4000 MILES First Audience Review

Catch 4000 MILES now through January 26 at the Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center in Phoenix. Get your tickets  at actorstheatrephx.org

4000 MILES is Closer than You Think

Join us for the Actors Theatre of Phoenix production of 4000 MILES, opening January 11 at The Black Theatre Troupe/Helen K. Mason Performing Arts Center in Phoenix.

At the end of his cross-country bike trip, 21-year old Leo arrives unannounced at the Greenwich Village apartment of his 91-year old Jewish grandmother, Vera. As an overnight couch-surf turns into an extended stay, this compassionate and unsentimental play explores the funny, frustrating, and ultimately life-changing relationship between a grandson learning to face his life and a grandmother who is starting to forget hers.

Finalist 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Winner 2012 Obie Award, Best New Play

Winner 2012 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award

Winner Time Magazine's #1 Play or Musical of 2012

Behind the Scenes of 4000 Miles with Courtney Weir

Courtney Weir as Bec in 4000 MILES

Hello blog readers! My name is Courtney Weir, and I am playing Bec in 4000 MILES, here at Actors Theatre. We are currently in rehearsal. And

by currently I mean LITERALLY we are rehearsing right this minute. Seriously. It's happening now. How lucky are you to be experiencing it with me! Would you like a cupcake? There are cupcakes. But, no, don't have the cupcakes. I want the cupcakes. And I'm the one writing.

Currently I'm watching a scene being rehearsed that I'm not in. It's a scene between the lead guy, Leo, played by the amazing mister Devon Nickel, and Amanda, played by the incredibly talented (and young!) Keilani Akagi (pronounced "kay-lah-nee ah-kah-gee," but the "gee" has a hard "g" as in "got" or "green" or "gallbladder"). Keilani is the youngest in our cast, at the ripe ol' age of 19. Man, when I think of my 19 year old self, I was NOT at the level she is, performance wise. The girl sings, dances, acts, goes to school, often has adorable shoes and

sports a pink and white polka dot phone case. She's kind of the deal.

So in this scene, a lot happens. Most of which I'm not gonna go into here, because I'm not going to reveal spoilers, people! However I can say, there are many laughs created by these two actors. There's talk of sex, alcohol, communism, death, and teeth (weird but believe me it all

makes sense). And more stuff too, but hey, you will have to wait and see!

Side note, I just realized I forgot to put mascara on today and now I'm wondering what else I've forgotten... which doesn't totally pertain to rehearsal, except to say IN rehearsals, we all generally look pretty grubby (with the exception of Keilani's shoes). We wear sweats and old

t-shirts, that sort of thing. Because we gotta be comfortable to move around and figure out what human beings do with their bodies and that sort of thing. And more importantly, so that when we eat cupcakes, we can get crumbs on ourselves and not worry. Which reminds me, there's a

cupcake I'm gonna go eat. It has tiny Christmas tree sprinkles. Farewell until next time, people who read this! 

4000 MILES in Rehersal

Join us for our production of the award-winning play, 4000 MILES, opening January 11, 2014.

At the end of his cross-country bike trip, 21-year old Leo arrives unannounced at the Greenwich Village apartment of his 91-year old Jewish grandmother, Vera. As an overnight couch-surf turns into an extended stay, this compassionate and unsentimental play explores the funny, frustrating, and ultimately life-changing relationship between a grandson learning to face his life and a grandmother who is starting to forget hers. 

A STEADY RAIN - Opening Weekend

Joseph Kremer in A STEADY RAIN

“Opening Weekend” is always a fun few days in the theatre world. It’s filled with exhaustion, weird energy,

rehearsal line flubs, and beer in the dressing room. I’ll explain the booze in the dressing room at the end.

Opening Weekend is the name for the days of Preview, Opening Night, and the Sunday Matinee. The Preview (first performance in front of an audience) is always fun, but extremely nerve-racking. However, when the audience gave what felt like a 5 minute standing ovation to Matthew Wiener (Producing Artistic Director) and Erica Black (Managing Director) before their curtain speech, any trepidation Chris and I felt suddenly went away. That was a pretty magical moment to experience backstage.

Opening Night was especially incredible since this was the first show for Actors Theatre since their triumphant return. There was a feeling in the air as if we were all experiencing a very special moment together at the same time. Sure, I was a little tired and I messed up a couple of lines, but it didn’t matter. The warm compliments I received after the show made me forget all about it and that’s all that’s really important.

In fact, Opening Night was so busy that they actually had to refill the beer …which was being stored in the storage space in our dressing room. So to recap, there was beer within close proximity, great audiences, and an “unpaused” theatre company. What a great weekend.

A STEADY RAIN - blog #3

TECH.

In case you don’t know: “Tech” is what we in the theatre biz affectionately call the span of 5 days before the opening night. These days are usually full of stress, jokes, aggravation, and weariness as the lighting designer, sound designer, director, and stage manager all sit in the house and create the picture of what the show will look like. But what do the actors do? Well the actors run through the show and of course have their lines and emotional moments carefully choreographed and perfected in order to facilitate the process.

LOL.

Ok, the truth is, as an actor I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stepped into the performance space and my character or emotional beats change quite a bit because of the change in environment.

Did you hear that sound? That was the sound of Anthony (our director) ripping his gorgeous hair out of his head.

Don’t worry Anthony, it doesn’t change THAT much.  In fact, you probably won’t even notice it. But it’s definitely something that registers inside of me. The acoustics in the space are usually the first thing that has an effect on me. Most rehearsal spaces are small, enclosed rooms with low ceilings and tile floors, which are absolutely NOTHING like the actual performance space. If the acoustics aren’t great your volume has to go up so the back seats can hear you, which can have a profound effect on what sort of emotion you’re trying to portray. It’s frustrating, but challenging. And sometimes…SOMETIMES it actually helps change things for the better.

A STEADY RAIN - blog #2

So here’s a quiz for you:

In the last 72 hours, Joe Kremer has:

A) Drank heavily

B) Visited deep dark areas of his mind and soul

C) Sat in a room memorizing lines for 7 hours straight

D) Called for line 196,524 times

E) All of the above

If you chose E, you’re correct.

It may seem crazy but all of the items I mentioned above are absolutely necessary.

But I’m sure right now you’re asking me, “Hey Joe, if you’re spending 7 hours memorizing, why are you calling for line 196,524 times?”  The answer to that is very simple, I have stage fright.

In case you don’t know, “calling for line” is when you’re rehearsing a scene and you say to the wonderful stage manager, “line?” When you do that, the wonderful stage manager, who has the script in front of them, says the first part of the line to you, you then say the rest of the line, and then you continue on with the scene. But here’s the thing with me: When I’m in my tiny little office at home, I can have a scene DOWN COLD…and I mean like, know it forwards and backwards. As soon as I have to do it in front of someone such as Anthony (our fearless leader) or Amy (our amazing stage manager), it goes RIGHT OUT OF MY HEAD. So, I just keep “calling for line” and we do it over and over and over, no matter how annoyed my awesome fellow actor (Chris) gets. And believe me, he has every right to be annoyed. I swear, you’d rather go over to dinner at Jeffrey Dahmer’s house instead of listening to me say the word “line” 196,254 times. But the good news is that once I go through a scene all the way in front of someone, it just gets better from there. It’s always that first step that’s always the hardest. But isn’t that the case for most of life’s challenges?