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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Actress, writer, friend to spiders. Caught on a bramble near the Hollywood sign. When you tell people you're an actor and writer, they usually have questions like these:
WHAT HAVE I SEEN YOU IN? Sam Raimi's 3D blockbuster OZ The Great and Powerful and his pilot for Fox entitled Rake, NBC's Revolution (pic above), executive producer Steven Spielberg's Extant on CBS, True Blood, The Office, Parks and Rec, Grey's Anatomy and more, at IMDb.
Lucky enough to know about the vibrant theater scene in L.A.? Then maybe you've seen me onstage.
CAN I WATCH ANY OF THAT? Why yes. Yes you can. Below on the right are some videos from work I've done, including the trailer to a short film I recently wrote, produced and starred in entitled Cash for Gold (so far an official selection at the Hollywood Film Festival, Florida Film Festival and Sonoma International Film Festival. Hello, wine country.)
WHAT HAVE YOU WRITTEN?? A number of personal essays, some of which are published on this blog, and some of which you can catch me around town reading aloud for audiences. A short film called Cash for Gold (see above). A television pilot you haven't seen yet.
WHAT ELSE? I'm a pretty good cook, a really good mom, and an irrepressible fidgeter.
Be my guest and look around as long as you'd like. I promise no pushy sales ladies will bug you. I'm glad you're here.
Yesterday we had our first read-thru with the company and designers at The Odyssey Theater. I'm so glad to be re-teaming with director Robin Larsen and to be working with this terrific cast for the first time. ADB will mark my fourth play with Robin (the Ovation Award-winner "Four Places" I produced rather than acted in), and it's almost exactly two years to the day since we did "The Fall to Earth" at the same theater. We open April 26th. Once tickets are on sale, you'll find them HERE.
Les Spindle and the good people at LA Stage Times have put together a lovely feature article on my role in RABBIT HOLE and career in general. I had a really nice time talking to Les--he knows as much about the Los Angeles theater scene as anybody you'll find.
Jon Robin Baitz's newest play was a huge hit on Broadway last season and was subsequently nominated for multiple Tony Awards including Best New Play. I'm happy to be part of the company as the understudy in the role of Brooke Wyeth. Robin Weigert plays the part, and she's just lovely in it. The entire production is aces and the cast features the talents of JoBeth Williams (who played my mother earlier this season in The Fall to Earth), Robert Foxworth, Jeannie Berlin and Michael Weston, directed by Robert Egan. For more information about the production, you can link to the program PDF here.
If you're in Los Angeles before January 6, I hope you'll make it to downtown L.A. for a performance and to enjoy the gorgeous Christmas tree alight in the plaza of the Music Center.
On July 26, I joined a terrific cast for the staged reading of a new comedy at the Elephant Theater in Hollywood. We had a ball. The Elephant seats about 45 people. That was a lot of talent in a very small space.
I played Zelda Fitzgerald (no, not that one), the "cute but quirky" head writer of a hit TV show. (I imagined her a Liz Meriwether/Emily Spivey type.) Arye Gross played my boss/occasional love interest/beleaguered producer of the Golden Globes. With the help of the rest of the stellar cast including Bradley, Cheryl, Brian and Sam as two movie stars in love, a TV host and movie producer, respectively, we attempted to keep a particularly cursed Golden Globes show from going off the rails. Strong support was offered in multiple roles by Anastasia Basil, Bill Salyers and Avery Clyde. Under the leadership of our terrific director, Robin, and aided by producer Hillary Weaver, hilarity ensued.
I love Alan Ball. Love. Alan. Ball. His work. "Six Feet Under"? Watched every episode and was more affected by the series finale than any other single episode of television I can remember. American Beauty? I mean...c'mon. I've read, watched, listened to every interview with him I could find. I even wrote him a letter once years ago telling him how much I love his work. And then a few months ago, after years of devouring just about every TV show, movie and play written and/or directed by the man (if you haven't seen Towelhead, you should), I found myself three feet from him during a last-minute audition for a guest star on his fangtastic series, "True Blood."
The call from my manager came at around 11:00 am: I had just under four hours to learn the sides, drive to a coaching session with Robin in Woodland Hills, get back to Studio City to shower and change and get myself to The Lot on Formosa Drive in Hollywood. In the busyness of it all, it hadn't occurred to me that Mr. Ball would be in the session. Duh.
Sitting in the waiting area of the tiny cottage where the casting directors for the show work, I could hear the auditions of the women who went in before me, almost all of whom I recognized from some TV show or another. When my turn came, I was ushered into the little office and introduced by the casting director who motioned me to take my seat in a chair opposite her. There was no camera to record the session. There was, however, the man himself, so close I could have reached out and punched him in the knee.
{A confession: I am a person who regularly flashes on the numerous inappropriate behaviors I might perpetrate at any given moment, and how they would play out. How, if I chose to, I could actually do something as odd as hitting Alan Ball hard on the knee, and would that just blow the whole thing? What would the others in the room do, I wonder. Ask me to stop hitting and please read the scene? Stare at me blankly before calling security? Maybe Alan Ball would hit me back. Would he laugh? Yell? Cheer? The astute reader will note that he has been known to give his characters ruminations just such as these to great dramatic/comedic effect. So I guess my point is that Alan Ball and I are ALMOST THE SAME PERSON. Think about it.}
But instead I replied 'hello' to his same, sat, and proceeded to play the scene with the cd, keenly aware that one of my creative heroes was assessing me and my work but oddly calm in the face of it. The scene ended, it was quiet, and then he said it was good--he made mention of a specific beat in the scene that Robin and I had carved out together. Then he asked me if I could do it again with a slight adjustment. Fight harder for what you want until this line, he said.
{One more digression, if you don't mind: earlier in my career I might have said, "That's a great note!" I don't say that anymore, ever. As true as it might be, there is no way to say that in an audition without sounding like a sycophant, and if I learned anything in kindergarten at all it's that nobody likes a sycophant. And besides, he knows it's a great note. He's ALAN BALL for God's sake.}
I said yes, sure I could, happy to spend another few minutes in this tiny collaboration. Getting the job was the furthest thing from my mind at that point. I'm not being disingenuous here. Getting the job was not in my mind at that moment. This was the work--this was what I'd prepared for. I read the scene again, incorporating the note. And then it was done.
We said our mutual thank yous and goodbyes, and I walked on air across Santa Monica Blvd. to my car. At that point, I had done my job. As ever, the rest was out of my hands. I told my manager on the phone that I had no idea if I'd booked it (You never do! They might want someone shorter. Blonder. More famous. Less famous, although in my case that would be tricky.) But I did know I had shared a little piece of me, of what I do, with this man I'd looked up to for so long, and he'd been lovely. I had, finally, worked with Alan Ball. That was enough for one day.
The episode, entitled "Somebody That I Used to Know" airs July 29 and in it, I play Sarah Compton-Harris, daughter of vampire Bill Compton. The episode happens to be the series directing debut of star Stephen Moyer who plays Bill; simultaneously acting with and being directed by Stephen and playing writer Mark Hudis' terrific writing was very very good fun, but that's for another post.
Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson's darkly funny and occasionally terrifying play, The Fall to Earth, runs through April 22 at the Odyssey Theatre in west Los Angeles.
Fay Schorsch, a mother: JoBeth Williams Rachel Browney, her daughter: Me Terry Reed, a police officer: Ann Noble
All information including performance schedule, showtimes, ticketing, creative team bios, technical crew and more can be found at the Odyssey Theatre website, so give the link a click. A blurb from the description there:
Playwright Johnson's funny and harrowing play explores the treacherous terrain of parent/child relationships, where everything changes, yet always remains the same.
For a great interview with director Robin Larsen and JoBeth, visit LA Stage Times here.
If you're a casting director or someone else with the ability to offer the cast further employment, email me here for professional comps, and I'll do my damnedest.
Back in 2010, I was fortunate to be part of the producing team that offered up Joel Drake Johnson's funny and heartbreaking play, Four Places, in Los Angeles at Rogue Machine. That production was helmed by my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Robin Larsen, and featured Roxanne Hart in one of the lead roles. Its quartet of actors and creative team went on to many richly-deserved award nominations that season, including the Ovation Award for Best Production, Intimate Theater, which we ultimately won. The whole process was a thrill, and so I'm really, really excited to announce that I've re-teamed with Robin and Roxanne for another project written by Joel.
Earlier this year, we secured the West Coast premiere rights to Joel's equally dark and funny drama about family secrets, The Fall to Earth, which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater several years back. Robin will again direct, but Rox and I will switch places--this time around I'll star and she'll produce along with the fine folks at Los Angeles' acclaimed Odyssey Theatre. And as the icing on the cake, the wonderful JoBeth Williams will grace the stage in a tour de force role as the mother of my character. Rehearsals begin this week with a February 11 opening.
Last Saturday, I had the extreme pleasure of doing a staged reading of Day Trader, a new play by the very talented Eric Rudnick. Eric did a bang-up job putting together a wonderful cast of actors to perform his terrific play about power, greed and making it in Hollywood.
I'd followed Bruce Greenwood's work since he blew me away in Atom Egoyan's haunting The Sweet Hereafter; Gregg Henry and I have kicked around in the same circles for awhile, and I've loved watching him play really good baddies like the one he played on The Riches; Amanda Kaschak and Mackenzie Astin kick ass onstage with me in Caught every weekend; Jennifer Carroll was new to me and perfect in her part.The six of us had the great pleasure of bringing this as-yet-unproduced-but-not-for-long play to life in front of an audience that clearly digs new work. How fun it was to bite into Rudnick's smart and stinging dialogue, which has it's own very specific sizzle and snap.
The purpose of a reading is usually at least two-fold: to let the writer hear how the story and its characters land with an audience, and to introduce the play to more people, ideally some who will be interested in seeing it move forward and have the power to help it do just that. I'm sure that Saturday's reading did both. It certainly generated a long and animated discussion between writer, cast and audience alike over beers at The Village Idiot down the street.
Producers and directors interested in learning more about Eric's work can ping him directly at his email.
This is one I expect to see a full production of in the future, and when that happens, I hope I'm lucky enough to be part of it again.
"This is not an age of doing, or even thinking.
This is an age of hanging on - for which one needs claws."
I go back and forth when it comes to reading reviews. But when they're good, they often get sent to me by someone I love who wants to share the nice news. That was the case with this from the Los Angeles Times on "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale".
Most important: in the review it says, "Under Damaso Rodriguez's direction, ------." Ain't that the truth. Damaso encouraged and nurtured the very thing that this reviewer decided to call "fearlessness"--he's the real deal, and I am so lucky and glad to have worked on this with him.
I'm home from rehearsing a new play that will open December 3, 2010 at the Zephyr Theatre in Los Angeles. That it is a new play means that I'll be originating a role, an experience I find both a joy and a nightmare, literally. I'm playing a woman very far removed from my own experience on many levels, and making sure I tell the truth of who she is has got me a little anxious.
The work that actors do is special. And by special, I don't mean vaunted or More Important Than Other Work. I mean different and strange. My work takes me out of the house at odd hours and leaves me talking to myself on a regular basis. Thanks Haysus for hands-free phones; now when my neighbor on the 405 watches me madly gesticulating and pontificating, I can pretend it's because I'm On The Phone (sometimes I'll even do a little dumb play with my phone to add to the illusion when I know I've been, um, caught.)
As to the literal nightmare, I never sleep more poorly or dream more vividly than when I'm rehearsing a play that's gotten under my skin. Not all of them do. But the tougher ones, the ones with themes of violence or hate or deep, deep love occupy my mind almost around the clock during the 4- or 5- week rehearsal period. Caught is one of those plays.
The reward I get for all this Big Suffering is to move around on a stage and say someone else's Beautiful Words. To be someone else for an hour and fifty-two minutes. To maybe, if I'm lucky, mirror for a couple of people something difficult they're working out in their own lives. To expose some small truth. To make somebody chuckle in recognition.
I won't tell all Caught's secrets, but it deals with questions around love, family and faith. It's a very funny, very affecting play being originated by a team of some of Los Angeles' and New York's top theater professionals. I think it's gonna be one to see.
