My Life in Art

I've been very anxious (both negative and positive connotations), apprehensive, and a bit cagey about my impending trip. Three weeks abroad with no companion- this is a first. The task ahead, to begin my Phd, is so full of uncertainty. I'm going places I've never been, meeting new people, and putting trust in people I have only met through email or Skype. Very interesting.

To start this blog, I haphazardly posted a picture and short microblog because I was seeing how the ipad Blogger app might work for my travel. It mentioned I started my work with The Creation of an Ensemble by Wilk. It is an excellent account of the formation of the American Conservatory Theatre, the San Francisco regional theatre that has ensemble as a core value. I was raised on these values. Not only in my actor training at West Virginia University, where Bill Ball's (ACT Founder) idea of "positation"- saying YES! to everything- and his views on the ensemble nature of our art form was firmly rooted; and then with my work in Chicago. Chicago is a town where improvisation and various styles of theatre meld like rivulets in a storm. So, there, again, the "group mind" and "saying YES" from the improv work reinforced my thoughts on how I would like to live my life in a house built on theatre. Looking back, I can see the telltale signs; bringing people together for a "devised/adapted" piece in the 2nd grade...preferring chorus to solo singing, organizing group movie nights, sleep overs, and spring break vacations for a gaggle of theatre students. 

Creating ensemble. And now, three weeks...solo. 

I dropped the Wilk book in the blog to start, however; the cornerstone started this summer when I re-read My Life in Art, by Stanislavksi. As this Phd work is my own, and the research topic is part of my fabric (discovering essential ensemble values), I felt the need to renew and review the influences that have brought me to this place. The place of a theatre maker, director, performer, designer, teacher, guide, builder of space and someone who wanted roots firmly planted. 

Genealogy is an interest. I recognize what makes me me. The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" and to paraphrase the lines from Sam Shepherd's Buried Child "I saw my face, then my father's face, and it went on like that, changing, clear on back to faces I didn't know, but still recognized...recognized the bones underneath..." I know my theatre training and major influence come from my college instructors Ed Herendeen and Angela D'Ambrosia. Ed brought the youthful passion of new work, adaptation, and how important friendship can be in the creation of a theatre piece. Angela brought the rich knowledge of Bill Ball and Robert Lewis, both of whom draw their primary influence from Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre. So, when we first started a theatre school, I wanted to show this genealogy: Stanislavski at the top, the Group Theatre below (with Robert Lewis, Sandford Meisner, Lee Strasburg, Stella Adler, Harold Clurman, etc...the great acting teachers from the Group), then Angela, then myself. So, I'm the third generation from the values of The Moscow Art Theatre and Stanislavski. 

In keeping with this path, I feel that I want to pull out all the "ensemble" information out of these formative sources. So, My Life in Art, and The Creation of an Ensemble, and Harold Clurman's The Fervent Years are the logical pace for me to begin.