Building a House with No 4th Wall – a throwback

Tags

Acting, Art Theory, fourth wall, House Theatre, Theatre

The first blog post I ever wrote was inspired by a project I worked on with the HOUSE Theatre, just over two years ago.  One could say I “drank the punch” that summer; I bought into this fully and, though the writing is a LITTLE pretentious, still think I agree with what is written here.

“Working with the folks from the House on Girls vs Boys has rocked my world and led me to question so much of what I assume to be true in the theatre. One of the biggest questions this process has raised for me centers around the idea of the 4th wall; having hidden myself and my work behind the 4th wall for the entirety of my theatrical exploration, I have found that building the courage to break it has required a total shift in my understanding of my social role as an artist.

Where better to start the exploration than at the source of the question?

The House’s Mission is “To unite Chicago in the spirit of Community through amazing feats of Storytelling.” With the goal of community at the center of the mission, and some brilliant minds behind the development of the company, what could be better than to take part in reaching this goal?

Here is some insight into how I have come to find myself (through somewhat mathematical “reasoning” and reasonless “feeling”) backing this team in their quest to drop bombs, burn faces, and tear down (4th) walls.

The human struggle for community is certainly universal and is at the source of the gambit of live entertainment. After-all, sports and theatre fill similar human needs: the need for excitement, the need to live vicariously, the need to find a place in the world. Why, then do we in the theatre find usefulness in ignoring the audience and limiting their effect on the energy and content of a performance, when athletes thrive off the give-and-take of energy that the audience provides?

Perhaps what we have been taught by past generations is holding us back. Perhaps in our current performance formula lies one fatal flaw of Theatre, an art and community event that can sadly struggle to pull in 100 fans on a Saturday night, when sports stadiums across the country pack in hundreds of thousands of people each day.

We are getting to a point where “the audience just doesn’t get it” is no longer an expectable excuse for low tickets sales. Lets not hide ourselves in our tradition; lets learn from the football players, who, with a pump of a fist can grab the attention and affection of thousands, and with a smile to the stands can give a father and son a memory worth more than the price of a ticket.
In the theatre we like to assume that the audience, in SEEING the performers, will RELATE to the performers. We assume that by SHOWING we are SHARING. We hope that the audience will leave somehow feeling a relationship to the characters, despite our lack of any attempt as characters to reciprocate that relationship. We expect the audience to be changed by the experience without letting our guard down enough to be changed by the audience. We hide ourselves behind a 4th wall, cutting ourselves off from the possibility of a symbiotic relationship between ourselves and the audience.

Then there is the House. With encouragement in every step of the process to connect with the audience, there is no excuse to leave a performance without lasting memories of minutely changing lives and having your lives changed.

At this point theory takes a backseat to practice; I could tell you how I think this all works. But rather… Story!

During the pre-show festivities of one of our early performances, I came across the courage to introduce myself to some of the older members of an audience riddled with teenagers, family members, and friends. Though quickly running down the time before curtain I managed to squeeze in an introduction and a brief exchange of words about the importance and hopeful universality of the themes of the show.

Then… Performance.

During the last song of the show, while singing about the necessity of taking chances in love and friendship, I met eyes with one of the women with which I had shared that brief conversation.

She smiled as if to say, “I understand; I’ve been there.”

THAT IS WHAT I FRIKIN’ LIVE FOR.

To be honest, the names of my new friends quickly faded from my mind, as did their friendly faces. That smile, that understanding, that connection though…

THAT is what Theatre needs to be. THAT is what makes it all worth-while.

Or something.”
SMQ

My Sundown – A Music Video of sorts

Tags

A Cappella, Audio, Guitar, Homewood Flossmoor, Jimmy Eat World, Music Video, My Sundown

I know many of you may have already seen this somewhere on the youtube or my facebook, but I wanted to get it up on my blog nonetheless.  I am just finishing another video of “Somewhere North” by Caedmon’s Call that I think is turning out well. Look for that by the end of the week.

This was a video I made last year during a week of “free time” – it was a song that my Barbershop Quintet did in high school and I have loved it ever since. As you can tell I HARDLY play instruments, though I do the best I can.

This was done using Garage Band and Imovie – both free with the mac you are probably reading this on.  I use a midi microphone and stock effects.

And one for the memories -

 

Thanks for listening -

SMQ

Intro to Illustrator – Making a Simple Vector Portrait

Tags

graphic design, illustrator, portrait, vector, Visual Art

Ever thought you might like to try graphic design?

For actors and anyone working in the arts, a BASIC knowledge of graphic design can go a long way – I guarantee that even as a beginner you will find a use for your skills, be it designing for a low budget not-for-profit, making programs or invitations for events, or even just having the capacity to design and build your own website or promotional materials.  Although the Adobe Suite may seem a bit intimidating (and rightfully so) there is a great deal that can be done in these programs without much training at all; take a few hours one day to try some online tutorials on Photoshop or Illustrator and I think you will understand what I mean – the majority of work I have ever needed to do in any Adobe program could be learned in an introductory course.

For this project I made a very quick, simple vector-based portrait using Adobe Illustrator.  (THIS is actually the program to use for graphic design – Photoshop, not surprisingly, is designed with photo editing, not design, in mind).  This tutorial is HARDLY all-encompassing – if it sparks your creativity and you want to know more or need a question answered, please feel free to ask!

When dealing in graphic design you will encounter two main kinds of artwork – vector and raster based.  To over-simplify, VECTOR artwork can be expanded to any size without a loss in quality; that is not the case with raster-based art.  When designing logos or marketing materials that may need to be repurposed or resized, vector-based is the way to go. If you want to know more, click here for a more detailed explanation.

SMQ

Chair Art – Recycling at its Best

Tags

Furniture, Thrift, Visual Art, Wall Art

I came home from work one day last week feeling more than usually “artistic” and made it my goal to start a project – any project – when I happened upon this horrid dumpster which, along with about 25 mail trucks, defines my “back yard.”

In the horrid dumpster I found a horrid chair – just crappy enough, I thought, to make into some beautiful artwork.

For those of you following along at home, I’ll do my best to outline the steps of this very complicated process.

Step 1: Break the Chair - For this I used my strength and the sweet Mikita drill I bought on Black Friday (this is clearly the “heavy lifting” that the company intended for the drill).

Step 2: Figure out what in the world to do with the broken chair - I wanted this project to take up the space above my bed; knowing it needed to lay relatively flat and take up a decent amount of space limited my use to the 2 sides of the chair.  Surprisingly, putting them together gave me a decent starting place – if nothing else it fit the 2 criteria: flat and spacious. Not a bad start if I do say so myself.

Now as much as I loved my chair-art, I thought it could use a little something-something…

Step 3: Pimp the Chair – I had some candles and other pretty things lying around that I decided to put to use here.  They did a decent job of re-purposing the wall-chair into a shrine of sorts, but a trip to the Saturday Market in Portland (with the partial purpose of accessorizing the wall-chair) was what really did the trick.

From the market I purchased a) 1 string of BEAUTIFUL photos by Ryan at LittlePutShop and b) 8 small candles from David at Cycle of Gold.

The candles were hand made with wax from David’s bees; though they are just dangling for the moment, I may eventually drill holes into the horizontal parts of the chair-art, and display them proudly, like a little row of tiny soldiers.  For the moment, though, I am rethinking this chair-menora.

As I expected, the awesome stuff I got at the market was just what the wall chair needed.  You have to admit – this looks surprisingly good on my wall.

Don’t want to buy art?  Make it yourself -

S_M_Q