"Thank You 10" - Conversations Between Acting

I'm some ways, the early days of rehearsal can feel like the first day of school. There's lots of anxiety yet excitement, nervousness and confidence, self-doubt a midst intense hope. But it's more than just school and I am approaching each new experience as more than just a student.

One of the aspects I've enjoyed the most about my experience with Houston Shakespeare Festival is the talking-to and getting-to-know my fellow artists better. The conversations in of themselves teach me so much about the different paths people take in this field. I've been able to eek out life advice AND steal some really great acting techniques from so many of the more established actors in the casts.

One of the most eye-opening realizations I've had is learning that many of the actors are (a lot) older than they play, and a lot older than I thought they were. I'm glad I can end that misguided perception. Given that truth, and the truth that black don't crack, I think I'm good for at least another 20-30 years.

Another unique thing about these casts... a lot of them are married. Speaking as someone who one day hopes to start a family, this was rather reassuring. You CAN be a performer and have a happy married life. What's particularly unique about this season is the number of couples there are in the overall artistic team! The guy who plays Antony is married to the director (Leah Gardiner) of Antony & Cleopatra, and Cleopatra is married to Octavius. Aggripa is married to the stage manager of Antony & Cleopatra. Pompey is getting married to someone who used to be in connected to the festival. Enobarbus is married to someone who used to be connected to the show...

and you wouldn't know it because, as a friend in the cast put it, "no one changes their frickin' name anymore!"

Anyway. It's been fun yet hard. I'm much more confident with Phebe of "As You Like it" than Charmian of "Antony & Cleopatra", but that's probably because I've spent more time in/with her  I'm enjoying it all around. I'm looking forward to creating and finding more and more dimensions to both roles. And...how awesome is it that I get paid to do this?! I truly am blessed from above! -Nickclette Izuegbu

Guest Blogger: @jesimieljenkins - Moving to LA - Part 1

Jesimiel and I met during the year I lived in Philadelphia working as an Education Fellow at the Wilma Theater, a Teaching Artist for Philadelphia Young Playwrights, and developing my craft as  a performer and writer. Jesimel recently moved to LA to pursue a career in TV hosting. When I remembered the fascinating discussions we had about being African American, intellectual, and creative, I thought he'd offer a fascinating perspective. Featured below is Part I of his journey to LA. He's brutally honest and I dig it. 

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I’m reading a remarkable book right now.  In fact, so remarkable that it seems to mirror my life at the moment.  It’s called The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson and could easily be hailed as the first major work of nonfiction concerning the Great Migration, the period between 1915 until 1970 when black families uprooted from the south to make new homes in urban areas of northern cities.  They were drawn by increased wages, a better quality of life, and mostly less discrimination.  Wilkerson chronicles the lives of three different families from the moment they left the south up until the book was completed.  The title is from a poem by Richard Wright:

I was leaving the South

To fling myself into the unknown…

I was taking a part of the South

To transplant in alien soil,

To see if it could grow differently,

If it could drink of new and cool rains,

Bend in strange winds,

Respond to the warmth of other suns

And, perhaps, to bloom.

I started reading this book before I decided to move to Los Angeles back in January.  I’d spent the last three years in Philadelphia working at an art museum and dispassionately auditioning for theatre roles here and there when something came along that I actually liked.  Much like the families in Wilkerson’s book, I was fed up. I felt that there was a glass ceiling for minority actors in such a small theatre market and my dreams were waiting for me somewhere up near Jupiter. I decided to move to Philadelphia with the hopes of padding my resume with good roles but after months of auditioning and being looked over for someone far worse than I and seeing lackluster and lifeless productions of wonderful pieces of theatre, I realized I was in bad soil.  So, after some soul-searching and after losing my dad in 2011, I decided to hitch a U-Haul to the back of my Nissan Rogue and traverse west for a new life, more opportunity, and more fertile soil. I needed the warmth of other suns.   

Side note: I totally had a nerd moment when I read that he'd been reading "Warmth of Other Suns" because the book was the basis for work I did in a class I took while in graduate school on self-generated work. Some of the best creative writing I've been able to do. 

To reach Jesimiel you can follow him on Twitter @jesimieljenkins or email him at jesimieljenkins@blallywood.com.