Preparing for the Studio Series by Robert Riedl

Rehearsing for the Studio Series is like independent study. Without the pressures of preparing a full-length play, there's more time for exploration and experimentation.

Our particular cast has been examining the physicality of performance, drawing on a variety of sources from Suzuki to Spolin. In one exercise, we wandered about the rehearsal space in character, opening our awareness to the other characters, noting their physical attributes - their presence, their gaze, their distance, their walk - and how these attributes affected our character.

Often times when we let ourselves be directed solely by the text of a play, we forget about the physical, nonverbal cues that can carry more emotional information than just words. By opening ourselves up to the physical nature of theatre, we can better explore our characters and their relationships through movement, bearing, position and stillness.

Everything we've learned and experienced at Freehold is essential to our continuing work. We often find ourselves quoting Freehold instructors and putting their guidance into action. And we continue to discover more and deeper meaning in what we thought we'd already learned.

Robert Riedl is working on a Scene From a Play for the Studio Series featuring Jenni Taggart, Aaron Moore with Fred Cassidy directing. The Studio Series runs from March 11 through March 26 on Friday and Saturday nights with two shows, 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm. Robert's Studio Series piece will run the second week of the Studio Series on March 18, 19 at 7:00 and 9:30 pm at Freehold. Pay What You Can (Suggested Donation: $10.00) Tickets at the door one hour before the show. More information: Studio Series 2011.

Freehold's 16th Annual Studio Series

March 11 - 26, 2011
Three Weekends with a Different Line-Up Each Week!

Friday and Saturday nights, 7:00 and 9:30 pm
@ Freehold, 2222 2nd Avenue, 2nd floor
Tickets: available at the door only
All tickets are Pay What You Can
Box office opens one hour prior to the show
($10 Suggested Donation)

The Studio Series is our highly anticipated yearly event that presents work created by current and former Freehold students, lab members, and faculty. 2011 will be our 16th year of presenting this very popular series. We regard the Series as an opportunity to investigate work in a "studio" setting and then to experience the evolution of the work through performance.

The Studio Series runs for three weekends from March 11 through March 26, 2011. Each week will have a different line-up of performances with two performances on Friday night and two on Saturday night.

We look forward to seeing you there!

WEEK ONE: March 11 - 12, 7:00 and 9:30 pm

THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT, by Bonnie Foster; Cast: Thomas Alberto, Ron Corwin, Jess Haynie-Lavelle, Marsee Skidmore, Ultrakarl, Amanda Woodard; Director: Bonnie Foster
SHE WAS CALLED SANDY, by Jenny Rachel Weiner; Cast: Jessica Grant, Narea Kang, Henry Mark; Director: Norah Elges
IN SESSION, by Jonathan Locke; Cast: E.J. Gong, Amber Zipperer; Director:Rebecca Goldberg
NUT HUT, Cast: Ashley Almon, Cody Bernius, Cory Blankenship, Kevin Dailey; Director: Kevin Dailey
SCENE FROM A PLAY, Cast: Chris Parks, Michael Su; Director: Eric Jordan
WALKING AWAY, by Machelle Allman; Cast: Machelle Allman, Kristal Baker, Lisa Larsen, Natalie Moe; Director: Rachel Bowen

WEEK TWO: March 18 - 19, 7:00 and 9:30 pm

AVACADO, by Jesse Putnam, Cast: Tom Brophy, Kevin Dailey; Directors: Julianna Chen, Jesse Putnam
SCENE FROM A PLAY, Cast: Aaron Moore, Robert Riedl, Jenni Taggart; Director: Fred Cassidy
THE TAMING OF WHO?, by Shakespeare, Cast: Lee Ann Hittenberger, Ken Michels; Director: Gordon Coffey
FRANCES FARMER HAS ALREADY HAD HER REVENGE ON SEATTLE, by Tony Leahy, Cast: Tony Leahy; Director: Julie Horowitz
BANQUET, Cast: Susie McGee, Tom Spangenberg; Director: David Taft

WEEK THREE: March 25 - 26, 7:00 and 9:30 pm

OCCUPIED! Cast: Estrella P. de Leon, Melinda Parks, Director: Tania Sung
FAIR EXCHANGE, by Geoffrey Spelman, Cast: Robert Agonstinelli, Betty Campbell; Director: Wesley K. Andrews
GATED, by Scott Maddock, Cast:Meli Alexander, Samantha Camp, Richard Carmen, Jennifer Davies, Steven Gomez, Caleb Joslin, Russ Kay; Director: L. Nicol Cabe
SAFEWORD, by Jaime Cara; Cast: Jaime Cara, John Flick, Emily Hove, Tony Leahy, Steve Lombardi; Director: Emily Hove
DIGITAL STAR BOY, by Caleb Slavens, Cast: Caleb Slavens; Director: Gin Hammond

Freehold Student and Alum Upcoming Work

Freehold's Studio Series will run from March 11 - March 26 at Freehold, 2222 2nd Avenue, 2nd Floor. The Studio Series is our highly anticipated yearly event that presents work created by current and former Freehold students, lab members, and faculty. 2011 will be our 16th year of presenting this very popular series. We regard the Series as an opportunity to investigate work in a "studio" setting and then to experience the evolution of the work through performance. Each project will be performed one weekend out of the three weekends with it being performed a total of four times with two performances on Friday night and two on Saturday night. Pay What You Can (Suggested Donation: $10.00). Tickets available at the door one hour before the show.

Erwin Galan will be in a staged reading Passport, by Gustavo Ott, Translated by Heather L. McKay, Directed by Arlene Martinez-Vickers, Saturday, Feb 26 7:30pm ACT (Buster's Special Events Room), and Saturday, Mar 5 2:00pm Burien Little Theatre,
Tickets $5.00 (for each date), Buy at: www.acttheatre.org OR www.burienlittletheatre.org. Info at: info@eseteatro.org and http://www.eseteatro.org/

Steven Gomez will be playing Jonathon in Scott Maddock's short play Gated, directed by L. Nicol Cabe, at Freehold's Studio Series on March 25-26. He will also be performing in Zachariah Robinson's piece 21st Century 101 at Nebunele Theatre's TheatrePoems performance on April 2.

Rosalyn Le will be playing the fair Hero in a production of Much Ado About Nothing at SecondStory Repertory in Redmond, Directed by Corey McDaniel, February 4-26, 2011, Fri & Sat Nights at 8pm, Sun Feb 13 & 20 at 2pm, Tickets: $25 adults/$19, students/seniors/educators, TPS Rush discount tickets (day of performance) $10




Jonathan Nawn, a Freehold ETI student, performed the Solo Performance piece he developed at Freehold at On the Boards' 12 Minutes Max on February 27, 28.



Andy Tribolini is part of the Film School reading at ACT on 3/28, Z vs. V! Andy has also been cast in 3 films shooting this month: Pony Man, Basket Case and Snorkel.



Heidi Wolf recently earned her Certified Teacher credential from the Society of American Fight Directors, which makes her the 3rd CT trained at Freehold, and one of only 4 female CTs west of the Mississippi. She is currently teaching stage combat at the University of Puget Sound.

Freehold Faculty and Community Upcoming Performances

Geof Alm is doing fights for Don Quixote at Seattle Opera which runs February 26 - March 12.



Hans Altwies will be performing in This at the Seattle Repertory Theatre which runs April 8 - May 15.







Gin Hammond will be directing The Colors of Our Lives at the Young Playwrights Festival at ACT on March 11, 12. The culmination of the Young Playwrights Program at ACT returns for its ninth annual festival, showcasing eight world premiere plays by talented student writers ages 14 to 18.


John Longenbaugh will be directing and producing a show he co-wrote with Ron Richardson last year, "My Time with the Lady," that'll go up at the Market Theatre from April 7-April 30. It's the story of Seattle's famous Lusty Lady Peep Show, told through the eyes of a young man who manned the front desk for several years during the mid-80s. For more info and tickets, visit mytimewiththelady.com.

Paul Mullin and Dawson Nichols (with support from Tom Paulson) wrote The New New News: A Living Newspaper. Directed by Dawson Nichols. "The New New News: A Living Newspaper" examines journalism in the age of new media, paying special attention to the implications to information and democracy created by the collapse of newspapers, the 24-hour news cycle and the demands of monetizing media. All performances Pay What You Will. Reserved seats are available for $15 at Brown Paper Tickets for each performance venue: Olympic Theatre at South Seattle Community College (SSCC), Friday February 18 and Saturday February 19 @ 7:30pm, Sunday February 20 @ 2pm, The Erickson Theatre on Capitol Hill, Thursday February 24, Friday February 25 and Saturday February 26 @ 7:30pm
Sunday February 27 @ 2pm and Stage One Theatre at North Seattle Community College (NSCC),, Wednesday March 2 at Noon, Friday March 4, Saturday March 5, Friday March 11 & Saturday March 12 @ 7:30pm, Sunday March 6 and Sunday March 13 @ 2pm.




Shanga Parker, Reginald Andre Jackson and Carol Roscoe will be in All My Sons at Intiman Theatre running March 18 - April 17. Shanga Parker and Carol Roscoe will also be in Pilgrims Musa and Cheri in The New World at ACT running June 17 - July 17.



Timothy Piggee is performing on Broadway in NYC in Catch Me If You Can at the Neil Simon Theatre with previews beginning March 11.





Darragh Kennan is at the Folger Theatre in Washington DC playing Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors until March 6th. Darragh will be the dialect and acting coach for the upcoming New Century Theatre Company production of Oh Lovely Glowworm running April 13 - May 15th More information: www.newcenturytheatrecompany.org



Amy Thone, in March, will act in a two-week workshop of a new play, South of Settling, at ACT, which won their 2010 New Play Contest.





Billie Wildrick is performing in Vanities produced by the 5th Avenue and ACT running from February 4 through May 1 at ACT's Falls Theatre.



The group Kulture Shock, of which Gino Yevdjevich is a member, has a new album being released with a show in Seattle at The Crocodile on March 25, 2011 and New York at Webster Hall (March 30, with Slavic Soul Party), before heading to Europe for a 15-date tour. Gino has been an integral part of Freehold's Engaged Theatre Summer Tour as he composes the music for Freehold's Summer Tour productions every year. With over 600 concerts under their belt and a rabid fanbase that spans the globe, Seattle music stalwarts Kultur Shock defiantly return with their highly anticipated new album Ministry of Kultur. The outfit's most refined and masterful effort to date will be released on March 1st, 2011, and was recorded by legendary Seattle producer Jack Endino.

Request for Support for Jessica Goldstein and family

Dear Friends,

Most of you know longtime Seattle educator and actor Jessica Goldstein and some of you may know her husband actor Brian King but you may not know about the troubles that have befallen them and what you can do to help.

In the fall of 2010, Jessica was diagnosed with an extremely serious and aggressive brain tumor. About a month after Jessica’s diagnosis, both Jessica and Brian’s Cobra health insurance expired. Private insurance is extremely expensive, Jessica’s medical bills are mounting. Brian and Jessica and especially their four year old son Jonah need the help of those of us fortunate enough to be financially stable and healthy.

I am organizing a multi-tiered fundraiser to raise money for health insurance for Brian, Jessica and Jonah.

What can you do, you ask?

1. Come to our fundraiser on April, 10th at Mountaineers Building located at 7700 Sand Point Way NE Seattle, WA 98115 at 7pm. It will be a great time. We will have a No Limit Texas Hold ‘em Poker tournament, a silent auction and a raffle for a fabulous vacation package. Plus world class entertainment, fabulous food, and a well stocked no host bar.
2. Help us secure donations for the silent auction. If you know anyone who owns a swanky restaurant, makes cool handbags, owns a vacation rental, or works for Starbucks, Adobe, Microsoft, Alaskan Airlines or some other mega producer, we need cool stuff that people want to buy.
3. Help me pull this together. If you don’t have friends in high places and struggle to get by yourself, or if you’re really stinking organized, I need help putting this all together - please consider donating your time to the backbone of this event.

Please, these are good people who have given a lot of themselves and it is their turn to get something back. I can be reached at 206-271-9384 and fatyeti@gmail.com.

Yer Old Pal,

Dan Morris
www.fatyeti.com

Discovery Moments at Freehold by Jonathan Locke

The Freehold Studio Series is a wonderful event. It's a living experiment. A place to do work and push limits but also to watch and listen and be delighted. And this year, the experimental staging of a scene from my first full-length play, "In Session", marks the end of a journey that started for me more than five years ago in Elizabeth Heffron's playwriting class. I could not have known it at the time, but my desire to write a play would take me to all kinds of inspiring and quite unexpected destinations. If you had asked me before I ventured into Freehold what I thought about acting, I would've certainly said “Are you kidding me? I'm a writer, not an actor. I could never do that.” But Elizabeth got me up on my feet and something happened. Fast forward to 2009 and I found myself wrapping up a year in Robin's immersive, life-changing Meisner class. I began to wonder: "Could it be that I don't know myself as well as I'd like to think?"

Over the past several months, that same process of discovery has come around again. Apparently, I unconsciously decided that the best motivation for getting back to writing a play would be to partially dislocate both of my shoulders and spend months in physical therapy. Although painful, this plan worked well and I soon found myself writing again. But this time my writing was informed by a new understanding. I had some idea not only of what a good script looks like, but also of what actors are looking for in text when they go to interpret it. I knew not only how to write characters, but how to create meaningful conflict and how to make beat shifts clear. But that was not the surprise. I could have told you that before I started writing. The surprise was the way that my new acting background transformed my approach to writing (as well as other aspects of my life).

One of the things that you learn in Freehold acting classes is to value discovery and in-the-moment truth over end-result. And that value system had spilled over into my writing, which became more exploratory and mysterious and less result-oriented. Just being willing to stay engaged in a discovery process -- in a zone of not fully understanding what I was writing -- caused all kinds of interesting visions to emerge. And as I wrote and observed what was happening "in the moment" (with some help from my very sharp writing mentor, Warren Etheredge), my understanding of what I had been writing shifted. It shifted slowly at first. But then, a couple of months into the process, I had the very Discovery Moment I had been secretly hoping for. My writing, a scraggly bunch of disordered apple trees, suddenly lined up in neat, blossoming rows: I was shocked to discover that my play wasn't about what I thought it was about at all! And again, I found myself wondering: "Could it be that I don't know myself as well as I'd like to think?"

And now it's happening yet again. With Rebecca Goldberg, a friend of mine from Meisner class, directing the talented actors E.J. Gong and Amber Zipperer, I'm ready for another Discovery Moment at the Studio Series. I can't wait.


Photo at top: Jonathan Locke
Photo at bottom: Amber Zipperer and E.J. Gong in upcoming Studio Series piece, "In Session"
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Freehold's Studio Series is Freehold's highly anticipated yearly event that presents work created by current and former Freehold students, lab members, and faculty. The Series is an opportunity for participants to investigate work in a "studio" setting and then to experience the evolution of the work through performance. This popular series includes original works, scenes written by renowned playwrights and new original works premiering in the series, improv performances and puppet pieces. The Studio Series will run for three weekends with a different line-up of pieces every week. Come and see them all!
The series runs from March 11 through March 26, Friday and Saturday nights with two shows: 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm. Suggested donation: $10.00. Tickets at the door. For more information about the Studio Series Line-up this year:
Studio Series 2011

The best part of the evening ... By Dickey Nesenger

During last year’s Faculty Showcase, the best part of the evening was not hearing my play read aloud before an audience – even though Gin Hammond and Matt Smith’s take on my comedy-drama The Language of Birds added new meaning to the term dynamic duo--but that it offered me the opportunity to participate in Freehold’s yearly hail of--let’s get a gang together and put on a show! That gang by the way included prolific playwrights and directors, accomplished actors, distinguished teachers, arts activists, and friends of Freehold. That was the best part of the show, the chance to meet and greet others--for one night at least--under a roof of common interest — the love of theatre.

Tickets are $10 for Freehold's Faculty Showcase and Benefit, on Monday, February 7, 6:30 pm at The Erickson Theatre (on Capitol Hill). For tickets: Brown Paper Tickets