M.F.A. Program Students Make A.C.T. Mainstage Debuts in Elektra

-

Posted by Cait Robinson, Publications Fellow

Every season, third-year students in their final year of A.C.T.’s Master of Fine Arts Program put their education into practice when they appear for the first time on The Geary stage. Elektra debuts four talented members of the class of 2013: Nick Steen and Allegra Rose Edwards are taking on major roles as Elektra’s siblings, the vengeful Orestes and the complacent Chrysothemis; Titus Tompkins is playing the less verbal part of Pylades and Rebekah Brockman is understudying the title role after recently appearing in the U.S. premiere of Happy to Stand by Sirkku Peltola at A.C.T.’s Costume Shop last month.

The cast of Elektra in rehearsal. L to R: Titus Tompkins, M.F.A. Program class of 2013, René Augesen, Anthony Fusco, Steven Anthony Jones, Nick Steen, M.F.A. Program class of 2013, and Olympia Dukakis. Photo by Dan Rubin.
The cast of Elektra includes stars, legends, and their own teachers—and the students are the first confess their initial intimidation. Steen recalls his first rehearsal, at which he was almost too nervous to speak:  “I definitely worried, ‘What can I offer this production? But when I head the other actors ask the questions that I was just too self-conscious to ask, I realized that the work of the artist is never done, and it doesn’t necessarily get easier as you get older. A.C.T. prepares us to be in the room with these leviathans and collaborate,” he says. “That is the point.”

Edwards agrees that collaborating alongside her role models has been both exciting and scary. “Over the last two years, René [Augesen] has gone from star to teacher to mentor and peer,” she says. Edwards is fascinated by the diversity of the other actors’ techniques. She describes the M.F.A. Program as “all about helping the student find what works for them as an individual actor,” and finds the importance of this confirmed by her cast mates. “Everyone meets the work in a different way and nowhere is that more apparent than in these rehearsals. But they come together to live in the same text and tell the same story.” Was she nervous? “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” she laughs. “But I could not be in better hands.”

L to R: Allegra Rose Edwards, M.F.A. Program class of 2013, with René Augesen. Photo by Dan Rubin.
Keeping our actors-in-training in good hands in essential to “Geary readiness,” the goal around which the M.F.A. Program curriculum is organized. Conservatory Director Melissa Smith describes The Geary stage as a space that is “amazing, but also very challenging. It requires a level of craft, professionalism, and pure physical and emotional muscle that very few actors in the country possess,” she explains. “By their third year in the Master of Fine Arts Program, our students are ready to stand side by side and toe to toe with professional actors on that stage—and any stage.”

Performances of Elektra begin October 25. Click here to learn more about the production and grab tickets.

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die,
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me
Read more

Purely Pinteresque: The Elements of Pinter's Language

-
Image
By Taylor Steinbeck Most artists take years to establish their voice and style. This wasn’t the case for playwright Harold Pinter. His first West End play, The Birthday Party, showcases the elements of Pinter’s aesthetic that would later be evident throughout his 29 plays and 23 screenplays: the rhythm of colloquial language punctuated by pauses and silences, mysterious characters who rarely say what they mean, and the unsettling, yet witty juxtaposition of comedy and terror. Suspenseful and comical, familiar and foreign, disturbing and alluring, The Birthday Party is quintessential Pinter. Graphite drawing of Harold Pinter. By A.C.T. Senior Graphic Designer Brad Amorosino. Pinter is a playwright who uses the back-and-forth of everyday conversation to create conflict and shape power dynamics between characters. “My characters tend to use words not to express what they think or feel,” said Pinter in a 1995 speech, “but to disguise what they think or feel, to mask their actual
Read more