Who has two thumbs and a lot of recent press time? um, see the title of this post!
1) My article Equity: Year One is now available on the Theatre Bay Area website. If you didn't already read it in the print edition of the magazine, let me know what you think!
2) Rachel Swan of the East Bay Express quotes me in last week's cover story, The Shrinking Stage, and mentions the Counting Actor's project in an article from a few weeks ago, that you can read here.
3) Playwright Lauren Gunderson has an article on onstage gender equity in the Huffington Post, and includes a shout-out to Counting Actors as well! Take a look!
Thanks to the writers and publications for including me and the blog in their writing!
the day to day of a professional actor in the San Francisco Bay Area
mostly the day to day of a professional actor in the San Francisco Bay Area, but also the home of the Counting Actors Project
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
The Art of Fielding
It's a novel about college baseball players. The main character is a shortstop and a significant portion of the action centers around games, practice, training and players on the team talking with each other.
Yet in this debut novel by Chad Harbach, I found some great images and metaphors for the actor's day to day experiences. I'm having trouble writing much more without giving away big spoilers to what happens.
Here's an image that sticks with me - this shortstop character, Henry, has a post-game ritual. He goes onto the field w/a coach and a first baseman and fields 50 ground balls. The coach hits them to him, and he catches them and throws to first. 50 times.
And his focus, his interest, his reason for doing it, is for the action. For the love of scooping a baseball off the ground and throwing it to someone else. It's not about the result, about what happens after that, it's just about doing that one thing, doing it to the best of his ability and then doing it again.
Sound familiar?
Yet in this debut novel by Chad Harbach, I found some great images and metaphors for the actor's day to day experiences. I'm having trouble writing much more without giving away big spoilers to what happens.
Here's an image that sticks with me - this shortstop character, Henry, has a post-game ritual. He goes onto the field w/a coach and a first baseman and fields 50 ground balls. The coach hits them to him, and he catches them and throws to first. 50 times.
And his focus, his interest, his reason for doing it, is for the action. For the love of scooping a baseball off the ground and throwing it to someone else. It's not about the result, about what happens after that, it's just about doing that one thing, doing it to the best of his ability and then doing it again.
Sound familiar?
Monday, April 2, 2012
Counting Actors, March 2012
Here are the stats on the 8 shows counted in March. To learn more about this project, including how to contribute, visit this page. To read all the posts in this series, going back to June 2011, go here.
8 shows counted:
SF Playhouse/The Aliens
Shotgun Players/Voyage
Berkeley Playhouse/Pirates of Penzance (notable in this production: The Pirate King was played by an African-American woman)
Collage Theater/Box City
Intersection&Campo Santo/Tree City Legends (this production included 2m musicians and 1f musician not counted below)
Diablo Theater Company/Legally Blonde
RetroDome/Becoming Britney
CentralWorks/Mesmeric Revelations
The Stats:
5 male directors, 3 female directors
8 male writers, 4 female writers (this number includes the lyrics, book, and music writers for musicals Penzance, Blonde and Britney)
96 total actors
54 male actors, 42 female actors
10 union actors, 86 non-union actors
6 male union actors, 4 female union actors
92 local actors, 4 non-local actors
Thanks to Dan Wilson, Karen Thompson Hall, Phoebe Moyer, Eva Rebane, Lauren Bloom and Darl Andrew Packard for sharing stats with me.
Look for April stats between May 1st and May 5th. And if you're working on a show or see a show with performances in April, please take a moment to share the info.
Check it out! The East Bay Express has an article about gender imbalance and local theater. Thanks Rachel Swan for mentioning the blog in your article!
8 shows counted:
SF Playhouse/The Aliens
Shotgun Players/Voyage
Berkeley Playhouse/Pirates of Penzance (notable in this production: The Pirate King was played by an African-American woman)
Collage Theater/Box City
Intersection&Campo Santo/Tree City Legends (this production included 2m musicians and 1f musician not counted below)
Diablo Theater Company/Legally Blonde
RetroDome/Becoming Britney
CentralWorks/Mesmeric Revelations
The Stats:
5 male directors, 3 female directors
8 male writers, 4 female writers (this number includes the lyrics, book, and music writers for musicals Penzance, Blonde and Britney)
96 total actors
54 male actors, 42 female actors
10 union actors, 86 non-union actors
6 male union actors, 4 female union actors
92 local actors, 4 non-local actors
Thanks to Dan Wilson, Karen Thompson Hall, Phoebe Moyer, Eva Rebane, Lauren Bloom and Darl Andrew Packard for sharing stats with me.
Look for April stats between May 1st and May 5th. And if you're working on a show or see a show with performances in April, please take a moment to share the info.
Check it out! The East Bay Express has an article about gender imbalance and local theater. Thanks Rachel Swan for mentioning the blog in your article!
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