Amphibian Stage Productions

Ok, so for the big news.  Kevin said he willing to help us out! My mind was racing with possibilities.  He said over the break he had a chance to really look through the pamphlet, I gave him.  I am glad that I didn’t rush him on it, because now he wants to help on his own volition.  I am so excited about it, and glad that he is interested in helping.  So we are planning the possibilities!

I had a great conversation with him about voice and speech work and how important it is to get the voice around classical text and that you can’t speak it just at a normal flat tone. It doesn’t mean that it has to be Shakespearean, it just has to be heightened. I asked him who is voice teacher was at Juilliard and he said it was Liz Smith. I asked him if he knew a Peggy Loft or a Margaret Loft and he said yes. I said, “Peggy was my voice teacher at TCU but I knew she used to work at Juilliard.” He said her name at the time was Peggy Freed. I couldn’t believe it. He said she was sexy, that he always thought she was so sexy! Funny, because when we were learning from her at TCU several of us had crushes on her too, although she was old enough to be our grandmother. I said Peggy, like Liz Smith was very interested in getting the voice around the words. She would make us come in the class and after warming up, would make us say “I am sound!” I told Kevin she was very interested in Henry 5 and the speeches from the chorus, and that every time she would hear “a little touch of Harry in the night” she would cry. Kevin said, “A little touch of WHO in the night?” I said, “Harry.” He said, “Don’t you mean HAArri!” I was saying Hairy…funny. My conversation with him went on to discover that he also had worked with my teacher and director at Rutgers, Amy Saltz. Amy had assisted directed a show that Kevin worked on and he remembered her fondly and also with Also Hal Scott, who was a mentor of mine and who took me under his wing my third year at Rutgers and my first few years out of school.

More correlations…or just coincidence? I spoke with Kevin about Shakespeare, and we both love love love it. And a few things we shared about his works. One being that we both don’t like it when people mess with the work. I was telling him about Rose Rage, The Henry 6 plays that I did. And he said how his good friend Austin Pendleton wanted him to go see it, that he would absolutely love it. Kevin had heard about the show and was not too interested in the concept of meat and innards being flung around. But he said his first production in New York City was playing a spear carrier in Henry the 6th. I told him my first big production in New York City was in Henry the 6th too! He said, “Oh who did you play?,” and I said, “Henry the 6th!” He said “You did!” and then we started quoting the mole-hill speech, and we both had agreed that it was one of the best speeches Shakespeare ever wrote. It was an awesome recognition to share that with Kevin Kline.