When is a playwright done?

Now that our playwright Mel Nieves isn’t rewriting By the Dawn’s Early Light, he has time to reflect and write about about his writerly process. 

As the final weekend of July approaches, we (the casts and creative team) just finished a second run-through of both plays. The script for “Los Embrujados” has been locked-in (meaning, set in stone – no more re-writes) for about a week or so, except for a dash of some Spanish thrown in for flavoring here and there. It’s been pretty much sitting back and taking in the actors as they slowly-but-surely make the roles their own, and listening to Walter’s (Walter Hoffman our director) insightful guiding of the actors as they search for the proper tone for the story they are telling and experiencing. 

With “Miidnight Mass,” it’s been a bit a little different. For the most part, the script has been locked in for a about a week or so, but something was bothering me. In fact, it bothered me so much that I would wake up in the middle of the night with a single thought: “What was missing?” It wasn’t until watching a documentary about the war in Afghanistan on Netflix one late, late night that a light finally flickered into my brain.

Though the additional snippet of dialogue was not large in word count, it was large as to the impact it had for the scene and for the actors. It is always a satisfying feeling to have actors look at additional dialogue and not smile because it’s simply more lines, but to see them smile and say, “Thank you” for writing the note that they were struggling to reach and find. 

During this last run-through of both plays, I couldn’t properly listen to them in their entirety. My thoughts were with the new lines that I had added for a very important scene in “Midnight Mass” and that’s all I was waiting for. I had the new lines written on a piece of paper and as the scene approached and the sequence began I listened and hoped that these new words would work.  And with our wonderful actors, Alicia Fitzgerald and Kevin Prowse, the new lines hit the proper note and tone. Afterwards the actors in unison said: “That’s exactly what we needed. Thank you.”

So what happens now when all the re-writes have been completed and the scripts are now locked, so to speak… is the playwright still needed? Do I simply say: “See ya on opening night!” I don’t know about other playwrights, but this playwright isn’t going away anytime soon. And to be honest, it’s not a matter of protecting my work, but it’s a matter of helping the actors when they are stuck or in need of clarification regarding a moment in text or simply a line of dialogue. It’s funny the majority of the questions from the actors are along the lines of “What were you feeling when you work this?” rather than what the character I’m writing about is going through. It has also been interesting meeting with the set and sound designer as they ask me my thoughts regarding certain things that I describe in the script.

It’s funny: a theatre rehearsal space is my favorite place to be at. I can spend hours and days in that room with actors and writers going over things in a text or just talking shop. In this space is where I feel more myself, more intellectually and spiritually confident. All writing I believe is to some extent autobiographical and there ‘s a lot of me in both scripts –only it’s been more so with “Midnight Mass” (not to take anything away from “Los Embrujados,” which I am most proud of).

It’s been a very interesting process with “Midnight Mass,” and I believe that reason is because it was a play that I originally wrote almost five years ago. I’m obviously not the same person or playwright that I was five years ago and it’s been an interesting and most fascinating of collaborations between the voice I had then, with the voice I have now. I think it’s been a good collaboration between the two voices. I can see the difference in my writing style between then and now and I believe both voices have blended well with each other.

I hope when you come see the plays, you yourself will think so too.

30 July 2011 ·

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Interview: Gustavo Heredia

Next in our line of By the Dawn’s Early Light interviews is Gustavo Heredia, who plays Miguel in “Los Embrujados.” It was the voice of Gustavo, in fact, that Mel had in his head when he was writing the play for us. When you see the show, you will immediately see the similarities between Gustavo’s journey and the character he so dynamically portrays.

Why did you decide to pursue acting?

I come from a very small village in Ecuador of about 100 people.  My thought back then was either go to the army and pursue a career in the Armed Forces — I was attracted to it — or finish high school and go America.  But I ended up doing neither one (if I he had gone to the Army, I would not have stayed anyway, for I realized just a few years ago that I have flat feet).

So it was written in my destiny that at the tender age of 16, I should migrate to the United States of America, or New York… however you wish to call it.  However, the story of this unforgettable odyssey of what one goes thru to make it to America… is suited for another time and place. To answer the question of how I became an actor I will fast forward a few years.

As you might know, the most usual place where an immigrant can find a job is in a restaurant.  I used to work in a restaurant on the Upper West Side as a busboy, a waiter, etc.  During those years many clients would ask me if I was an actor.  I’d say a WHAT!!???  I would say “No,” and their reply would be, “You should.”

I could care less what they were talking about.  I didn’t know what it was about, but most of these people asking if I was an actor were actors themselves.  Some of them were in American soaps such as One Life To Live, Passions or movies… one of them was in the movie True Lies with Arnold…

Anyway, I really didn’t pay much attention to those comments or suggestions for that matter.  All I wanted to do was work to make enough dinero and go back.

So after many years had gone by and I had decided to stay (for by now, I had made America my Home), I started thinking that I should do something with my life.  My motivation for this decision (or was it destiny once again?) was when I had realized how little I enjoyed working as a waiter… but what I can pursue?  What can I be?  Or what should I be? 

Then something hit me.  I said to myself, hmmmm… maybe ACTING!!  But how do I begin?  Or where do I begin?  Do I need a college degree to be an actor?  Who should I talk to?  I would go to the movies and just focus on what the actors were doing, and I would say to myself, “I can do that.”  I remember vividly seeing a movie called Pitch Black, one of the very first movies Vin Diesel did.  Here is this muscular actor with a deep voice, and I am thinking… I want to that!  I can do that what he is doing!!  And that fueled even more my desire to become an actor.

I had asked many people how or where I could pursue acting, I got little or no help at all from their answers.  I had even asked a Latino woman who I had seen in a couple of commercials but she was of no help at all…

I used to wear a ring that my ex-girlfriend had given me as a birthday present. This ring resembled a high school graduation ring.  One day I was serving this lady that I had taken care of for a few years.  She had seen my ring and said, “That’s a nice ring… where did you go to school?”  I said, “No, this is just a present, but I would like to go to school.” “What would you like to study?” was her reply. “I have been thinking about acting, but I really don’t know where…” I said.  Then she says, “Why don’t you talk to my husband?  He is an acting teacher.”

And that was the beginning of this beautiful journey that began eight years ago.  But only now I realize that I had this actor in me since I was a kid… but that will be yet another story!

28 July 2011 ·

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Interview: Mel Nieves

You may know that Mel Nieves wrote By the Dawn’s Early Light… but did you know he’s also an actor, and member of the award-winning and supremely fantastic Labyrinth Theater Company?

… Oh, you did? Well, do you know what performance inspired him to get into acting in the first place?

Gotcha. Go buy tickets to his amazing play, and then read on for more info on the great and powerful Mel.

How did you end up in New York City?

By birth.  I was born in Lenox Hill hospital on Park Avenue and was raised in Harlem on 115th street and Lenox Avenue

What’s your neighborhood? My current neighborhood is Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

What’s your favorite part about Bay Ridge? The quiet and peacefulness of the neighborhood. Very Italian. Plus we have the best Pizza on the East Coast hands down.

Least favorite? The N train or as I like to call it “The Never Coming Train”

Why did you decide to pursue acting? My first exposure to acting was while I was a Police Science major at John Jay College, but I did not seriously pursue the study of theatre until I enrolled in The William Esper Studios in New York.

What profession other than acting would you pursue? (No need to be realistic in terms of your knowledge or skill-set.) Well my original plan in life was to be a cartoonist, but not just any old cartoonist. My dream from a very young was to be a first assistant cartoonist to the great Charles M. Schultz. I wanted to help him continue to create his iconic Peanuts characters. My other dream was to be a police officer. One of my childhood heroes was Frank Serpico.

What’s the greatest challenge of being an NYC-based actor? Economics. It’s always a hustle to find a gig that pays well enough to cover your over-head, but does not interfere with your pursuit of a career in the arts. I’m very fortunate in that I teach as well and that the arts organizations that I work with have been very supportive of my artistic pursuits.

Was there a performance, play, or actor that made you want to go into this business? Yes, but I didn’t know it at the time. When I was thirteen I saw the film Serpico and I wanted to be THAT guy. I often thought it was the character that he was playing that I wanted to be, and for a while it was, but deep down it was the fact that the actor playing him, Al Pacino, seemed to be a guy I could relate to, a guy from the street like myself.

Funny thing when I took my first acting class at John Jay College the man teaching the course, an actor named John “Gus” Fleming played the role Dr. Metz, in the film. Gus also became a father figure/mentor to me and I owe him so much. He passed away more than ten years ago, but I still hear his lessons in my head whenever I’m involved in a project. He was a true New York actor. He was a beautiful actor and a great man.

Favorite playwright? Arthur Miller. Favorite play? All My Sons.

If you could play any theater role, disregarding your age/gender/skillset (etc.), what role would that be? Oh that’s an easy one. I actually have two. One is Danny Saunders in Chaim Potok’s great masterwork The Chosen. The other is J. Pierpont Finch in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. I used be quite boyish looking when I was younger and people often told me that I should audition for that role, but the one hitch was that I couldn’t sing a lick or dance a step. 

27 July 2011 ·

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Interview: Jorge Humberto Hoyos

In an effort to make blogging for the cast and crew of By the Dawn’s Early Light as painless as possible (it’s a little scary, we know), we’ve decided to conduct INTERVIEWS. We asked everyone to answer a question or two (we gave them 20 to choose from), and between attending rehearsals, memorizing lines, and selling tickets to the production, they’ll (hopefully) have a little time to tell you a little bit about themselves and their process.

First up: Jorge Humberto Hoyos, who plays Father Claudio in “Midnight Mass.”

What kind of a person is your character? Are they like you? Unlike you? How does that inform your performance and process?

I have the privilege of playing Fr. Francis Claudio and I find him to be quite similar to me. 

 As older members of the human race, both Father Claudio and I have experienced faith-challenging moments in our lives.  Painful experiences in our lives have made us mature in the faith that we have been raised in.  We came to see life from a different perspective and the world in a different way.  We are no longer limited by the erroneous belief that we can control what ultimately happens (situations or circumstances), or that we can control what other people do (since the gift of free will gives people the freedom to choose their actions and reactions). 

Rather, Father Claudio and I firmly hold to our own obligation to remain serene in calamity and stressful situations (to the best of our human abilities) and to stay contributory to others lives.  We both understand that compassion, empathy and the willingness to simply listen to others are the greatest aid we can provide. 

In my own journey to adulthood, one of my “schools of life” was a Roman Catholic monastery in Los Angeles of which I was a member for four years.  Those years were a major blessing for me in my growth as a Christian. And this development of my faith (a life-long quest!) has given me the calm and resilience to deal with the rejection involved in an actor’s daily life. 

And my time at the monastery subsequently provided me with a deep well of experience from which to draw when playing a “man of the cloth.”  It provided me first hand experience of that way of life when I portrayed St. Thomas Becket in Jean Anouilh’s play Becket.  Likewise, in building the character of Fr. Claudio, the rich well of that experience of a life of work and prayer helped me enormously. 

It is my hope that audiences seeing this brilliant production of Mel Nieves’ work, will come to see that a priest, in this case Father Claudio, is simply a man who daily tries to live a Christian life fully aware of his humanity and faults, and his thirst to be of service to God’s world.  Clearly an example for all of us and a wonderful way to live one’s life!

26 July 2011 ·

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• By the Dawn's Early LIght
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Amor de Lejos Amor de Pendejos

Today, we hear from our first cast member — Camilo Almonacid, who plays the role of David in “Midnight Mass” — about where he was on 9/11: 

Two weeks prior, my relationship had reached a point of no return. Elizabeth, then a journalist at Vibe magazine, was insisting I move from Seattle to New York. A three-hour difference can feel more like a ten year difference. But apart from her and the desire to live in real time, I had no other reasons to move to New York. What I wanted to know about the Big Apple; Federico Garcia Lorca had already written in A Poet in New York.

No duerme nadie por el cielo. Nadie, nadie.
No duerme nadie.

And besides I had plenty of Hip Hop CD’s (Talking, Pre MP3 days) to enthrall me with the New York landscapes, and cultural values they don’t tell you about on those double decker bus tours. I was part of a large percentage of the world for whom New York only existed in film, television, recorded music, poetry books, fiction books and graffiti magazines.

 
No, but seriously, the idea of New York filled me with neurosis. I saw myself living the trajectory of a wino lunatic, who stands on a corner and recites fragmented speeches and dances with a carrot stick. I had all kinds of excuses and arguments. My most developed argument for not relocating to New York was the argument of windows. Elizabeth’s room, in a shared house in Brooklyn, had no windows. Not one. No windows? The closest thing to death is sleeping in a room with no windows! Is this how all rooms in New York were? I can’t live in a city with no windows. 

“Take the chance,” she said.  “Just come.”

“Elizabeth, I don’t just do things. Maybe you do. But I think things through, ok.”  (That was me defending myself from the unknown.) I still say and do really stupid things.  Whether or not this constitutes one of those moments, I’m not sure.  All I can say is that the whole matter was handled very civilized, as all “break-ups” should be handled. No hard feelings. Our lesson learned. Amor de Lejos, Amor de Pendejos. (Long distance relationships are for morons.)

I hung up the phone that night not feeling like a moron, but feeling empty, as though I were in room alone, a room that had no windows, no doors, no vents, and no girlfriend.

In the coming weeks, we didn’t speak. The ultimatum of to be a Pendejo or not be a Pendejo was definitely the point of no return. Or the Point. Or the Return?

Still in Seattle, I was inside of a grocery story, a few days later. I happened to pass by the magazine section when I see the most recent edition of Vibe. There, bright on the page was her name. Elizabeth-I-can’t-say-her-last name-Ary. Her article about misogyny in Hip Hop, had been published. I didn’t really read it all the way through. Even though later on I told her that I did. Nonetheless, I was impressed. She exposed some very taboo subject matter about the Hip Hop world. Actually, I was not as much impressed, as I was worried for her safety. I mean, if talk isn’t cheap, then these rappers she exposed for being wife beaters, had already written lyrical confessions of the sardonic shit they are capable of doing if someone ever crosses them. I went to sleep that night imagining a war against my ex girlfriend. That all the indicted rappers formed a battalion to get the wench who accused them of “smakin’ hoes” The city under fire, Elizabeth began to receive death threats in numerous rap albums. That night, I imagined her being chased by Big Pun. A very slow race, in fact. But Elizabeth just couldn’t move her feet fast enough. They were being buried in the concrete, until finally Big Pun caught up to her, smacked her, and put her in his mouth like a whopper. I few more of these similar scenarios and I finally fall asleep.

The next day is a day that changed the course of history, the course of wars, paranoia, absolutism, patriotic-outcries, conspiracy theories. We all know what I’m talking about, right?

I found out when I was helping a woman whose car had broken down in front of my job. The woman say’s “They attacked the Towers!”

They?

“Two planes, They crashed two planes! Oh my God!” The woman had forgotten about her over heated car. Who did it? That’s all I could think about. “Arabs.” Oh no! In that moment, when she said that, I swore I was living in a repeated cycle of history. A repeating moment. “All those people, God Bless them”. Then I snap-

Elizabeth! She works in Manhattan! I have to call her. Call her. I call. The lines are busy. The lines are busy for two days. All I know is what I see and hear on the news. I am saturated with graphic explosions, and hijacked planes, and the vicarious grief of the country. In my eyes the chances are high that something may have happened to her. She worked in the Financial District. No answer. Busy signal. Busy signal.

Finally, Late on September 13^th,  I receive a call. Her voice was new. She said my name. Camilo. I said her name. Elizabeth.

She went into work late that morning, around ten o’clock.  She never made it into Manhattan that day. She said that everyone who was usually an asshole in New York stopped being an asshole that day. She said she missed me. She said she was scared.

That night I told her I was coming to New York. When? Tomorrow.

Yeah, on Sept 13th I decided I wasn’t going to be a pendejo anymore.

28 June 2011 ·

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