Two days more!

I have two more videos left to do over the next two days, so tomorrow is the last day to give me any ideas that you may have.  If you have ideas; great!  If not; that's cool as well.  Be sure to follow Searon on the Dynamite app available in the app store.

Halloween series

I am creating a series of five videos for Dynamite Labs Inc. about Halloween and need help coming up with ideas.  If you have anything about Halloween you would like me to touch on, please comment below or send me a message.  The Dynamite app can be found in the app store for free and you can follow me to see the videos: just follow Searon from within the app.

HBO

As of today, I have been put down as an extra on HBO's "Mosaic"; shooting in less than a week.  Time to cut my hair!

Postings

Sorry I haven't posted in a while; so much has been going on that I haven't had any time.

Salt Lake was one of my more brilliant plans, but the fact that apartments are dreadfully hard to come by in my current situation (I make too much to get what I can afford and too little to get anything I qualify for) meant that I had to take it in the groin and move back to Logan.

Not to be kept down for long, I started applying for jobs a week later.  It is the exact opposite of SLC.  While I have applied for more positions than I applied to in SLC, I have yet to land an interview here.  In SLC, I had a job already.

As my brother works for USU Production Services, I applied to them and am waiting to hear back.  That is the closest to theatre I can get right now.

I'll post again soon.

SLC update

This week, I made the decision to quit putting it off and focus on moving to Salt Lake City.  Why SLC?  I feel that I am not getting the opportunity to do what I really want to do in Logan.  My short term life goal is to get a job in SLC that will enable me to rent an apartment there.  My short term professional goal is to earn my Equity card.

Why do I need to be in SLC to do this?  Two of the three equity houses in Utah are in SLC; Pioneer and SLAC.  The other?  USF in Cedar City.  Seeing as how USF only auditions once a year, Salt Lake is my best bet.

Any job I get in Salt Lake will, most likely, be a permanent position of over two years.  Once I get my equity card I want to move to New York, and I need sufficient funds to do so in order to live there.

In the meantime, I will be auditioning for everything that I can in SLC and applying for all the jobs as well.

Until next time!

Two shows left!

Thanks to my wonderful LYS supporters, I am now in the green as far as my first live fundraising campaign!  It's not over yet; we still have two more shows to go.

Today at 7 is Macbeth, an incredible production directed by the brilliant Emma Jackson-Smith.  In my opinion, it rivals the Utah Shakespeare Festival's 2010 production of Macbeth in terms of direction.

Tomorrow at 2 is Cymbeline, an energetic production directed by Mary Jackson-Smith; an incredible educator and leader.  This show encompasses literally everything from a down to earth love story to gods and demons over a time period of 1600 years; all in about three hours.

Come see these two wonderful shows on the second floor of the Bullen Center in Logan, Utah.  Tickets are six dollars, roses are nine, cushion rentals are two, and all concessions are one dollar or less.  All rose and cushion rental proceeds go toward a Shakespeare conference in Denmark and all concession proceeds go toward the LYS Scholarship fund.  See you at these two wonderful shows!

My Trip to Elsinore

Hej, jeg hedder Andrew!

I am raising money for a trip to Kronborg Castle, Denmark, better known as Elsinore from "Hamlet", to attend a conference on Shakespeare called "William Shakespeare: The NEXT 400 Years".  The conference is from April 22-24, 2016, and the 400 year anniversary of Shakespeare's death falls right smack dab in the middle.

Why go to Denmark to learn about Shakespeare?  I asked myself that same question about seven times this week; and it's only Tuesday.  The simplest and most truthful way to answer this is that I like Shakespeare and what better setting is there to learn about him than Elsinore?

But my yearning to go there runs deeper.  I've been to Canada and Mexico, but nowhere else.  I want to experience a culture that is completely different from my own; I'm a bit jealous of my friends that have been to China.  Also, I need to be and stay on the cutting edge of Shakespearean knowledge if I want to go anywhere in Shakespearean theatre; and I do.

I also want to learn about Shakespeare.  In college, I had tons of Shakespeare courses and took it for granted.  Now, I am struggling to find ways to keep learning about and doing Shakespeare.

This brings me to Logan Youth Shakespeare (LYS).  Why am I doing LYS for free?  Simple.  I am teaching Shakespeare.  I am getting as close as I can to the bard and watching as children learn about him: his words, his rhymes, and his rhythm.  I am watching the frustration, and the joy they get when it finally clicks.  I am working on real life problems that are not set in stone; that are flexible and can be bent any number of ways.

The only downside of LYS is that I am not getting paid to do it; if I didn't have a job as an Event Specialist, I couldn't do it.

This brings me to another point.  When I go to this conference and learn new information about Shakespeare that will be unknown in Logan, maybe even all of Utah, I will become desirable as an expert on Shakespeare.  I will be the person that people, like Mary Jackson-Smith, founding director of LYS, come to for answers when they don't know what Shakespeare meant in this line or that.  I will be the actor and director that knows the freshest way to do Henry V and all the subtle hints in the text that have been lost for hundreds of years.  Most importantly, I will be able to teach more than I ever have been able to before.

On April 23, 2016, I will be in Elsinore learning an entirely new way of doing things, but I can't do it without your help.  If as little as 221 people donate ten dollars in the next ten months, I will be able to experience a new culture and learn new things, coming back to Utah with fresh insights on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era.

Please help me make this trip a reality.  Donate as little as ten dollars if you can and watch as I learn and bring new information back with me to teach to anyone who has an open mind and a passion for theatre.  Please interact with me, whether it's to ask a question on Shakespeare or simply ask how my day went.  You can find my fundraising site here, and I look forward to meeting you.

Update

Just to update you all on what I'm doing, I'm still working at ASM doing demo work.  I am also helping people memorize lines for LYS's upcoming production of "Cymbeline".  Not much is happening with all of that right now, although I have made some progress with one of the kids at LYS and his speech patterns.

Utah Children's Theatre

Exciting news that next Tuesday, June 2 I will be interviewing for an actor instructor position at Utah Children's Theatre.  This is a huge step for me as it would mean living in Salt Lake City.

The story of how this happened is a bit of a crazy one.  When I left for college to get a theatre degree I told my parents that I would not get an educational degree as well because I didn't want to teach.  I wanted to do.  This seemed like a good idea at the time.  I would get done with school, move to New York City, and become a Broadway actor within six months.

Unfortunately, I forgot about this little thing called "finances".  I didn't really know how expensive it was to live in New York or that, as a relatively unknown actor, I would have a tough time getting an acting job.  I also didn't fully grasp the fact that these jobs would not bring in enough to pay my rent.

I decided, six months before graduation, to live in Logan for a while and do technical and administrative theatre as well as auditioning for things in Salt Lake.

After auditioning for "Revengers" in Salt Lake and coming to realize that it didn't pay anything ($50 for the entire run, but still...), trying to get paid for administrative theatre work in Logan; which doesn't pay anything either, and almost having to cave and work at a call center, I decided to go into teaching at a children's theatre.

I really enjoyed explaining myself to the actors that I had directed in college.  I enjoyed telling them why I asked them to do things and how to work on their own to become better actors.  This spurred me to contact Unicorn Theatre in Logan in order to get a teaching job.

Despite my expertise at directing and acting, I was told that the most I could be offered was an unpaid assistantship.  Obviously, I said that I was unable to do that.  After assistant directing HSM JR. with the Utah Festival Opera Conservatory, I decided that my input deserves compensation and that, while enjoyable, I don't have enough to gain from assistantships to merit them being unpaid (which is why I'm an unpaid assistant at LYS, but that's another matter).

While drinking some cheap beer at home one day, I got an alert from Backstage Utah that Utah Children's Theatre was looking for acting instructors.  I applied to them, thinking that moving to Salt Lake would be a good first step if I got the job.

I also applied to a children's theatre in Taylorsville, but they weren't interested.

About a month after applying, I got an email from Jana Cox at UCT that she would like me to come in for an interview on June 2.  I emailed back immediately that I was available and changed my work schedule to fit around that date.

Since hearing from Jana, I have been snooping around UCTs website to learn all about the theatre.  I think I have a pretty good chance at this point.  I guess we'll find out in June.

Cymbeline

As of last week, I have been brought on as an assistant with Logan Youth Shakespeare's production of "Cymbeline".

For those that don't know the play; it's basically a spam of Shakespeare's plays.  Star-crossed lovers, cold and drowsy humour, murder, cross dressing, and the occasional eagle riding God are all included in this play.

Cymbeline is not a comedy nor is it a tragedy (despite Shakespeare's original intent).  The Greeks would classify these types of plays as tragicomedies; the place where all plays that are not cut and dry comedy or tragedy go.  This category includes basically everything on cable today, so it's not very helpful.

I would classify Cymbeline as a dark romantic comedy.  It's basically "Romeo and Juliet", "King Lear", "Twelfth Night", and "Richard III" inside Disney's "Sleeping Beauty".

If you're not sure how that can work, come see the play at the Bullen Center in Logan, Utah.  Performances are set for early August and tickets will be available at the door.  You can see everything going on with LYS and the Cache Valley Center for the Arts here.  While there, be sure to check out the Spring play, "As You Like It", which plays later this month.

April Update

Just to update you on the goings on this month so far; I have a callback for Lagoon's traveling show in Salt Lake this Saturday and my training for Advantage will start next Friday.

ASM

As of yesterday, I was officially hired by Advantage Sales & Marketing as an Event Specialist!

Auditions

I just had two auditions.  One for Lagoon and one for "Revengers" at Off Broadway Theatre in Salt Lake.  I am so glad that the two audition locations were three minutes apart!

High School Musical

Last night was the closing night of the most successful production that I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

I had just graduated in December, and had been told by Stephanie White that there may be a job opportunity with the conservatory.

I contacted Stefan Espinosa, the Conservatory Supervisor, in mid December to ask about jobs.  He emailed back immediately asking for a resume and I obliged.  After a few weeks with no word from him, I recieved an email telling me that, most unfortunately, there was not an opportunity for me that quarter, but that there was a show that he wanted to work with me on, "High School Musical".  He asked me to come in as the assistant director and, after working my schedule to fit, I accepted.

The first day was nerve wracking as I had never worked as an assistant director before and didn't know what was expected of me.  I had talked to Stefan earlier that day to go over preliminary set drawings, but I still wasn't clear on what I was supposed to do.  When I walked into the rehearsal hall for the first read-through and saw the size of the cast, I started freaking out.  There were simply more people in that room than I had ever worked with before.

The first few weeks of rehearsal were more of a learning experience for me than hands on directing.  It gave me an idea of what the direction of the show was and how the blocking would turn out.  I would point out blocking that I thought looked awkward after rehearsal, and Stefan would take that feedback and use it or lose it.  One of my designs actually made it into the show, albeit for a different scene, but I still count it as a win.

In the third week of rehearsal I was given the job of coming up with a set of projections for each of the scenes.  It was difficult to compile everything and come up with a design that Stefan would approve of at first, but I eventually got there and hammered out a total of forty-three separate projections that all had to be built from scratch.

Once I had the projections pretty much done, I set out with the intent of giving these kids some quick fixes for their scenes.  I quickly learned that the way I learn things does not work at this level and had to get creative.  It was during a scene that I was told to rehearse, but for which I only had about half of the kids necessary, that I stumbled across my first breakthrough.  It was a scene where high school kids are pretending to be animals.  I couldn't do what I was told, so I had the kids act like animals with no context.  It was very enjoyable for them (at least they looked like they were having fun) and really helped with their character development.

One of the other things that I stumbled across was a quick and easy way to learn projection.  Out of desperation I asked the kids to talk as if they were speaking to a class of sixty students.  To my surprise, that worked much better than the technical explanation of the act of projection.

Due to the quality of the show, we sold out all three originally planned performances and the last performance sold out within nine hours.

My favorite experience was watching the amount of growth throughout rehearsals and performances, and knowing that I helped to make that growth happen.  I no longer view some of these kids as kids, but rather as young adults.  I am grateful to the Utah Festival Opera Conservatory for affording me this opportunity and hope I will get to work with these actors and actresses again soon.

Support my show in the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival!

We are taking an as yet unnamed show to The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival; a brand new festival in Salt Lake City, Utah that is focused on the performing arts. I have been wanting to write, direct, and produce a show of this level for some time now and the opening of The Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival is the perfect opportunity to do just that. Along with Rand Einfeldt and Monica Cutler, I am creating a show of a professional level that will be seen later this year.

We almost have a set script that combines the trials of high-school with the moral dilemma of animal rights; the overarching theme of the play being that animals should be left to their own devices. The design for the play is minimalistic and, besides set, there are not a whole lot of design elements. For example: light up and lights down are really the only light cues, and the only sound cues are physically created on stage.

In order to create the best show possible, the production team and I have already started acquiring the space needed for callbacks and rehearsals, dealing with transportation, and paying the cost of attendance. This is all being done early so that, when the cast is announced, we can be completely focused on the show.  Please click here to learn more.

Happy February!

It's February!  We have three weeks of rehearsals left for High School Musical Jr. and the show is going to be great.  We haven't finished blocking the later scenes, but the earlier ones are looking great, so I'm not worried.  We rehearse through February twenty-seventh.

I had an audition for Over the River and Through the Woods (let's see how many words we can fit into the title without people getting bored), but didn't get it.  Same thing with Salt Lake Acting Company's (SLAC) production of Yesterday's Voyeur.

My next audition is OLRC on the fourteenth, Rocky Mountain Summer Stock Theatre Auditions (RMSSTA) on the twenty-first, and Disney's The Little Mermaid on the twenty-third.

I am waiting to hear from the Murray Arts Council as well as the Sandy Arts Guild about coming in to direct their productions of Annie Get Your Gun and Into the Woods respectively.

I am waiting to hear back from The Hogle Zoo on a position, UFOMT on a production position, and, of course, USF on an acting position as well as a production position.

To top it all off, my step-sister and her fiancé are getting married on March seventh; which just happens to be my brother's birthday.

As I was writing this, I realized exactly how busy I actually am: three auditions this month as well as three prospective interviews (USF usually holds interviews in late March or early April, and I'm assuming UFOMT is the same way).  Of course, we're treating HSM as an incredibly long interview for me, so four interviews in reality.

UFOMT

I am officially the Assistant Director of High School Musical Jr. at Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre.  I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with such an incredible company and to act as an educator to young adults.

Yesterday's Window

As promised, here is a short video of Yesterday's Window.