August - 2016

Make-up Design in The Tempest

Make-up Design in The Tempest

Because Pigeon Creek's productions are so heavily doubled, the chance to do complicated stage make-up is rare. The fact our typical performance venues are small and intimate, with the front row of the audience only a few feet from the actors, means that our actor's don't need to highlight their features the way we would in a larger space and also limits what we can do in terms of effects make-up (a lot of aging techniques, for example, are based on traditional stage lighting

Putting a Performance Together

Putting a Performance Together

I’ve been thinking recently about how the performance of a play gets put together. There are the very obvious things, of course. The actor gets the script and memorizes lines, the director blocks the production and guides the actors in their portrayal, costumes are sewn, props are built, makeup is applied and so on and so forth. But there is kind of a magical, unspoken transformation that happens amongst the company members to create these amazingly complex works of art. I

Renaissance Music at The Rose Playhouse

Renaissance Music at The Rose Playhouse

I've written in the past about some of the challenges we face as modern performers when we are required to create period, or at least period-evoking music for certain performances. I’ve also reflected on what it's like to create settings for the songs in Shakespeare's plays - following in the foot-steps of the great comics, actors, & musicians of our favorite early-modern acting companies. This month I thought I'd explore the process I used to create settings for the songs

A Crash Course in Shakespeare's Histories

A Crash Course in Shakespeare's Histories

When I say I'm performing in Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, people recognize that. I generally don't have to provide much follow-up if I'm working on As You Like It or Macbeth or Julius Caesar. But when someone asks what play I'm doing right now, the answer ends up being an unnanticipated microlecture on Shakespearean history: "We're working on Henry IV, which is actually two plays we've conflated into one. It's kind of about Henry IV, who killed the previous king and stole the

Dream Roles: When They Seldom Come, They Wished For Come

Dream Roles: When They Seldom Come, They Wished For Come

For the second time in a row, the generous artists at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company have made a career-long dream of mine come true. Four years ago, I was honored to join the company for a stellar production of Antony and Cleopatra. Having previously played Antony in Julius Caesar, I had yearned for years to finish the character’s arc in its sequel. Enter Pigeon Creek, who moved heaven and earth to raise the money for an Equity contract, and have me aboard for A&C. In th

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