A blog on theater (and other stuff) from the fine folks at Apple Core Theater Company
“And the clock begins to wind down.”
It’s so hard to believe that we’re already in our last week of By the Dawn’s Early Light! While we will surely have more blog posts as we wrap up our run, our playwright Mel turned in his final, very contemplative, very heartwarming post last night. (Sigh.)
And the clock begins to wind down.
How is it possible that as I write this, we as a company are about to embark on our final week of performances? Six more shows and the theatre will go dark. Costumes and make-up removed for the final time. Props placed in a box for some other times, others given as remembrance of a joyous creative experience, and others discarded like so many unwanted toys.
It’s going to be tough, no doubt. It has been some ride for me. The journey from first phone call, to table read, run through and first performance – first laugh being heard from the audience, as well as the sniffle of a tear, will be always remembered.
As Arturo Castro said: “Dude, we’re on f**king Theatre Row, bro!” – Yes we were, and we done good.
I have sat in the back of the theatre on many a night marveling as I watch Walter, our director, hunched over the control panel, intensely watching the performance, smiling, shaking his head, cheering, wipe a tear away and still continue to take notes as if it were the first day of rehearsals.
I watch Kevin move deeper and deeper into Freddie’s journey with the ease of a great painter who knows just what strokes are needed to fill in the colors of his canvas.
I still find myself welling up when Karen says: “Victor, when you leave it’s going to be quiet. I don’t like that kind of quiet.”
This has been a truly rewarding collaboration. I have made new friends and have enriched others. The seeds of future collaborations have been planted with the work that we have done as a company.
How did we all get here? Hard work and trust are often good starts to any collaborative endeavor and this one was no exception to that rule, but I think there were other factors involved as well – factors that perhaps in a month or so, when I find myself at a quiet moment, glass of wine in hand, it will come to me. But for now this will have to do: The Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer Kahlil Gibran once wrote, “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
To the ensemble cast: Kevin, Arturo, Gordon, Alicia, Wynn, Camilo, Karen, Mark, Gustavo, Flor, Damian and Jorge – thank you for truly giving of yourself and to your art to brings these stories so beautifully to life.
To Walter and Allison, you remind one constantly of why we do what we do with this life of ours in the theatre and the both of you do it inspirationally.
Yeah, I will be saying the same words as Angie does to Victor once the final curtain comes down on Sunday – “I don’t like that kind of quiet too.”
… “Midnight Mass”!
Here are Joey Castillo’s photos of our second half of By the Dawn’s Early Light.
Remember: we’re only running through Sunday August 28th, and it’s only a 55-seat theater… so get your tickets soon at www.telecharge.com.
We hope to see you at Theatre Row!
Hurray! We opened By the Dawn’s Early Light last night! And to a sold-out house no less. Thank you to the wonderful audience who came out to see the show. (And for those of you who haven’t gotten their tickets yet, be forewarned: it’s a 55-seat house and fills up FAST. So get your tickets soon!)
In honor of this momentous occasion, we thought we’d share with you a few of the photos that the remarkable Joey Castillo took during tech rehearsals, and a blog entry that Mel wrote after attending a tech rehearsal this week.
Waking up this morning I could not help, but feel it was going to be a special day.
I had several early morning appointments with various school representatives for possible positions as a theatre instructor this coming September, and along with my teaching credentials and artistic resumes I handed each school representative a postcard for my play, By the Dawn’s Early Light. They were rightfully impressed with the artwork by the gifted Katherine Miles Jones and with the subject matter that I was tackling. But most of all, they were impressed by the fact that the plays were being performed on Theatre Row, that cool block on mid-town Manhattan.
After I finished with my meet-and-greets I was to my other job of the moment and that is playwright for Apple Core Theatre Company. As I walked uptown from East Broadway (Yeah, I did say walk. I’m a big fan of walking.), and as I eventually turned the corner and headed to the stage door entrance, it suddenly dawned on me that I was in Theatre Row… but not as a theatre goer, but for lack of a better word, a “theatre-maker.”
As I entered the theatre space our crew — lighting designer, Jordan Acosta; set designer, Adam Kaynan; along with Allison (Producer), Barbra (Associate Producer)Walter (Director) and Farin (Stage manager) — were busy with setting things up on stage. It was really happening. Theatre was being created.
After a while as the actors started to come in they all had the same “this is cool” smile on their faces; I must tell you that as an actor in New York City I have performed in spaces that were barely more than a black box with three chairs in the middle of some block on the far reaches of the earth where even our beloved city rodents wouldn’t be caught hanging out in. Thus is the journey of the New York City actor, but every so often you get the chance to perform in a space that can truly be called nothing else but a “THEATRE,” and Theatre Row is such a space. You can feel the energy in the air. The pride in the actors as they take in their surroundings and what will be their “HOME” for the next three weeks.
It’s an awesome tribute to all the hard work that Walter and Allison and Barbara (the Apple Core Theatre Company Crew) have put into this production. The actors feel it, and I most certainly do.
Interview: Farin Rebecca Loeb
Thank goodness we have an awesome stage manager for By the Dawn’s Early Light. With twelve actors and two plays (and eight scenes in the second play), keeping track of what-props-were-supposed-to-be-where — and keeping our [wonderful] actors in line — was much too much for us to handle.
Please meet the wonder that is Farin Rebecca Loeb, who has a surprisingly varied background — from the performance side to the technical side, and from opera to theater.
Why did you decide to pursue stage managing?
Well, my education was actually in opera performance. I wanted to be an opera singer when I was about 7, and even got a specialized high school degree, then a BM and MM.
And then, when I had a vocal health problem, I noticed all the other stuff I’d been doing the whole time: coaching (working on non-technique things with singers, like acting choices), assistant directing, supertitles (translating operas and projecting the translations), stage managing, and so on. So I started doing more of that! I starting stage managing at a few small theaters where I was living, and eventually started directing opera.
And it’s funny how things work out, because I’m much better suited to what I do now. My experience as a singer and actor allows me to connect with the folks on stage in a really useful way, and I can add way more to the arts of theater and opera by telling lots of performers what to do at once, or as an SM, supporting a really positive, effective, awesome environment, and technically excellent and fluid environment!
Was there a performance/play/actor who made you want to go into this business? Why?
I guess I’ll finally admit it. For all my love of Mozart and Verdi, it was The Phantom of the Opera that made me decide to be a singer when I was little. I know.
Of course I also worshiped people like Kiri Te Kanawa, Kurt Moll, and Sir Thomas Allen (let’s pretend I totally kept my composure when I met the latter). As for what I do now, David McVicar really inspired me, as well as Francesca Zembello, and singers like John Relyea Gerald Finley- two of the greatest actors and singers working today, and some of the kindest people I’ve met. And singers like Nicholas Tamagna who made it clear to me that this was the type of work where I added the most to a production. And there are so many SMs, directors, and actors who have given me personal ideals of how to do things right!
How does working with the cast members of By the Dawn’s Early Light inform your process and performance?
We’ve really lucked out with an amazing group of talented folks and fabulous personalities. Having such creativity and lively but respectful attitudes makes my job way easier than it sometimes is, and allows us to creatively go that much farther.
Are there any other fields within theater/the arts in which you work?
I’m also really a director, as I’ve said. And I spend a lot of time and energy working on supertitles- one of my biggest passions since I was a teenager. I’m absolutely dedicated to accurate, well-timed translations, and will always fight for choices that make a big, if hopefully-not-consciously-noticed, difference. I also have done a lot of work with fight choreography and weapons.
Do you any great passions separate from theater/the arts?
The rest of my energy is generally consumed by fencing, social justice, and swing, blues, and tango dancing!
Today we load our production of By the Dawn’s Early Light into Theatre Row! In honor of this momentous occasion — in which we will be painting platforms, focusing lights, and building set pieces from 9 AM to 11:30 PM — we thought we’d bring you a little taste of the technical theater process. Here, our producer Allison writes about creating the perfect, in-all-likelihood-unused prop.
People outside theater sometimes ask me what a producer does. My answer varies, depending upon the day, but often it means being a problem solver.
Much of “Midnight Mass” takes place in a church, and when the set designer Adam and director Walter and I sat down to talk about the design scheme for the show, there was never any question that candles would have to be involved somehow. But if you know anything about fire code laws here in New York City (and probably elsewhere), you know that lit flames in theaters is strictly prohibited without going through a series of nightmarish hoops. Not unlike these.
(SIDE NOTE: If you want me to talk at you in a solid 45 minute rant, you should buy me a drink and ask me about flame retardant curtains.)
But Adam, Walter, and our associate producer Barbara kept saying, “Oh don’t worry, we’ll get electric candles!” Yeah, electric candles! … What? You mean like the ones in the windows at Christmas time? Or on the menorah? What do you mean, electric candles? I had no idea what they were talking about, but had a lot of contracts to process and money to raise, so I put it on the back burner. (Those are also not allowed in NYC theaters.)
But then one day, I was in a 99 cent store (yes, producers shop in these to find props for their productions), and lo and behold, there were these strange little lavender candles, made out of real wax and with a little plastic wick at its core. There was a button on the bottom of each candle that made the little plastic wick light up. And flicker. And it looked really, really cool. ELECTRIC CANDLES! WHO KNEW? (Everyone but me.)
But it didn’t look very realistic because, well, the wax wasn’t melting.
And so, as you can see in the photograph, I spent a solid half hour at rehearsal shaving down the candles to make them look like the wax had melted. You can see the shavings in my cup (and all over the table… sorry, MTC!), as well as a before-candle, an “unlit” candle that had been shaved down, and the final “lit” candle after it had been shaved.
The best part is, I don’t even think that we’re going to use these candles. The color doesn’t really go with the design scheme, and we have much nicer red candles that we can use. Luckily, in a moment wherein I thought I broke one of the purple candles, I discovered that the base containing the plastic wick and button can come out of the wax. Thus, we’ll take that piece out of the purple candles and wedge them into the red ones.
As I was saying: producing is problem-solving.
We finished up our last rehearsal at MTC yesterday for By the Dawn’s Early Light, before we pack up everything we own and move it on into the theater. Mel took a moment to write down some observations about one of the last rehearsals.
The final rehearsals at MTC prior to our landing at Theatre Row have been fascinating their up and down nature.
Little things are starting to take shape. Nerves are popping here and there. You can feel the actors staking out their little areas of real estate as each tries to focus on the task at hand. At a recent rehearsal there was much buzzing going around and the space was filled with much activity. Farin Rebecca Loeb, our lovely stage manager, is as focused as ever, and Walter our director is on his knees measuring the stage dimensions. Our costume designer, David L. Zwiers has come with a truly wonderful bag of goodies and the actor’s behavior brings a smile to my face. They each remind me of a child visiting FAO Schwartz for the first time as they try on their costumes, play and become familiar with their props.
I sit there with an amused look on my face as I watch the actors walk around in costume, running lines with each other, or in a corner going over their scripts and suddenly for a brief moment I forget that I’m watching a group of wonderful, hard working actors, who have become my friends, but I no longer see them.
Who do I see? I see Richard talking with David. I see Nadia listening to Arturo and I see Victor teasing Angie and finally I see Freddie brooding. Yeah, what I’m seeing is the characters that I have created walking around and doing their thing in front of my eyes. Some glance at me and smile as if saying: “Yeah, here I am. What’s up?”
It’s quite a surreal feeling, but it’s also a wonderful feeling to see actors fully engaged in the work that you’ve created and I am humble by their compassion and commitment. T
he fantasy of seeing my characters come to life is broken by the sound of Farin’s voice commanding the troops to “Listen up people!” and as the actors stand at attention, Farin walks among them breaking down the “rules of the game.” Meaning, “This is YOUR prop table. These are YOUR props and YOU are RESPONSIBLE for them” speech. My brain suddenly begins to drift and I get visions of Lee Marvin addressing his “Dirty Dozen” crew.
As you can probably guess that at this point in the rehearsal process I am a watcher, an audience member, an encourager, a living playwright sitting behind a desk listening carefully to make sure his words (and ONLY his words) are being spoken… and finally and most importantly, a cheerleader and supportive voice, an arm around a shoulder for my actors, my director, stage manager, and finally to my dramaturgy/Producer.
It’s been a heck-of-journey. It’s going be tough to say goodbye to the rehearsal space at Manhattan Theatre Club, it’s been like another home, but our real home awaits us on Theatre Row, and there we shall be and there we shall shine. I have been reminded from time to time watching and listening to actors recite their lines, bringing these characters and their individual worlds to life, of a quote from Stella Adler, the legendary actor teacher and Group Theatre member: “The Theatre Is A Spiritual And Social X-Ray Of Its Time.”
I believe with our production of By The Dawn’s Early Light we are fulfilling Ms. Adler’s decree.
Interview: Karen Sours
We still have interviews on the way for By the Dawn’s Early Light. Today, we hear from the lovely Karen Sours, who plays the role of Angie, the pregnant girlfriend of a soon-to-be-deployed marine, in “Midnight Mass.”
How did you end up in New York City?
When I was 5 years old, I told my mom I wanted to be an actress. My mom smiled, thinking this would be a passing thing, and said: “Claro que si mi amor, lo que tu quieras.”
When I was 9, I started acting in plays in Mexico City. When I was 13, I told my mom I wanted to study acting in NY. Again she smiled, and said: “Si corazon.” I continued to pursue acting in Mexico making my parents drive me around the city for casting calls. Oh, they hated it! Let’s face it: it sucks — being stuck in traffic to go sit at a casting office for hours to get seen for 5 minutes… who wants to do that? I did, and my parents without knowing what they were getting into, agreed to take me.
When it was time to look into colleges, again I told my mom I wanted to study acting in New York. This time she didn’t smile… nor did she frown. She just had that look people have when we realize that something is for real, that that something is actually happening… the look a parent has when they find out their child is moving miles away from home at age 18.
This time she said (in Spanish), “You really want to move to the U.S.?” I said: “Oh, yes. To New York City!” So we started looking at schools in New York. Schools in New York were insanely expensive, especially for international students. My cousin had gone to Texas State University which is right outside of Austin; she studied theater there, and loved it. Texas has a program in which Mexican students can study in Texas and pay tuition as Texan residents. Awesome! I visited the school, loved it, and the next year I was moving to the US. NY was still in my agenda though.
I graduated college, and immediately after, packed my things and moved to New York. There was never any doubt in my mind that New York was the right place for me. I was back in a big city, thank God! Moving from the giant Mexico City to a college town outside of Austin is a little hard, okay, really hard, but New York and Mexico City are much more alike; it feels closer to home. Plus, there are a ton of Mexicans here! And we have REAL Mexican food here, not that Tex-Mex stuff.
I love New York. You can get a taste of every culture here — I don’t know anywhere else in the world where this happens.
And now: a word about technical design from Producer Allison Taylor.
One of the great challenges of putting together an off-off-Broadway production in New York City is figuring out how to make it look good.
Consider this: our production of By the Dawn’s Early Light will “load-in” to the theater next Monday. That means it’s the first time that our actors will rehearse in the space with all of the set pieces, props, and costumes. (That will also be the first time our lighting designer, Jordan Acosta, will get to focus the lights and create a design for the show.) While we do have all day at Theatre Row on that Monday, we only have Tuesday and Wednesday evening to rehearse on our stage… and then on Thursday, we open.
It’s a quick turn around, and not uncommon for most indie theater here in New York. And the only way to deal with this time crunch is to be amazingly organized. I can’t say I’m amazingly organized, but luckily, our set designer Adam Kaynan is.
We worked with Adam last year on our production of As Is — Adam created the remarkable artwork for the show. This year, he is taking on the set design for By the Dawn’s Early Light. When we asked him if he was interested in designing, without skipping a beat he smirked and remarked, “Yeah sure… I love a challenge.”
Perhaps the greatest challenge of the show is that it’s actually two shows… two different one-acts with no common scenic design overlap. The one saving grace is that “Los Embruajdos” takes place on one single set (in the Windows on the World restaurant). But the second one-act, “Midnight Mass,” includes multiple locations including two different apartments, a basement, and a church. To depict these multiple places, Adam went with a sleek and minimalist approach, employing furniture that could take on multiple uses. Another great challenge for Adam was our director Walter’s preference to build a raised platform.
In the photos above, you can check out the design scheme for By the Dawn’s Early Light. Needless to say, Adam is a remarkable artist in his preparedness and creativity. But in order to appreciate his talents best, we of COURSE hope you come see the show and see the set for yourself.
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!
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.
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Apple Core Theater Company produces emotional, entertaining plays by American writers. Valuing the immediacy and intimacy of theater, we strive to present plays that cut down to the core and go straight to the heart. Believing that theater should be accessible to all people, we are committed to providing affordable theater to New York City.
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