Freehold's Faculty Upcoming Work

Reginald Andre Jackson and Amy Thone are playing Titania and Oberon, respectively, in A Midsummer Night's Dream for Seattle Shakespeare Company, produced at the Intiman, runs Opens October 20 - November 13. Directed by Sheila Daniels. Freehold's Ensemble Training Intensive (ETI) student Riley Neldam will be playing Flute.


Elizabeth Heffron's full-length play Mitzi's Abortion has three upcoming productions on the East Coast, including Ithaca, NY in February, 2012. The play has been chosen by Naomi Iizuka along with Paul Mullin's play The American Book of the Dead for the 3rd edition of The Manifesto Series, published by Rain City Projects. Elizabeth's new, almost-completed, short radio play, Pipe Play will be performed for Sandbox Radio Live! At West of Lenin, on October 10.

John Jacobsen's The Artist Toolbox, currently playing nationwide on PBS and gearing up for its second season with Helen Mirren, Jules Feiffer, Bon Jovi, Carolina Herrera, and more, also airs on Alaska Airlines' DigEplayer, so next time you fly, listen to how today's artistic mavericks create their art and follow their bliss. Both John Jacobsen's latest films are winning awards and making the rounds across the globe. Arthur just won The Action/Cut Award for Best Fiction Film, Best of Fest Award which is given to the top 5% of films in the country each year, and is playing nearby at the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival this weekend at SIFF Cinema, at the Port Townsend Film Festival September 23 & 24, and the prestigious Vancouver International Film Festival October 4 & 5. You can also see it online now at http://videobookmark.com/ActionCut/2011/Arthur.html and it will soon be distributed by Indieflix. Spinning, his other short, was just completed and played right out of the gate at the Columbia Gorge International Festival nearby, where audiences were lucky enough to see the great performances of Amy Thone.

John Longenbaugh's Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol is going to be produced this holiday at Portland's Artist's Repertory Theatre and Neil Ferron and John Longenbaugh are up for Gregory Awards for their plays.

Marya Sea Kaminski will be participating in Red Light Nights as part of the City Arts Festival at the Paramount on the evening of October 20th. Guests will have the opportunity to experience an intimate one-on-one performance with an artist of their choice - including Tim Stackpole, The Satori Group and Marya.


George Lewis directed Le Frenchwords' Fancy Mud, featuring Ben Burris, Sachie Mikawa and Carter Rodriquez.








Paul Mullin's play Louis Slotin Sonata will receive a production at Cal State - Long Beach or "Cal Rep", on the Queen Mary. And the second episode of his noir-angel-detective story, Markheim will be part of Sandbox Radio's second edition on October 10.


Annette Toutonghi, Dan Tierney, Sarah Harlett and Gin Hammond will also be performing in the Sandbox Radio's second edition of the Sandbox Radio Show on October 10.

Freehold 20th Stories - "Bringing out the Playwright in Me"

Hello Freehold,

A couple of years ago I took Playwriting I,II and III with Elizabeth Hefron and New Play Lab with Paul Mullin. I wanted to let Freehold Theatre know I recently was notified my short play, Operation Sweet Dreams, is a 2011 Heideman Award Finalist. So, big thanks for their effort to bring out the playwright in me.

Congratulations on twenty years of enhancing the theatre world.

Cheers,
Suzanne
Suzanne Bailie

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If you have your own Freehold story, email us via our Contact Page using the pull down menu of "20th Anniversary Story Submissions".


COME to our 20th Anniversary Homecoming Party on Saturday, September 24, 7:30 pm at Washington Hall. It's FREE and we'd love to see you there. RSVP at the link.

LAMDA Week 3 by Phillip Mitchell

Phillip Mitchell, recent Freehold Ensemble Training Intensive (ETI) alum, just spent a month in London studying at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (as did fellow recent ETI alum, Monica Chilton - photo of Phillip and Monica at left). Check out this post highlighting his London training adventures ....

***********************************************************************************

This has been a busy, tiring, challenging, frustrating, wonderful week. Classes at LAMDA with wonderful teachers continue. A few of them (the classes) were the last of their kind, so to speak. We won’t have any more classes with these particular teachers as we go into our final week of the Shakespeare Intensive. This includes Historic Dance and Mask.

Our Historic Dance teacher would probably best be described as "prickly". Many of my young classmates are put off by her attention to detail and drive for perfection. I enjoyed her and the class a great deal. She's a little older than me and has a wry sense of humor. Now that I think of it, she's very much like Harry Potter's Professor McGonagall.

"Mask" is a technique used to discover a neutral state of being. It's a way of being aware and alive and open to one's impulses. True responses are experienced and expressed rather than habitual ones. It was quite enlightening for me both by doing and by watching classmates. The instructor is a jolly sort with a quick eye and even quicker wit.

My scene partner for the Shakespeare class decided she didn't want to do our scene so that she could focus on the other scene she's doing. The good news is I've got a new scene partner and the work is going very well. We surpassed, in one rehearsal, all previous attempts. Our teacher, a Shakespeare director who has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, said "I fear we are in danger of having something quite good here". He, like many Brits, is a master of understatement.

Yesterday afternoon after classes and a Skype date with my wife, Sandi, I went to the West End to see a show. I had a couple in mind but wasn't sure which would have an available seat. I got a ticket at the TKTS discount booth and strolled around Covent Garden. There's a big market there that is part shopping mall, part busker festival, and part flea market. I got some paella that was really tasty and watched a little of two different street performer shows. It was a stormy day so I bought a new umbrella at a booth in the flea market but, of course, it stopped raining. Oh well, I might have some use for it in Seattle.

The play I watched is Journey's End. It's about a small group of British Army officers literally in the trenches of WW1. It is an amazing play, very well done, and truly moving.

One of the best surprises I’ve had while at LAMDA is my preparedness for the work. I expected to be challenged, and I was, but mostly in response to the physical demands of courses like Stage Combat and Physical Theatre and a very full schedule. My work at Freehold in the Meisner Progression and the ETI Program has enabled me to ‘swim in the fast lane’ when it comes to acting Shakespeare and acting in general.

I can hardly wait to get it on the stage.

To see Phillip’s blog about his trip to London, go to: http://seattleactorinlondon.blogspot.com/


Read more about Freehold's Meisner Progression

New Play Lab Auditions - Sunday, August 28

Audition for our New Play Lab Showcase!

New Play Lab Auditions

Sunday, August 28, 2:00 - 6:00 pm

Auditions will be held at Freehold Theatre, 2222 2nd Avenue, Suite 200, Seattle 98121.

Reserve an audition slot by FRIDAY, AUGUST 26TH AT 4:00 PM via our contact form (under "category" choose "New Play Lab Auditions"). In your email include your name, phone number and preferred audition times. Times available are 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 or 5:00 slot. We will be scheduling 5-10 people per time slot. Sides will be provided at the audition.

Here are the details:

Four new plays, modern relationship plays, seek actors to portray characters conflicted in all the right places.

Each excerpt of a play (20 minutes) will require two 2-hour rehearsals with a local professional director and two readings/performances before a live audience, evenings of September 9 and 10. Cast Breakdown: We're looking for men and women, in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s of all ethnicities. Also looking specifically for 2 women, 1 man who are African American, in their late 20s/30's and one woman 60 or older.

Please bring your headshot and resume to audition.


Photo from New Play Lab 2010
Photo by Scott Maddock

New Acting Tools By Brianna Chicha

John Jacobsen's passion is infectious. In addition to a wealth of knowledge and experience, he's just plain inspiring. Every day I left class with a renewed commitment to myself as an artist. John believes and teaches that if we work hard enough we can reach our goals. And I believe him.

Until last fall when I came to Freehold, my only training had been Meisner training. I love Meisner training and believe it has been instrumental in the formation of my technique. However, my question has always been "how do I show up ready to work without the benefit of rehearsal?" Acting for the Camera not only answered that question, it gave me ample chance to practice. I'm a diligent note taker, and I wrote down all of John's suggestions on the first night of class, yet they didn't show up in my first scene. By seeing the mistakes and jumping right into another scene, I was able to apply the lesson while it was fresh. A chance to practice new methods several times made them present enough in my experience to draw on in the future. What was awkward at the beginning of the class became easier.

I also gained a better understanding of scene structure which helped tremendously with determining the subtext and the rhythm of the scenes. One of the tools that I had never used before was journaling my thoughts through the whole scene. This was the tool I missed on my first scene. Fortunately for me, I got to use the embarrassment of not liking my performance to do better the next time. For the next three scenes I journaled my thoughts, and in doing so discovered where I didn't understand things I had thought I did. I much prefer seeing that while I'm preparing, than later when I'm looking at tape. Because I got a chance to reinforce new habits, they are now part of my process and I don't have to reference my notes to remember them.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend the summer!

************************************************************************************

If you want to check out our Acting for the Camera class (or our Intro to Acting, Voice or Playwriting classes), come to Freehold's Open House on Thursday, September 8 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm. Sample several of our classes including John Jacobsen's Acting for the Camera. FREE event but reserve a space at Brown Paper Tickets.
Freehold's Fall Classes are now open for registration. Check out the diverse line-up of classes at Freehold.

The Treasures of Step III: Basic Scene Study by Josephine Hoy

"There's no such thing as nothing." Sanford Meisner

When I first began my study at Freehold, just the thought of walking up the narrow, steep stairs to the theatre was enough to trigger mental paralysis and terror (and not only because I lack all grace and the ability to navigate stairs without tripping).

I felt like a fraud in a room full of, well, people who weren't frauds. But over the course of the three foundation courses (Step I, II and III), I was introduced to acting as "craft"--not just some lofty art form that people are born and perish with or without a talent for, but something that requires dedication, work, refinement, tools…and yet still, even when Freehold became a second home for me, at the end of each course I would beg my teacher to tell me whether I shouldn't just give it all up and concede defeat.

You see (and I'm sure each instructor I've had at Freehold will find it difficult to suppress their knowing laugh), for many of us, understanding a lesson intellectually and physically feeling it to be true don't always occur at the same time.

And that's why I took Step III: Scene Study twice.

Building upon the lessons learned in previous courses, we continue to engage with our scene partners, to remain present and active, to listen and to give of ourselves. We build our relationships, our lives as characters. We learn to treasure 'the moment before'. We learn to focus on the words we are given. And those we are not given. And we learn to treasure the text as a whole, reading and thinking and unlocking the specificity of the playwright, which enables us to 'make strong choices'.

I can't even begin to express how valuable this class was for me (I mean, really, I took it twice) or quantify every lesson I learned. But I can say that at the end of this course, I didn't look desperately at my teacher and ask him if I should quit altogether. Instead, I asked 'what's next'?

********************************************************************************

Freehold's fall classes will open up for registration on Monday, August 15th. To be notified of our upcoming classes, join our mailing list by emailing us at info@freeholdtheatre.org

Freehold's ETI Graduates Upcoming Work

We are very excited for our graduating ETI students and their exciting future plans/endeavors including upcoming shows and more training. See where you might catch them in the future:


Monica Chilton and Phillip Mitchell will soon be attending a month-long Shakespeare intensive at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).


Lori Evans is in Wonderland with Theatre Simple at different park locations this summer July-Aug Ballard Locks; Bellevue Botanical Gardens; Lake Meridian, Kent; Auburn) and in September starts rehearsing Into the Woods in Bellingham with Mount Baker Theatre which performs Oct 5-9 2011.



Tony Leahy will be performing with his Improv group Safeword for one night only, this Saturday, July 9 at 8:00pm at the Jewel Box theater, which is in the Rendezvous Bar in Belltown (2322 2nd Avenue).







Parker Matthews will be in Tartuffe, with SecondStory Repertory running August 5-28.










Riley Neldam will be seen in Seattle Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Seattle Shakespeare, October 20 - November 13.









Caleb Slavens will be in Anthony and Cleopatra with Greenstage, July 8 - August 13. Free shows!










Kiki Yeung has a lead in a sci-fi film God Machine, shooting in August 19-28, costarring Robert Leeshock star from Sci-fi series Earth-Final Conflict. Kiki is also doing a stage reading at ACT theatre 8/1 with John Jacobson's mentee, Andrew Iseminger called Little Pricks, a pilot episode sitcom.




We look forward to seeing more updates from our ETI alums and all the great work to come!


Photo of ETI students in Freehold's production of PERICLES.