by Jon Cohn
Early on in the pre-production process for Lie with Me, Keith (artistic director and playwright) decided to open up the auditions to the entire DC casting pool rather than rely solely on the wealth of talent in Charter’s company and artistic associates. Prior to flying east for casting I contacted several trustworthy DC theatre colleagues to provide recommendations of actors that I should see for our production. Read the rest of this entry »
by Ryan Mulkay
by Jon Cohn
In December of 2007 I met up with friend and playwright Keith Bridges to catch up on all things life and theatre while visiting family in Washington, DC over the holidays. Keith is the Artistic Director of Charter Theatre and was in the midst of rehearsals for the latest piece he penned called F.U. (Forgive Us…what’d you think we meant?) under the capable direction of Joe Banno, another creative colleague and friend of mine. During a delightful breakfast in Georgetown he offered to do an original play commission for Mutineer as part of a collaborative development process that I was interested in exploring. Read the rest of this entry »
So is anyone else disturbed by all the Beatles stuff that is penetrating the media lately? I know that this isn’t the first band that all this madness has happened to, and I am sure that it will not be the last, by any means. I guess it is just a little unsettling seeing these iconic figures as a video game–a video game that we can play where we can be just like them.
Friday night is the culmination of four weeks of recording for The Miller’s Ghost. Marketplace Productions, my employer back in the days before I became a stay-at-home dad, was kind enough to allow me to use the Frank Stanton Studios in downtown LA. I’ve been there for eight hours each of the past four Saturdays, bringing in just about every available member of MTC to give voice to the characters I created.
The four narrators are played by myself, Jon Cohn, Myron Davis and Amy Schloerb. We each had several pages of narration to get through, so I scheduled two to three hour solo sessions for each of us. For the dialogue scenes, involving various other actors, I made sure that the narrators changed their position (sitting vs. standing), used a different microphone, and/or changed the pattern on the microphone (easily accomplished with the AKG 414s that now fill the talk studios). Even without any colorations I might add during the mix, this should make our voices sound different between narration and dialogue, which should help the listener as we go back and forth in certain passages.
by Jon Cohn
After my first shoot with Natalie Young, it didn’t seem to take long for the photos to make it out into the universe. Select images have been published in a South African photography magazine called “Migrate”, and Natalie was also invited to exhibit a series of the images in China this winter at the Lishui International Photo Festival .
Despite my absolute adoration of Natalie and her work, the passion for our ongoing collaboration, and my intrinsic desire to be able to take some credit for the photography, I feel that I should recognize Natalie as the obvious creative eye behind this project (unless she insists on sharing credit with me).
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by Jon Cohn
I first met photographer Natalie Young in 2004 while I was working as staff at The Groundlings and she was hired to take portraits of the Groundlings past and present for a then upcoming 30th Anniversary event. We bonded in photo sessions with some of their best-known alumni, but it wasn’t until my going away party from the Groundlings in 2005 and after several bourbons that I took the opportunity to confide some of my theatrical aspirations with Natalie. Among them was the interest in figuring out a way for us to collaborate on something beyond her taking my headshots. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I distributed the final draft of The Miller’s Ghost to the rest of MTC. Here’s how it came together:
While I wrote three songs during my vacation in Oregon, I didn’t so much as open the file for TMG. It was too difficult for me to alter my headspace between composing music and writing a scary story. But with a pod meeting scheduled for the Tuesday night after my return (about 48 hours later) I had to find my way into the right headspace in a hurry. As I recall, I wrote something like 17 pages in that time, completing the first two chapters: The House on the Hill (mainly exposition) and Karl’s Tale (the ghost’s origin).
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Sunday night’s Ditch workshop was amazing. Thanks to all who lent a hand.
It all started as a cozy read-through in our apartment the week before. In just 3 rehearsals, Jon practically staged the entire piece. Sometimes in very close quarters… Nina, Todd, Amber, Peter and Ron were patient and amazing with the pages of edits I sent them each day. James was great about lending another ear and even more sound input as I rushed to edit between breaks at work and rehearsal. Ginger was a rock throughout, taking care of everything at rehearsals so the rest of us could create in such rushed circumstances… It was not an easy week, at least for me. It’s all a bit of a blur now… Read the rest of this entry »
