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!
Our wonderful photographer Joey Castillo took these great photos of “Los Embrujados” in By the Dawn’s Early Light. And of course, he also took photos of…
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.
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.
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.
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!
We had our stumble-through (in theater terms, the first run-through of a show, in which actors are most definitely stumbling around) of By the Dawn’s Early Light last night.
Here are some photos of the evening, courtesy of our delightful Associate Producer Barbara Harrison. Luckily, they don’t look like deer in headlights… at least TOO much. Click through the photos to see!
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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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