Andrew Wade acting

State of the Person Address – August 2011

Life keeps rolling forward!

With a future move to Vancouver on the horizon (without a job or a place to stay yet in place), my needing to leave the house I’m currently living in right in the middle of Victoria Fringe, my pushing to spend valuable time with people in Victoria before my soft exit, and all my many theatrical ventures, life is full and busy and excellent.

Here’s what I have on my plate:

BFA: The Musical!
    • BFA: The Musical! – I am directing this show as part of the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival. It is a fun, silly musical surrounding graduates with shiny new Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees coming to terms with the fact that having a degree does not make you immediately a ‘local celebrity’. The show comes complete with a brilliant seven person cast, a fine tech crew, original and local music, dancing, large props, and much silliness. It is a blast to work on.
William vs. The World

William vs. The World – A few new venues opened up, which has let me sneak in my one man show into The Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival!

  • William vs. The World is a hilarious, geeky adventure surrounding that narcissistic guy at the hobbies store who knows the world revolves around him. With Chuck, his trusty cactus, at his side, William is happy… until – to his horror – a woman falls for him, the All-Spark fails him, his life falls apart, and William loses himself in Bat Country. Through it all, he may become a better person. Maybe.
  • Previously work-shopped through UVic‘s Festival for Innovative and New Drama (FIND) and performed at this year’s UFV Director’s Festival, William vs. The World layers references to He-Man, Transformers, Spider-man, Serenity, The Ghost-busters, and pop culture with a frantic, manic character study of a man desperately clinging on to a life that may not be as grand as he suggests it is.
  • Venue:Venue 12 – Canadian College of Performing Arts (CCPA) – 1701 Elgin Road, Victoria, BC
  • Show times:
    Thu, Aug 25 – 8:30pm
    Fri, Aug 26 – 7:45pm
    Sat, Aug 27 – 6:00pm
    Thu, Sept 1 – 5:30pm
    Sat, Sept 3 – Noon
    Sun, Sept 4 – 5:30pm
  • Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=249348868426429
Sonnets for an Old Century

Sonnets for an Old Century – Completing my triumvirate of Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival shows, as of a few days ago, I am Stage Managing this show, written by José Rivera, a two-time Obie Award-winning playwright and Academy Award-nominated screenplay writer. Which is pretty darn sweet.

  • I am delighted to get to work again with so many great people in Victoria’s acting community, from Holly Jonson, to Mily Mumford, to Shaan Rahman, to Bill Nance, to Alan Penty (who also features in BFA: The Musical!).
  • Venue:Venue 8 – Langham Court Theatre – 805 Langham Crt, Victoria, BC
  • Show times:
    Fri., Aug 26, 5:45
    Sat., Aug 27, 7:45
    Sun., Aug 28, 9:45
    Wed., Aug 31, 9:00
    Fri., Sept 2, 5:30
    Sun., Sept 4, 12:45 pm
  • Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139905722760543
Photo by Sarah Koury

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – Come drink tea with the Mad Hatter!

  • Share his journey into Wonderland – and his descent into madness – in an overly, underly, and aroundly eager show full of storytelling, songs, audience participation, improv, silliness, gravitas, and grins. Whether it’s your unbirthday or your actual one, this is one show it would be mad to miss!
    Tea is provided, but if you can, please bring your own cup.
  • Venue: Studio 1398 on Granville Island!
  • Show times:
    Fri Sep 09 = 22:15 to 23:05
    Sat Sep 10 = 16:30 to 17:20
    Sun Sep 11 = 13:00 to 13:50
    Mon Sep 12 = 18:45 to 19:35
    Thu Sep 15 = 20:30 to 21:20
    Sat Sep 17 = 20:00 to 20:50
  • Good Night Harold! – A night of long-form improv from some of the cast of Sin City Improv!
  • Theatreshorts – Possibly my last Victoria Theatreshorts!
  • 4Villains.org – Acting in roles for the 4Villains webseries/organization. Thus far, I have played Master Malevolent and The Green Gear for them.

    • Venue: www.4villains.org
    • Show Dates: The first episode should go up by the end of the year.
  • PirateAdventures.ca – Acting and improvising as a pirate, leading children and adults on a pirate adventure based out of Fisherman’s Wharf. Currently only for one or two days per week.
    • Venue: Fisherman’s Wharf
    • Show Dates: Intermittent shifts until I leave town in early September.
  • Unsound Innocence – Acting as a lawyer in a shortish film by HTVBC– excellent and crazy Hungarians who run a non-profit film company in their spare time. We wrap shooting on Saturday, hopefully.
    • Venue: Film Festivals
    • Show Dates: Unknown!
  • Steinway Grand – Also with HTVBC, this one will be a huge and exciting acting challenge for me – acting in a two-hander film.
    • Venue: Film Festivals
    • Show Dates: Should start filming whenever I can jump back to Victoria in Sept/October, I assume!
  • Vancouver Young Playwrights Competiton / IGNITE! 2012, for The Romantics – I won 1st prize with my play, The Romantics. The prize comes with mentorship by a Vancouver playwright from November through March, and a performance in the festival come May.

    • Venue: Probably The Cultch.
    • Show Dates: Performs in May of 2012.
  • Auditions, auditions, auditions! – Auditioning throughout Vancouver and Victoria. Many ferry rides, trying to secure something, acting-wise, for beyond September. No luck thus far. Which is to be expected. I need to work more on my auditioning prowess.

    • Venue: Mostly Vancouver.
    • Show Dates: Never ends. NEVER, EVER, EVER.

The future beyond September is a blank slate, but the next month and a half will be a wild, exciting adventure! Writing, acting, directing, and stage managing for Victoria Fringe (spread over three shows)! Performing a DIFFERENT show for Vancouver Fringe (why, Andrew, why?)! Looking for work and a place to live in Vancouver!

Life is joyous, hectic fun.

Cheers,
Andrew Wade

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Andrew Wade acting

What I learned: Acting this term

Snapshots on a few things I learned this past term, outside of class time…

Cover of "This Property Is Condemned"
Cover of This Property Is Condemned

What I learned from acting in This Property Is Condemned:

  • To always play my characters as being intelligent – as having intelligence behind their eyes. By doing so, I immediately become more observant, and look for new tactics and ‘ins’ in order to achieve my objectives. And eyes are the windows to the soul, after all. Gotta open up the curtains.
  • Playing objectives strongly (which means knowing them really well, first), creates better, stronger listening.
  • You’re listening for what you want to get.
  • Sometimes, it works to, before a performance, embody all the pain another character feels in order to get them in the right place – to interrogate them, mock them, demand of them, belittle them. This was hard for me.
  • Directly resulting from the prior thought, sometimes you’ve just got to let the gal REALLY HIT YOU before a show for her to really get into the emotional truth of her character. Thankfully, TPiC wasn’t a long run. 😛
  • When the audience reacts/distracts, listen even more intently to your scene partner.
  • React. Even if that means the blocking changes. If this feels too uncomfortable, you may not really know your character well enough, or be listening strongly enough.
  • When you listen for ways, avenues, possibilities to pursue your objectives, the show will work.

 

 

Picnic
Image by Mark Sardella via Flickr

What I learned from acting in a scene from Picnic:

  • My instinct is to shy away from the sleaziness of a character, to not play it, even when it’s there in the text. There’s a difference between being an advocate for your character and ignoring what’s on the page. Learn to revel in the sleaze. 🙂
  • I realize I am now perfectly comfortable kissing someone while in character. Back in high school, I wished I would get cast in certain roles so that I could do a stage kiss, because I didn’t have nearly the courage to kiss someone in the real world. Would have been nerve-wracking, back then. But I am older, wiser, more experienced now. I’ve even occasionally kissed in real life! 😛

 

 

Mike Novick
Image via Wikipedia

What I learned from acting in Titus Andronicus:

  • Audiences are less likely to laugh than usual, after just witnessing a 15-year-old girl be raped and have her tongue cut out and thrown at a tree.
  • Don’t try push the comedy. Didn’t work.
  • Running on several nights of 5 hours of sleep makes it difficult for me to pay attention to everything happening onstage and get my lines out with decent pacing.
  • For certan roles, it’s fine to start finding them by using characteristics from a pre-set template. In my case, I modeled the minor character Aemilius, a government bureaucrat who crowns Lucius as emperor, after Mike Novick from The Jack Bauer Power Hour (aka, 24). Piercing eyes, stern disposition, primary desire is the stability of the administration.
  • Fellow collaborators muchly appreciate personalized thank you cards. 🙂

 

 

What I learned from acting in a scene from A Doll’s House:

Alla Nazimova and Alan Hale, Sr. in a photo fr...
Image via Wikipedia
  • (note: last year, I had performed the exact same scene, but as the woman, Kristine Linde (in a corset, no less), whereas this time, I was playing it as Krogstad.)
  • I have a better recollection of the lines my scene partners say than I thought I did! Didn’t take long at all to get back into the words of the scene.
  • It is A-OK to experiment with different blocking options each time you run the scene, so long as the director knows that’s what you’re doing, and so long as you’re keeping aware in the moment of each decision and feeling which one works best.
  • Sometimes you need to give your scene partner permission to touch you.
  • I’m getting better at seeing when I, or my scene partners, aren’t following through on our impulses. Figuring out why that is, requires communication.

 

 

Credit: Dave Morris?

What I learned from assorted Improvised Theatre shows and events and whatnot:

  • It is really satisfying to jump back into a previously created and established role, and to continue on with that person’s story and arc. Pretty much why I enjoy collaborative storytelling (often with D20s). (Die-Nasty auditions.)
  • If an opportunity seems too good to be true, take it! It may just be silly-awesome-unbelievable. (The butler gig.)
  • Some shows are doomed from the start, but if that’s the case, take a moment to assess the situation, and figure out how you can put your best effort in to make what you can of it, because the original plan just ain’t going to work. (An Impromaniacs gig where the audience had been sitting around, listening to award speeches for over two hours, and then… well, as Chris Gabel so accurately captured:

Thank you ladies and gentlemen… that concludes tonight’s awards presentation. The bar is now open and there’s cake at the back of the room. Feel free to help yourself. Oh… and now… the Impromaniacs.

  • Some nights, everything goes right. (Theatresports/Theatreshorts.)
  • Some risks pay off so much better than you ever hoped. (Improvising a song to the title of “Stars on the Horizon” at the Phoenix Coffeehouse.)
  • Theatre is ephemeral. (not having any recordings of said song. I was certainly too much in the moment to remember it. So it remains just an experience for the people in the room, as theatre, especially improvised theatre, so often is.)
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