tony.rossi's blog

I realize I've said very very little about the plot of The Invaders. This is mainly because I hate talking too much about a show and then spoiling parts of it.  However, Halcyon made a fabulous video to promote the show, and gives just the right amount of info! I'm sure there's a link somewhere on the website for it, but on another ridiculously hot day like today, I'll save you the time and effort and give you the link:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150281515752494&oid=10021189323&comments

And we open tomorrow! I think we're all ready to show our work to an audience.  I personally look forward to what the audience's take on the show will be.  There are so many things in the play that make you think of things going on around you, which in my opnion every good play needs.  I imagine people won't be running up to me after each show to give me their thoughts and ideas. But I do hope if some of my friends make it, they can give me their honest opinion and talk about the show. That's one of the things that always made me sad in college. We're all trying to help each other learn the tools and fundamentals in order to become the best possible artist we can.  And yet (at least in my experience) we were too timid to tell our friends our honest opinions about each others work.  Of course, no one wants to tell someone they're doing terrible, nor should they.  But I wish there was a way we could all give constructive criticism if and when the opportunity came up. Well that's my rant for the day. Please feel free to give your honest opinions about the show =)

Why is it still so hot?!?!

Well this has been an exciting week to say the least! Costumes, props, all that fun stuff you get before opening certainly pumps the adrenaline a bit more than usual during rehearsals/tech.  In addition to all that fun stuff, we also had the misfortune of losing Johnny Garcia, one of our cast members.  We wish Johnny the best of luck as he takes what I hope will be just a brief hiatus from the stage.  In the meantime, Tony Adams has taken over the role with only a few days before curtain! While I haven’t sat down and talked with my fellow cast members about this, I think it goes without saying that we all appreciate Tony jumping in learning everything so quickly.  And if you think it’s a challenge trying to learn lines and staging with only days to do so, imagine on top of that doing tech for the rest of the shows for the Alcyone Theatre Festival…Tony you are a trooper to say the least…then again he has a fabulous name so I’m really not surprised.

Some of us stayed a bit later to do some extra rehearsal with Tony last night.  While it was late and we were a bit tired, there was a great vibe on the stage.  Sometimes I get a rush from that “staying late at night to get stuff done” feel….not always, but sometimes.  Usually just with theatre.  Although maybe I’m just speaking for myself. Liz Cascio was there after I left, and I imagine she was there until at least midnight (oh and she volunteered to stay late too).  Lots of great energy coming from the cast right now!

I apologize this has turned into a “let’s talk about the new guy” post.  One time I joined a cast late and I didn’t like the director reiterating that I was new.  I just wanted the “spotlight” off me so I could feel like one of everyone else and focus on being part of the ensemble.  So I only talk about it now because I feel it’s important to mention the hard work and positive support the entire cast, old and new members, have been giving.

And we open on Thursday! So Halcyon has a thing where instead of having the actors hide backstage before curtain, we interact with the audience. This is something I haven’t done before, and would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous about it…granted I still don’t know a lot of people in the city so I suppose it won’t affect me as much. But the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I have no idea how many people read this wonderful blog of mine. I mean I assume that a few do…Oprah Winfrey, Vince Vaughn, Ozzie Guillen….but other than that, I’m not quite sure. So if you’re someone who I’ve never met before and plan coming, please feel free to say hi before the show!  I promise we don’t need to talk about the blog (especially if you hate it…if Ozzie finds out, he might make fun of me on his twitter).  But yes, please feel free to say hello.

And with that, have a great week, everyone! Go grab some lemonade and crank that AC (and please send some my way)!

So here I sit on a Friday night in my apartment. Not out partying like my neighbors next door….although if I knew them I’d totally join, not gonna lie.  While I miss my college days terribly, I’m glad to be here in Chicago spending my time working towards a career I always dreamed of. 

So we open in six days!! We’ll be kicking off the Alcyone Theatre Festival on Thursday June 9^th, with other fabulous shows to follow. I’m gonna do my absolute best to attend all of the other shows.  Actually Goli Rahimi is one of the other ones! It’s called “Fa$hion: A Love Story,” and I encourage everyone to attend. 

As for “The Invaders,” things are coming along great!  We had fight choreographer Greg come in and meet with us earlier to go over some stage combat.  Brought up some really interesting things that I’ve never thought of when it came to stage combat, as far as emotions and stuff go.  Granted I don’t have much stage combat experience, but I found myself and the rest of the cast really enjoyed working with him. 

While I have to commend the cast on their hard work, I have to pick out one in particular: Damariz Posadas.  This girl is only thirteen years old and already has a great grasp on what “acting” is.  She doesn’t try to do too much, just listens and responds…something I have trouble with far too often onstage. 

I’ll try to update again before opening.  But I hope to see everyone at the show!

So I've taken far too long a hiatus from my blog! Hopefully Jennifer Adams will not fire me.  In the case that she does unleash anger on me, it's been wonderful being a part of Halcyon....in the likely case that she doesn't, here's my update on what's been going on the past couple of weeks:

We had a great rehearsal the other day where playwright Jennifer Fawcett watched us.  She threw in some input during the rehearsal itself, and then after we had a discussion with her on the play.  We also got to ask her a lot of specific questions about the setting and the environment our characters live in.  Sometimes it can be frustrating not being quite sure what environment you're exactly in, but for this process I'd say it's quite the opposite. It's been really exciting discovering this world our characters live in.  Because it's a "made up" world (which I put in quotes because it's definitely happened, this world...just not so specific as we're making it), we have some flexibility on determining what happens in this world.  That's part of where the fun comes in.  But we also need to make sure we're all on the same page so that we're living in the same world, of course. That would just be silly if we weren't.

We also received a second draft of the script.  We were warned that this would happen during the readthrough, so it wasn't a surprise.  I actually got very excited reading the new draft (although you may be able to tell I get excited quite easily during this process).  It goes a bit more in depth to explain things that were already written into the first draft, which I think will make it easier for the audience to understand. 

Director Jenn Adams also thought that maybe we could have characters onstage for long periods of time throughout the show without making them speak anymore than they already do.  My character is included in this and I think it would make things extremely interesting on the audience perspective.  I think we're going to talk more about this in rehearsal tonight.

And on that note, I'm off to rehearsal! I'll be sure to update more as the week continues, despite the fact that the Cubs are going to Boston to play the Red Sox....and I may or may not be rooting for the Red Sox....

Had my first two rehearsals this week! Director Jennifer Adams has been digging into the script with us (Hehe digging....has relevance in the play.... gotta come see it to find out!) which has been very fun and interesting.  One of the things I've always enjoyed about theatre is that you can make different decisions about why your character is doing what they're doing.  Somethings things don't work out, which is fine because you get to make another choice.  All part of the fun =)

We've also done a couple of different exercises for each scene.  I personally love this.  It's easy to fall into a rut running the same scene over and over (Although I have yet to experience this with our process, since Jenn is so good at using rehearsal times to both rehearse and discuss into detail what's happening in the scene and why it's happening). Switching up the scene can both be fun and exciting because you get a whole different perspective on it. 

One part of rehearsal that can be either fun or scary, depending on how you look at it, is when something in the scene brings up memories from your past.  I had this happen to me earlier tonight. It was of a friend who was very upset with me because they thought I was going to do something terrible, which I had never intended to do.  This memory still haunts me today.  In the scene, my character was in the same position as my friend.  While I don’t know my past will help me with this scene, it’s certainly something I’m going to keep in mind.  It’s funny how things that you don’t want to stay with you from your past can come in handy for theatre. 

Now this is extremely cliche, but I've also enjoyed the process of getting to know my fellow actors.  I mentioned in my last post about how I'm not originally from Chicago, but several others in the cast aren't from here either.  Liz Cascio (who plays Sarah) is from Texas, and Chris Lysy (who plays Jake) is from Virginia.  After rehearsal, I actually had a chance to have a nice chat with Liz about moving and having friends from different parts of the country. 

I also learned today that our playwright, Jennifer Fawcett, is going to try to come to rehearsal on Saturday!  I’m really excited to meet her in person and discuss more of the play.  I’ve already had the chance to hear from her during the read through (she joined us on skype!) and also briefly chatted with her through email.  I enjoy seeing her passion for this play and think it will be great to have her join us!

Hello Halcyon theatre-goers! My name is Tony Rossi (not to be confused with Tony Adams).  I'm in the cast of "The Invaders," one of the five shows that will be a part of the Alcyone Festival. 

I'm very excited to be working with Jennifer Adams (we both graduated from Salem State College in Massachusetts!) as well as the rest of the cast.  I don't want to talk too much about the show itself (because then you'd have no reason to come see it!) but I do want to talk about the process, as well as some of the themes that come up.  I remember being an actor in high school and thinking that theatre was all about fun and the laughs backstage.  While I don't think anyone would be doing theatre if it wasn't fun, I find it so much more fulfilling to be a part of a show (or even watch a show) that makes you think.  Not just about what happened in said show, but how it relates to our everyday lives.  One of the reasons I’m so excited about this show is because everyone is so eager to dig deep into the script and talk about it. 

So far I've attended both a read through as well as a discussion on our characters.  During the discussion we went further into the play.  Again, I don't want to go too much into the play itself, but I will repeat what it says on the Halcyon Theatre website about how this play is based off of "The Forest Princess" by Charlotte Mary Sanford Barnes, which tells a version of the story of Pocahontas.  Many of us are familiar with the Disney movie (myself included), as well as learning in history classes about how Native Americans were forced from their homes.  Our play takes pieces from both. 

Earlier this week during our discussion, we went into how much home can mean to us.  An example was used of a couple who rented a place for many years and never thought of it as home.  I found this extremely interesting.  Being a recent college grad who has rented from several different apartments over the last five years, I've always tried to think of each place as a new home. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.  Now I’ve lived in Chicago for about eight months, after living in Salem, Massachusetts for my college years.  I started calling Chicago “my new home,” even though I don’t nearly have as many connections here.  While I didn’t grow up in Salem, I still think of Salem as my home because my original hometown of Melrose is where I spent my awkward teenage years…not a place I hold very dear in my heart (no offense to Melrose, it’s a great city).  And as the saying goes, “home should be where the heart is.”  Well my heart is still in Salem.  But it’s growing bigger in Chicago too. 

I want to conclude by quoting Charles Dickens in his novel “Great Expectations.” Chapter fourteen begins with, “It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.” I couldn’t agree more.  That could launch us into a whole different discussion, but I’ll end it here for now.

I’ll update more once I’ve attended an actual rehearsal and get some more input from my cast.  But I’m very much looking forward to this process!