Things Reveal Themselves Passing Away

I believe in miracles.

Will Springhorn Jr. and Molly Benson star in Things Reveal Themselves Passing Away

One of these days I will remember that I need to compose these blog entries as they actually happen, as opposed to months afterwards. It’s so difficult to remember the special joyful moments. That is the purpose of this blog, to keep track of all these wonderful opportunities and experiences that I’m having.  So I’ll try and do better.

The Author, Amy Prosser, had been working on this play fro roughly five years, and Molly and I had been involved through a few reading for the past three or so years.  Any and Josiah Polhemus had been actively marketing the play for production all around the bay area, and had not received a bite that I knew of, and decided to take a stab at producing it themselves under the auspices of RE:ACT, a production company that seeks to give opportunities to the ACT alums who are not generally employed as actors in the Bay Area.  They had produced The Bunner Sisters the previous year in the new Costume shop space.  The long and short of it was that they were going to try to produce it, but every slot that they cam up with kept interfering with a contract that I already would have it place, for a lot more money, and the health weeks.  I always was unavailable, and they were so kind to put it off. 

And finally, they decided to pull the trigger for a time slot that I literally had four other possibilities floating around.  I told them probably, and gave my regrets, knowing that it just wasn’t to be, and that this wonderful role was going to drift away to be played by someone else.

But as the universe would have it, basically all of the other options that I had fell through with alarming enthusiasm, a bunch of very unusual audition mishaps and scheduling conflicts.  And on the day that I realized I could indeed play the part, I emailed Amy to let her know, and I think they were a day from committing to someone else. That is the moral of these four paragraphs: I was meant to play this role.

Director Jackie Apodaca, Will Springhorn Jr. as Mark, Molly Benson as Joy, and Playwright Amy Prosser

Not that I am usually precious about roles and opportunities.  Once I was asked by a casting director the roles that were on my bucket list, and I really didn’t say anything.  Mostly due to the act that the only roles that came into my mind were the ones the one being cast by her at that very moment that I wasn’t being considered for.  SO I will work on it.  I promise.

Amy is wonderful and full of joy and warmth all day every day.  It’s lovely, and scary, because you never know when you’re going to be ambushed by the other half of her.  Which I have told exists, and I have never witnessed.  It is entirely possible that this blog entry will cause her to leap from behind my computer and strangle me.  She created literal and figurative space for play to be produced and worked on.  She was in fact, along with Josiah, the producer, and I had always assumed that she would be directing the project as well, since she had already directed all of the readings that we were involved. However, that was not to be and a wonderful relationship began.

Jackie Apodaca was our director, our fearless leader, the provider of inspiration, and the finder of lost children.  Not her own children, who are extremely well-behaved, but whenever a member of our cast was having trouble with a moment or struggling with the rigors of a dense part, she was right there to drive us toward the goal.  Case in point, I have excepted a text message between us:

There is also a facebook post where she extolls the virtues of her directing technique that involve lying as still as possible, “as if to avoid a bear attack”

All joking aside her direction revealed all sorts of things that we would have never come close to discovering, and we are forever in her debt for the wonderful things that she did!  (unsure of the need to switch to the royal we there, but such is life)

And the final subject of this particular blog entry is my fake wife Molly Benson.  We have only ever done shows where were married, and this show is a culmination of our hopes for Amy’s play.  Molly has a real husband and a real child, both of whom are wonderful, but this project was really the thing that we needed to be able to do together.  She had an incredibly large load, and handled it with grace and passion, and delivered a performance that I was honored to have the best seat to watch in the entire house.

When there is a cancelled rehearsal, you still have to rehearse. The Tempest.