We are excited that Andrew McGinn has joined Freehold's Faculty and will be teaching with us this summer at Freehold. Andrew will be participating in Freehold's workshop of
Henry IV this summer in preparation of our Engaged Theatre Tour of the production in 2014.
You have an extensive background in the performing arts
including getting a degree at Julliard. When you look on your experience at Julliard what are a few highlights of your
experience there?
To be honest, the real highlight at Juilliard was learning
to be ready to be knocked around inside of plays, and whatever comes into the
imagination because of them. It was an incredible, and hard earned
experience to really get what people mean when they say 'don't do things,
but be in the moment!'. You hear that all the time, all the time... while
at Juilliard we had these super-long exercises with expert guidance where
basically your ego and fear would become exhausted and all you could do was be
at the mercy of the impulses that hit you purely from the fiction.
Congratulations on your recent graduation from the UW's MFA
in Directing program. What surprised you and/or inspired you in the training you received there?
Thank You! Directing and Acting are really extremely
different in practice, but of course the aims are the same: to serve up a good
story. The benefits of training really are all about becoming conscious
of the elements that make good stories so you can strengthen them. It's
essential to being able to develop a process you and others can depend on.
The richness of UW was that you had actors, directors, designers, and
scholars -when we could get them- all becoming conscious together of what their
jobs were and what they needed to do to support the story. My biggest
take away aside from an increased understanding of plot construction and
composition, was that everybody's job to tell the story goes through supporting
the other elements and making them shine on the plot. And while that's my
favorite particular sort of personal discovery, the key point is that training
makes you conscious and mindful of how you're working and why. I suppose
that's what they call skill, and if you don't train for it but have it than
you're a Martian genius and God bless you.
You have worked in film, theatre and commercials. Can
you talk a little bit about your approach and process to the work you do in
those areas and how they are similar and how they are different.
Between theater and film, most actors make their great leaps
in one medium or the other and then that medium forever feels like 'truth' for
them. For me it was theater and it took a while to become conscious that
I could still be truthful in that camera frame, and all I was lacking was
technique. The techniques are different, and the creative
environments of the two really are like night and day. But, while someone
may be more temperamentally fit for one or the other it doesn't mean it can't
be learned, and should continue to be learned until the end of days. An
obvious example is the voice: in theater you have to be louder and in film you
have to be quieter. Some voices are louder or quieter than others so they
may feel more 'truthful' in a particular medium, but that doesn't mean the
other medium is less truthful for that person not being in it - or that that
person couldn't make the other medium truthful with training and practice.
I understand you lived in NYC and worked as an actor there for a number
of years before coming to Seattle. Could you share a little bit about
your experiences as a working actor in NYC?
New York has a narcotic feel to it
because 'something huge could happen at any moment!' that will make you rich
and famous. That draw is special, and fun. But being an artist is
absolutely the sole most important thing to the actors out here. The
integrity is astounding. On any given night in NYC, there's 100 plays happening
and 10 are good. In Seattle there's 20, and 10 are good, and that I think
is a direct result of how much people care about what they're doing in Seattle.
Theater is so, so good here.
You are going to be performing in Henry IV as part of
Freehold's workshopping of Henry IV this coming summer as part of our Engaged
Theatre program. What are you looking forward to as you head into
rehearsing?
Yes I am, and I'm thrilled about it. I'm really
interested in getting to explore first-hand the relationship between Falstaff and
young Henry. It's this cross-generational, cross-class, and in our case
cross-racial friendship that really has no business existing because of the
differences in their circumstances. Falstaff has shunned the aristocracy
and blown his cash on booze, meanwhile Henry is the Heir Apparent and has the
weight of the nation at war on his shoulders. But there's this wonderful
thing that brings them together, that when we really stop and look at it is one
of the tenderest, and most precious things in life: fun. They have so
much fun together! I'm sure we'd all agree that many of the best and most
meaningful times in our lives were fun as hell, and it makes us sad to see them
go. So, the way Shakespeare looks into really how essential fun is to us
is an exciting mystery for me that I can't wait to get into with Robin and
Reggie.
Andrew McGinn will be playing Falstaff to Reginald Andre Jackson's Prince Henry in Henry IV, directed by Robin Lynn Smith.
