What is one of the first things that comes to mind when performing stunts, tricks, or fight choreography? Maybe how cool it’ll look? How about how fast you can do your fight choreo? The correct answer is: SAFETY! The stunt coordinator for Netflix’s “GLOW” series knows exactly how to create a safe space, both in the ring and within the cast. View Full Article via www.backstage.com
BY MERVYN ROTHSTEIN via www.playbill.com It’s a unique voice, an exciting young voice, dealing with issues around race and identity and sexuality,” Obie-winning director and playwright Robert O’Hara says. “New ideas and new thoughts. I love plays that capture the imagination, that take you on a ride and an adventure. And I think this play does.” O’Hara is talking about Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, which O’Hara directs at New York Theatre Workshop. The play, about black and white in white America, was called “willfully provocative, gaudily transgressive and altogether staggering,” as well as “furiously entertaining,” by The New York Times. Robert O’Hara and Jeremy O. Harris Marielle Solan O’Hara often directs his own plays, but recently directed works by Kirsten Childs and will direc...
DIRECTORS LAB NORTH Directors Lab North is a directing lab based in Toronto, Canada, geared toward professional practicing directors in all stages of their career from all across Canada and abroad. Now in its 9th year, the Lab fosters a national and international exchange between a community of emerging, mid level and established career directors that need a safe space to explore and connect with like-minded peers. Participants are exposed to foreign techniques and practices, broadening their scope and repertoire. It is a series of workshops, readings, investigations, roundtable discussions, shared sessions and master classes led by master theatre practitioners.
“I think all actors have a little bit of director brain. But it’s been really nice not to feel any urge to ‘fix’ anything.” David Cromer on costarring in The Waverly Gallery on Broadway — How do you follow up winning the 2018 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical? For David Cromer, who snagged that statuette for his work on The Band’s Visit, the answer was to book an acting gig. The prolific director — who launched his career in Chicago before making his name Off-Broadway with the musical Adding Machineand a long-running production of Our Town — had dabbled in performing in the past. (He played the Stage Manager in Our Town, had a small part in the 2014 Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun and even did an arc on the TV se...
MFA training in theatre begins with URTA! At the URTAs, you can audition and interview with our 43 member universities all in one place, on a single day. Why navigate dozens of different applications, fees, appointments, and travel when you can get it all done at the URTAs? Choose your city—New York, Chicago, or San Francisco—and register to be seen by our recruiters in either acting, design, directing, stage management, or arts leadership. Our nationally ranked member schools boast professional faculty, a commitment to the highest standards in professional, graduate training, and are peer-reviewed on a continuing basis. Most also offer various forms of financial assistance. Graduates of URTA programs are working on Broadway, in top theatres across the country, in film, television, and bey...
BY RUTHIE FIERBERG via www.playbill.com The actor and director reveals the step-by-step process of directing the July 10 episode of the hit series starring Sutton Foster. Miriam Shor has a habit of stealing scenes. She’s not trying to, but her magnetism, her nuance, her timing in the small moments, and her delivery in the big ones make it so you can’t look away, whether that’s as Yitzhak in the original Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Madelaine True in The Wild Party, Jessie in Off-Broadway’s Sweat, guest-starring on television’s The Americans, or her gig as series regular Diana Trout on TVLand’s Younger. But now, she directs her first episode of television: Episode 5 of Younger’s current season. Miriam Shor Courtesy of TVLand “I always was one of those annoying people hanging out at video vill...
BY TIM BANO via www.thestage.co.uk With a remit covering vocal techniques, teaching dialects and interpreting text, Kate Godfrey coaches the Royal Shakespeare Company’s actors to make the most challenging lines comprehensible on stage. She tells Tim Bano why striving for clarity rather than sounding posh is the key to making yourself understood A few years into his career as a lawyer, the ancient Roman orator Cicero, the man who practically invented many of the techniques of modern rhetoric, decided he needed a voice coach. There’s an extraordinary continuity that two millennia later, ahead of the West End opening of Imperium, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of Robert Harris’ Cicero trilogy, Kate Godfrey is working with the cast on some of the same techniques Apollonius Molon us...
BY BENJAMIN LINDSAY via www.backstage.com Making it onto the small screen as an actor is one thing, but doing it as a director is another thing entirely. With this Backstage Guide, we give you the tips and tricks you need to build the experience, reel, and relationships that will one day lead to you sitting in the director’s chair while helming television’s next big thing. What is the responsibility of the director? At the end of the day, a director’s responsibility is to organize, facilitate, and capture the desired footage that will ultimately make up a film or television program. While their day-to-day responsibilities may differ based on the medium in which they’re working, they are always one of the top above-the-liners and authority figures on set, and more often than not, they have...
via www.variety.com Oscar nominations for the 90th annual awards were announced on Tuesday morning from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif. Academy President John Bailey was joined by Tiffany Haddish and Andy Serkis to reveal the nominees in 24 categories. Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” continued its awards show streak, leading the pack with 13 nominations. “Dunkirk” followed behind with eight nods and Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”with seven. All three films earned best picture nominations. The rest of the category was rounded out by “Call Me By Your Name,” “Darkest Hour,” “Get Out,” “Phantom Thread,” “Lady Bird,” and “The Post.” The Academy Awards — hosted by Jimmy Kimmel for the second time — will air live on ABC on March 4. Here...
BY FABIANA CABRAL via www.americantheatre.org Longtime director Susan H. Schulman recently told me a revealing anecdote about her parents. “They went to see the first show I directed Off-Broadway, all the way down in the Bowery,” Schulman recalled. “They were very excited to come, and they schlepped down to watch this little show. And at the intermission, my father said: ‘It’s wonderful, we love it, we love it! Now, tell me honey—what did you do?’” The paradox of the theatre director is that your work is evident everywhere, and also nowhere. In that sense, the field has not changed much. Theatre directing is still not for the faint of heart: It involves a passion and aptitude for visual and textual storytelling. It requires knowledge of every element of a production, from acting to technic...
It’s not too late to register for the Best Practices: Inclusive and Accessible Theatre Symposium! HOSTED BY: The American Alliance for Theatre & Education WHEN: February 2 – 4, 2018 WHERE: The Kentucky Center, 501 W Main St, Louisville, KY 40202 Join theatre educators, artists and scholars from near and far for this exciting gathering in downtown Louisville, KY. Hosted by the Kentucky Center for the Arts, one of the nation’s most accessible performing arts complexes, this weekend intensive will offer keynote speakers, hands-on workshops, and a sensory-friendly performance including a pre-show touch tour. Come explore one of the country’s most arts-rich communities, and leave with practical tools you can use at home: in your classroom, and your theatre! Keynote: Storyteller, Playw...
BY: MARCI LIROFF via www.backstage.com In a scene from director Mike White’s newest film, “Brad’s Status,” actor Jenna Fischer was asked to taste spaghetti sauce her husband (Ben Stiller) had just made. The actor found herself going through all sorts of machinations to find the intention of the scene. She realized, as she told an audience during a panel discussion following an L.A. film screening, that the enthusiasm and fun environment on set was all she needed to tap into to simply “love the …sauce.” I’ve given countless actors the direction “Just throw it away” in an effort to have them keep it simple and stop overthinking. I asked actor Joe Pantoliano (“Sense8,” “The Sopranos”) to share his thoughts with me on this topic: “ ‘Throw it away’ is a code-word action indicating less, q...