spent almost all of his life as a bandit, a bushwhacker and when needs be, a murderer. For him, killing is just a byproduct of the life he lives, and I doubt he’s ever lost a minute’s sleep over the things he’s done. And yet he is not a man bereft of a code. There are things he believes in, even if he doesn’t fully understand them. When his sole friend in the world is not only killed but defiled, something snaps inside Bill. He comes to realize that there is a line that no man should cross, and he dedicates himself to righting the horrible injustice done to his friend.

Injun Bill is a product of the world he lives in. And the world of the Wild West is full of freedom, of beautiful nature…and of abominable acts that are hard to imagine. My research revealed no small number of these acts. But it also became clear to me that the West of the 1800s was a land trying to find itself. Caught between various countries, yet not truly belonging to any. A bizarre mix of ancient cultures and industrial “progress”. A land of plenty beyond plenty, both in mineral goods and natural resources, where a man could stake a claim and his nearest neighbor would be 50 miles away. Its lawlessness allowed for more freedom than most had ever experienced, but it was a double-edged sword. And for me, the edge of the sword is where Injun Bill Picote lives.

The more I studied the Old West, the more parallels I saw to the world we live in now. After the Civil War, the West began a great change. The thrill, hope and excitement for the future were suddenly replaced by fear. As increased statehood & annexation into America became inevitable, the Western people looked at the coming years with a sense of foreboding. I think that’s a feeling we’re all too familiar with now.

But even in the middle of the bleakest desert, cactus flowers grow. A group of settlers, strangers all, can come together and become a community. A need for mutual defense turns into mutual respect, and then into friendship. That’s what I learned about the Old West. It was a harsh time, a brutal time, but not a hopeless time. As an uncertain future loomed on the horizon, many people formed communities. They found strength and comfort in each other, and passed along the old stories. Not out of fear, but out of hope. Or as a smarter fella than me once said…

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear”- Mark Twain

I’ll preface with: I don’t have children and I wouldn’t begin to compare any experience I’ve had to the raising of a child, however, working on a new play is as close as I’ve come.  It’s thrilling, scary, important, and quite the responsibility.  Just like a newborn baby, a newborn play is also wet behind the ears and it takes a village, or rather a cast/crew/director/playwright/designer family to raise it.  Then, if all goes well, people come and pay to see our baby.

(Side note: Maybe real live babies should charge an admission fee to be held or goo-goo-gah-gah-ed at. I bet John Lepard and Emily Sutton-Smith’s little Milo could have three semesters of college paid for by now.)

“It’s the hardest job in the world, but by far the most rewarding,” –My Mom  (and I’m sure many other Moms and Dads)

Raising a soon-to-be walking, talking, societal contributing human being is just plain hard work, I’m sure of that.  And yet a really good, rewarding, and fun kind of hard, just like theatre, specifically new theatre with Dead Man’s Shoes.  Perhaps we use the same kind of fuel to steam ahead both with the raising of a play, and of a child. Maybe only the tank size differs?  Or, maybe the parents use diesel? Okay, so we all gas up at the same station, but the parents pull all night-ers in semi trucks, and we non-parent theatre people fill up enough to get us to rehearsal and back.

As I said up top, I know nothing about the topic in which I’m comparing the maturation of a new play, but here I go with another parallel kinship.  Importance.  I believe the work we do in theatre is important. As both an actor and an audience member one play can help me better understand myself, my relationship with the world, with people, and with God. In a way theatre guides me, with a stern and loving grip much like a parent might hold the hand of a child.

The worry of a parent, I can only imagine. I know my Mom doesn’t sleep too well.  I lie awake many nights hoping I’m doing all I can to help raise this Dead Man’s Shoes baby.  The rehearsal process for me is like waiting in line for the Raptor at Cedar Point.  It’s the hardest and scariest part of the ride for me, waiting in line.  All the what if’s clog up your brains, the unknowns take up precious real estate in your muscle fibers, your intuition becomes a stranger; someone you don’t trust, and your worry numbs your joy.  Then the buckle clicks, you jolt forward and go! You can’t jump off in the middle, you don’t even want to, and when it’s over you only want to do it again.  An object in motion stays in motion/ the show must go on/ life goes on. I suppose I could have opted to eat a corndog and sit out the Raptor but instead I got in line and never looked back. Much like a baby that you can’t trade in for a kitten. You’re committed.  No, that’s not the comparison I wanted to make.  As cliché as it is, life is a roller coaster, eh?  Or maybe life is more like waiting in line for the roller coaster. When it’s all over, you wonder why you worried so much.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” Mark Twain

It is my hope that we can send Dead Man’s Shoes off to kindergarten proud of the young thing it has become.  Every day has been rewarding.

A book.  A plant.  A cell phone.  A gun.  All seemingly random objects, yet if used by an actor in a play, all fall under one category:  Props.  As the Properties Designer, it is my job to acquire such objects mentioned or implied in a script.  Most anything an actor handles is considered a prop – more technically, a “hand prop”.  There are also “set props”, which would be furniture, set decorations, etc.  Many times, the Set Designer and Prop Designer will work together to make sure all the props look right with each other.

Finding props for period pieces is my favorite thing to do, because of all the research.  For example, this play takes place in the late 1800s, so I got to walk down the streets of Williamston, carrying a chamber pot.  Also, you tend to get a lot of interesting looks when you tell people you’re looking for handcuffs, a gun and several knives.

There are 3 main ways to acquire props:  buy, borrow and build.  The most preferred choice is “borrow”, of course, because that saves money.  However, depending on the prop and its every day usage, sometimes it’s more helpful for a theatre to own the object.  As for building, those props usually end up being very show specific, so they might get thrown out at the end of the run. I remember having to make 12 dance fans out of foam board, newspaper, feathers and glitter for a production of Chicago.  I kept one for myself, after we closed.  The rest were tossed.  For Little Shop of Horrors, I had to make several miniature Venus fly trap plants that could be operated like finger puppets and for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, I had to make a fake turkey with clams.  I kept one of the plants and one of the clams.  I have a couple favorite props in Dead Man’s Shoes…but instead of me telling you what they are, I think you should come see the play for yourself and pick out your own favorites.

So many amazing people are working so hard to put this show together.  I am truly in awe that I have the opportunity to share in such an incredible process of creativity and dedication for my job.  So come on out to Williamston and The Performance Network and find your favorite creative moments!