When I was in high school, I saw a production of Fences at the Pennsylvania Stage Company that made me say: "That is how I want to make an audience feel."
Name a production that affect you this way... a production you saw that represents to you the type of actor, director or writer you'd like to be.
About Me
- Freeman
- Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.
8 comments:
That's funny.. I was going to mention a production of TWO TRAINS RUNNING I saw in DC. Man, when August Wilson is done right (which is rare) it's like nothing else.
Also, Angels in America on Broadway.
Those were the formative experiences as a youth, anyway. Since going to college, I dunno.
The Threepenny Opera by Weill/Brecht, translated by Manheim/Willett, directed by Richard Foreman, musical direction by Stanley Silverman, January 1977, Vivian Beaumont Theatre.
Einstein on the Beach by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass, January 1984, Brooklyn Academy of Music.
I didn't even get involved in theatre until college other than being in a bunch of pit orchestras for musicals in high school. I acted in a play and directed one sophomore year of undergrad and that really got me started. By actually doing it. Maybe that's why I've always been much more drawn to the process of making theatre than watching it.
hm. Never really thought about that.
Anyway. I always cite and shall cite now "Journey's End" at The Shaw Festival a few years ago. It (like much of the other stuff in the festival) showed me that theatre could still be powerfully relevant, identifiable, and moving. I don't get moved much in the theatre. I was on that night in Canada.
But other than that all my defining moments in the theatre are process-oriented.
One of the earliest I can think of was when I was in college (I believe I was a sophomore and this was 1996 or 1997) and I saw the Off-Broadway restaging of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (the one with Rosemarry Harris and Elain Stritch). Seeing that set a pretty high-watermark for me as to what theatre could do.
"Richard II" at the Royal National Theatre in London, fall 1995. Fiona Shaw as Richard, David Threlfall as Bolingbroke, directed by Deborah Warner in the incredibly tiny Cottesloe Theatre. Three hours and forty-five minutes and you could hear a pin drop. The lights went down at the very end and there was silence. No applause, nothing. Then applause, muted a bit because in truth our minds were elsewhere by then. Then the audience left, more or less silently. It was overwhelming. My girlfriend and I wandered around London all night trying to process it. Changed me life, it did.
Also at the National in London, UNCLE VANYA with Ian McKellen as Vanya, Antony Sher as Astrov, and Janet McTeer as Yelena. It was sold out, so I stood along the rail in the mezz, on the side, for nearly 3 hours of bliss.
In 1996, in Chicago, I saw a production entitled KLOWN: Prick Us and We'll Burst. It was four Chicago actor/writers who had created a show of dark, Germanic clowning and had sent out press that indicated they were actually German and from a distinctly dark and ancient form of clowning.
It was disgusting, it was meaty, it was brilliant.
I saw the show nine times. I bought a t-shirt.
The original production of HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE . . . outstanding.
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