My Character

Recently, we have been working on the scenes in this production where I play Jay Bird. Getting into the head of this character, who seems like a stereotypical news reporter at first glance, has been very interesting. At first, I was frustrated that the cheesy script consistently got in the way as we struggled to play our characters honestly. Then, I decided to use the stereotypical traits to my advantage. There must be a reason that people show the traits they do that make others feel they fit a certain stereotype. I began to think, “What makes Jay Bird seem like any news reporter without many unique traits?”. I decided that his super objective, the main thing he is trying to achieve, is getting a good story. He wants to make people like his story, and this becomes a priority over communicating facts. He says many things to get everybody watching his channel to feel a certain way such as, “Can you manage a tear for the camera?”, “That’s good. Defensive yet emotional.”, “Some viewers may find this image disturbing.”, and “In a sinister new development”. He very rarely communicates actual information about the incident. Nobody cares about a whole bunch of random information, but people care about their own emotions. Jay Bird needs people to care about his stories or he will lose his job. I came to a conclusion that my character doesn’t have a lot of “human moments” because he is constantly trying not to lose his job. In fact, Jay Bird doesn’t demonstrate his true feelings about his news story until his final exit.

One challenging aspect of my character has been his transatlantic accent. The transatlantic (or midatlantic) accent was not a natural accent. Important people trained to use the dialect in the 1920’s to 1950’s since it made them sound more distinguished and was picked up by the radio waves more easily. It did not fall out of use until the late 1950’s because honesty was not the focus of performers. (Our story takes place in an early 1950’s social climate.) The artificial aspect of the accent makes it more challenging since it is hard to know how subtle to make it. Is it overdramatic to make sure that people hear my story through the radio waves? How well-trained is Jay Bird at the transatlantic accent? Does his inadequate accent contribute to the fact that he is always struggling to not be fired? Since he is the most famous television figure in the duckyard, is he one of the most stellar performers with the accent? I will continue to think about this issue as I work on my accent for future rehearsals. Another challenge has been the logistics of the accent. I wrote each of my lines into my script phonetically to help me when I was working on saying my lines with my accent, but I still have many things I am working on understanding. How much do I soften the vowels? Am I putting emphasis on every “t” or did I forget some? I am confident that I will be able to make progress with the requirements of the transatlantic accent as we continue to rehearse. At our last rehearsal, Jacob talked with me since he participates in radio news for speech contest. He told me about how they worked on putting breaths at strategic places and not breathing in places where it wouldn’t help sell your story. I thought this was a very interesting idea, and I have been working on making every single thing I do contribute to my objective.

During my second scene as Jay Bird, the scene begins with my character in the middle of giving a live broadcast about the disappearance of Ugly. Every movement I make is supposed to contribute to making the story more dramatic than it is. Kivan encouraged me to watch Robert Stack as the host of Unsolved Mysteries. It really helped me think about how to make every aspect of the production, my television show, contribute to the story. It also gave me a concept of what tactics I could use when my character tries to tell a story in the most interesting way. I am going to build off of these ideas to create my own way of being a news reporter. One of the dangers of watching other performers is losing your originality and honesty and trying to copy them instead. I will try my hardest to remain honest, even when I am getting ideas from another actor. When we blocked my scenes Kivan challenged me with many fascinating ideas. He made me think, “Does Jay Bird start to care about the story when Ida gets involved? When he sees the affect this situation has had on Drake does he start to care? Does he always have selfish motives?” I decided that Jay Bird is always trying to get a good story when he is on camera, but as soon as he is not being seen by the general public he has true emotions. He is no longer at risk of losing his job. I used this idea when I decided that he would show his true feeling about the issue after he is done filming the episode he is working on. He doesn’t care a lot about what is actually happening within the story, but he sees that Drake is suffering when his wife is gone and shows sympathy. I think that most people would have to feel compassion toward Drake when he is in the state that he is.

I am having a blast exploring this character and the other animals that I play as I am sharing the story of Honk!. I am trying to put equal consideration into my parts when I am playing characters in the ensemble, such as a farmyard animal, a frog, and a father duck. I am so excited to keep on exploring this show and watching everybody explore their characters. I am amazed at every rehearsal by what we are accomplishing as an ensemble.

Ben Siegel

Jay Bird

Listen ...

       In rehearsals, we are always doing something. If we’re not working on a scene, we’re in the workshop practicing dances and music, work-shopping scenes, or working on creating an efficient ensemble. In Wednesday’s rehearsal, while Ugly and the Ducklings were working a scene, the rest of the ensemble was doing an exercise to help with listening. We had to count as high as we could with one person saying a number at a time. No overlapping. We had our eyes closed so we couldn’t signal or look around to see who was going to say a number. This got me thinking. What would a show be if nobody listened?

In the rehearsal process it is crucial to listen during every step. If you ignore what the director says or what’s going on in the other scenes, then you won’t have any idea what to do. And if you’re confused, the performances of the other actors can be hindered. If you don’t listen during performances, you’ll miss your cues. From my experiences, this is one of the worst things that can happen during a show. When a person misses a cue it causes the other actors to improvise, until they come on. But possibly the most important time to listen is onstage. Listening while in scene helps keep your acting honest. What I mean by honesty is that by listening to the people in your scene with you and discovering it anew every time you can make your acting seem more realistic. Without this type of listening, acting would just be someone reading lines from a script with no emotion or meaning behind the words. And that would just be boring.

So, if no actors listened, then plays would just be confused people saying random words on a stage. But it only takes one. As I mentioned earlier, if you miss a cue or just don’t know what to do, the other actors onstage must make do and improvise, which is hard to do, but possible. But if you don’t listen in your scene, there isn’t anything that other actors can do about that. It’s like they say, a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

When I thought of this I got worried. Is this how easily something that we worked on for months could come down? With just one person? Then I realized, no, it won’t all fall apart. Because every person here at STC is just as good as the next. No link is any weaker than another. I am constantly amazed when I see younger actors and actresses, new to theater, acting just as well, onstage and off, as my friends from STC that I’ve known for years. At Story Theater Company, everyone is a strong link, therefore we have a strong chain which is very hard to break.

Zander Reed
Greylag

Act One Take One

         I always reflect about the first run-through of a show because it is such an interesting time in the process of creating the show. We have finished the basic scene work, and we are about to begin a difficult process of tweaking and editing every scene to the best possible way of sharing that moment. We got to the initial run-through of Act 1 much quicker than we have for any other show I have been in. Though that creates the risk of creating moments hastily and not slowly building scenes to their full potential, I do not feel that this was the case. In fact, this was probably the most successful first run-through I have been a part of, and the fact that we are already to the staging of Act 2 will give us time to work each scene until we create the most beautiful retelling of The Ugly Duckling.

Now that I know how to do the dance moves in the opening number of the show, A Poultry Tale,  I began thinking about my character in the scene. Everybody is sharing with the audience and letting them know that their life is perfect in their “patch behind the farmhouse”. There are several moments in the song that demonstrate otherwise, such as the cat discussing her plan to eat the ducklings and the entire ensemble doing chores at the beginning of the show. I am still working towards mastery of the dances in the show, but I decided that I would focus on trying to actively pursue an objective as I did the choreography that was crafted for the song. I thought it was interesting that adding what seemed like it would be an extra burden (acting the song well) made doing the staging easier. I felt that it was easier to move with a purpose driven by my character, instead of moving because Elizabeth asked us to move. It also made me feel more confident with the choreography to be focusing on getting a point across, instead of making sure every move was precise.

Overall, I thought that there was very strong listening during the run-through. As Kivan said at the end of the rehearsal, the duckling ensemble is amazing, especially when it comes to listening. They are always playing off each other and it is evident in their performance. They impressed me a lot today because they all did the same thing together, but they all seemed to have an objective behind their action. Each individual duckling seemed to be driven to bully Ugly, but they also took ideas off of each other to improve their performance. I watched them stage “Look at Him” and they have already made significant improvements from a few days ago. One of the most amazing things about the run-through was that nobody seemed to have decided exactly how they were going to say their line before the run-through. Typically, most people fall into a routine and say their line the same way they always do, instead of listening really hard and responding to their partner in the most honest way. This is one of the biggest challenges I am facing as an actor, and I will continue to work on always being honest. This is also one of the biggest challenges for many shows, and I think that the risk of losing honesty becomes greater as we get farther into the show. Everybody was saying their line in a way that made sense because of what their partner did. I am going to do my best to maintain honesty all the way to the last curtain call, and I am sure the rest of the cast will too.

 I felt that there was some fascinating character development that was demonstrated and some places where the acting needed to be worked. We just staged the show and we were still trying to remember the blocking and timing of the things we did in the show. I think that character development will be demonstrated more in upcoming rehearsals when we have more time to talk about acting and I think that it will be very beneficial when we have a chance to go through everything and look at the specifics of the acting. Making sure that we dig to the roots of our characters is a challenge that we will face throughout the process of creating this story. I also felt that there were some moments where very clear choices were made and you could really see what was driving the character to make certain decisions. When Asher sings “Different”, he has very clear moments when his thoughts are directed at himself and when they are directed towards the ducklings.

I know that we are going to embrace the challenges that this show brings us and continue to make many discoveries as we stage Act 2.

Ben Siegel

(Jay Bird)

Our Ugly Ducklings

               When I tell people that I’m in a musical called Honk, most wonder if it’s some concept musical about cars. “Nope. Not even close. I’m pretty sure cars are not the only thing that honk,” I tell them. I take my time and explain that it’s an adaptation of the notorious Ugly Duckling. Everyone knows the story of The Ugly Duckling. We’ve all read or heard about how the ugly duckling isn’t actually a duck at all, but a swan. The ugly duckling shows us how beautiful our differences are. Before entering the show, this is all I saw. It’s truly a heartwarming story. But after exploring the show with my fellow ensemble, I’ve been able to see the story in a way that I never had before.

               Ugly is just different. Along Ugly’s journey, he meets those who accept his differences, and those who don’t. We not only see this in The Ugly Duckling, but in the real world as well. Many are rejected by the popular and accepted by the few. People like having someone to look down on. I know I do. It gives us security. So the moral of the story is very clear to those who are rejected by society: differences are what make us who we are and differences are what make us beautiful. But what about people who aren’t really that different? Now you must understand that I am definitely not normal, but I’m not really discriminated against in any way. I, Josh Gartin, am a tall, white, teenage male. So what am I supposed to get from the story?

               In The Ugly Duckling, Ugly’s mom, the frog, and the family of swans are the only people who like Ugly at first. It takes everyone else some time to realize that Ugly’s not so bad. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the frog and the swans are some of the most outwardly different characters in the story. I also don’t think that Ugly is the only focus of the story. Honk is a hard script because most of us who are in the show are given such stereotypical characters -- the “ordinary” people. The only problem is that nobody is actually “ordinary.” So we have to develop our characters in our own way to make them un-ordinary.

   People who are considered ordinary are really just hiding their differences. Throughout the story, we see good and bad examples of how to treat people who are different. Because everyone is truly different, we are given a choice on how to treat the 10% of obviously different people as well as the other 90%.

   In The Ugly Duckling, we are shown two things. Our differences are what make us beautiful and we’re shown how to treat those around us because everyone is different and beautiful.

  I’ve been in many Story Theater Company shows. I know when a show is going to be good. This show will be spectacular!

Josh Gartin

(Barnacles)

My first Story Theater Experience

Honk Jr. is my first show with Story Theater Company and I have to say, I am absolutely in love with STC and acting. What I love most about Honk is that already I’ve gained so much from it. With Honk, it’s not a very well known musical, which means we can come up with our own ideas. It’s not as easy to watch youtube videos or rely on previous knowledge. We are able to communicate and come up with ideas of our own, which will put a more unique and personal addition to the story.

So far in rehearsals, I can already see a lot of the development in our characters. The choreography that we have for one of the songs Poultry Tale is so set on the story, I can already imagine the characters clearly and feel all their vibes. It’s amazing how much choreography and story we can have in just one song.

We have Elizabeth to thank for our choreography success. The first time I heard Kivan say her name, everyone started jumping for joy. I didn’t know exactly why because I never had met her, but once I did I knew. Elizabeth, like all the leaders in Honk, are so amazing. They make theater fun and are so caring. Yet when things need to be done they get it done, and teach us well.

Story Theater Company’s environment is amazing. It feels like home. This is my first show, but I have already made so many new friends. Everybody at STC is so welcoming, and it’s easy to get along with everyone because the community is so set on learning about theater. Nobody judges you when you sing and everybody is open to new ideas.

Along with our warm ups, we have been doing several exercises that teaches us about theater elements. So far we have learned about Tempo and shape. With Tempo we are able to put in more emotion into our character. Whether it is slowly walking towards our beloved or running away from danger, it’s how we make those movements that allows us to play into the emotions. With Shape, we have to think not how to move with our shape, but how our shape would move. These exercises tie in with the acting which teaches us how to fully develop into our character. How our character moves, feels, thinks, and learning how to show that to our audience will make Honk Jr. an even better production.

I truly believe that Honk will be an amazing show. I can’t wait to continue discovering our character’s roles and learn more about theater history and theater in general. I am excited and proud to be a part of this great production, and I can’t wait to grow more as an actor.

Anika Slowing

(Ensemble)

"My Seventh Show"

We always start rehearsal with warm ups and stretches. It’s a chance for all of us to get focused and get ready for what we are going to do that day. During warm ups, we also learn helpful skills that will help us with staging, like tempo and our shapes. Learning shape and tempo during warm ups helps us discover how our characters would move. Warm ups give us a chance to forget the rest of our problems from outside and just focus on rehearsal. What happens during warm ups sets the stage for the rest of the rehearsal. After we’re done, we start on the agenda for the rehearsal.

This is my seventh show with STC, and I’ve loved each one of them. Every show I’ve been in has been a learning opportunity. I’ve learned all the basics of staging; downstage, upstage, plains, and levels. All the information that I’ve learned carries from one show to the next. Story Theater Company has always focused on learning about acting as well as putting on the show. This show is no different. During this staging process we will be learning about musical theatre; it's history and terms. So far we’ve learned about the three different types of musicals. There’s jukebox, book, and concept musicals. Honk is a book musical, which is the most story-centric. I’m really excited to be able to learn more about it as we embark on our own musical theatre journey throughout Honk.    

Kendra Caufield

(Ensemble)

Initial Exploring

This is my eighth show at Story Theater Company, and I have never had the same experience twice. That is one of the most beautiful things about every show at Story Theater Company. We discover the show together. Everybody is story-centric and everything we do is story-centric. We take the time to discover the best way to tell the story and explore several options. I have been in productions where the director decides how the show is going to look at tells you what to do in order to make it look that way, but Kivan has a loose concept for the show and allows us to the discover the show together. A show is much more engaging for an audience if it is relatable to real circumstances, and you can’t tell that kids are just on stage “performing”.  In most children’s theaters, they create stereotypical and corny shows, but I think that the level of discovery that we have at Story Theater Company overcomes that obstacle that every children's theater faces.

We began to explore at the very first rehearsal, the read-through. In a typical read-through the cast sits down together and reads their lines. Unfortunately, this form of a read-through makes people think about how to say their line well, instead of how their character reacts to others and contributes to the story. There is also the constant temptation to get bored and stop leaning in whenever it isn’t “your scene”. To avoid things like this that are harmful to exploring the show, our initial read-through involved more discoveries since we used a different format. We used the rehearsal space as a playing space. We would go into the playing space when our character was on stage. You said your lines, but you also moved and could see connections with other characters. This was a much more fascinating method since it was easier to visualize everybody’s ideas coming into the show. Everybody inhabited their characters in fascinating ways, and I know that this cast will be capable of finding the most interesting way to combine their characters and ideas into a new and amazing telling of Honk!.

You could also see relationships between characters through the way they interacted with each other in the playing space and the amount of space they put between themself. For example, Penny and Ugly stood much closer to each other at the end than they did at the beginning since their relationship began to blossom throughout the show. I also thought it was very interesting that there was already so much energy and commitment coming from characters. This read-through really demonstrated to me how much of a difference having a lot of energy can have on your performance. People like Parker McIntosh and Zander Reed blew me away during the first-rehearsal, and I realized as I reflected on the day that they were also the people who were constantly focusing a ton of energy towards the story.

On Saturday, we had our first choreography rehearsal. When I heard that Elizabeth was coming back to do our choreography I was so excited and so was everybody else. Elizabeth has spectacular ideas for the choreography, and I was very impressed by the fact that everybody always was doing something and there was always a reason behind it. However, this choreography has led to a lot of challenges for me. I have minimal dance experience and struggle to get into a place where the dancing is natural. I tend to hold a lot of tension in my body, so I worked a lot to find that “natural place”. I will continue to work hard at learning, mastering, and enjoying the dances in this show.

I am thrilled to continue to explore this production open-mindedly.

Ben Siegel

(Jay Bird)

(