Amphibian Stage Productions

 We love Baylen Thomas.  Especially when he came back as the Marquis de Cuigy.  In Act 2 he came in and shouted the wrong line.  “The chair and Porters!”  Then he stops and stays still for a bit, and shakes his hands and says “A message from De Guiche”  It was probably one of the funniest moments on stage I’ve ever been a part of.  We all were laughing hysterically.  What was hard is that it was a time in the show when we all are supposed to be serious.  It was so funny.  Nobody could look at anyone.  Poor Baylen.  He got ribbed so much but was a good sport about it.  He said he couldn’t remember De Guiche’s name! So with Baylen back in the Marquis role, we had Daniel Sunjata back, it was good to have the cast back together again.        The fog seems to want a role in this show.  Sometimes it is too much, other times it is too little, sometimes too high, and sometimes not on stage enough.  It’s definitly been interested in having a say.  Yesterday, the fog blew up in Jennifer Garner’s face when she was looking out in to the battlefield.  Not just a little bit of smoke, an absurd amount, poofed into her face at a very dramatic moment.  We all had a giggle offstage watching her try to negotiate the dramatics as well as the smoke.In my first scene as Valvert, Jennifer is insistant that we are here to watch O-KLA-HO-MA.  Chris Saranadon always asks her what are we watching today and she tells him a different play everyday.  We’ve gotten August:Osage County, Ibsen, Moliere, and a few others…but Oklahoma came back today.  Meanwhile Kevin was warming up to Chubby Checker’s “Twist”, warming up like it was a piece of literature from an Edith Skinner book.  He was even correcting the lyrics..”Let’s twist again, like we did last summer!”(in a “Shakespearean voice”) Then he says “Chubby!, it’s AS not LIKE!”  Sooo funny.  He was using it as a vocal warm up.  

While Carman is celebrating Christmas in NY, I’ve been down in Fort Worth enjoying the Yule season.  A few days ago I met up with Artistic Director Kathleen Culebro, Dramaturg Judy Norman and our Interim Managing Director Melissa Mitchell.  Melissa is wonderful and I look forward to her guidance in helping the company grow.

After lunch at Lucille’s ( I recommend the chicken fried steak) we saw the new office spaces at the Community Arts Center.  They are quaint and quiet (at least when I was there) and they will serve the company well.  I was also delighted to hear that both of our main-stage shows will both be at the C.A.C.  This should bring us and our audiences several advantages! 

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.

Welcome back from Christmas friends and family.  I hope you guys had a great time with your family and friends.  The 2 and a half days felt like a week.  We returned to Cyrano only to be flung into change.  I mean we knew it was all coming.  Daniel Sunjata is out of the show for today and tomorrow giving Baylen Thomas a chance to go on as Christian.  He is so ready to go on.  There would be a greater air of excitement had this not been the show after Christmas.  Christmasitis has kicked in not only for the cast but for the audience.  They are slow and going, but definitly here to see a show.

Baylen is totally ready to step up to the challenge. He was terrific! The cast was very supportive of him. We all had the itis, but the show was good and Baylen did a great job!

OK, so it isn’t quite Kevin as Cyrano as Santa, but the effect was very sweet. We had a christmas show for the cast put on by the cast, the female members of the cast plus a few other brave souls! It was a good time had by all. The girls got together and did a Sweeney Sisters inspired musical number that included church chat, family backgrounds and the singing of carols of course! They were hilarious and we had a great time singing along.

The girls got a bit saucy with Santa needless to say, not really child fare, but it was ll in good fun and we were all cracking up. The producers bought dinner for everyone, catered by Dos Caminos, Mexican and Italian food. It was delicious and we revealed Secret Santa’s and gave out final gifts. Daniel Sunjata was my recipient and John Douglas Thompson was my Secret Santa.

Very funny night…a few things happened that were quite funny. The first being that when I came out of the stage door, I decided to go straight to the fans and start signing autographs. I was feeling good, I like doing it, it’s fun! So I’m signing, and this girl pulls out a photo of Daniel Sunjata, and I’m like, I’m not Daniel, I’m Carman, I was the purple guy, the fighter in the show. She was like, I know…I signed a few more, and then I started to head out, and the other side was shouting “Daniel! over here! Daniel!!” I lean back in and say, “I’m not Daniel I was the purple guy in the show!” I left laughing. I should have went over there and just signed all there programs as Daniel, taken pictures and everything. It would have been hilarious. I guess I’m flattered that people thought I looked like him. He’s a great looking dude!

Earlier in the evening, we are in Act 4 and Chris Sarandon just cracks us up all the time when all the cadets are waiting for the king that doesn’t show up. Today he comes up and says, ” Damn I keep eating all this hair! All this hair is in my mouth! Then he looks at Stephen Balantzian and he is very hairy, and says, My God you need to shave! Look at you! It’s like a beast is in the front lines!” I’m cracking up, I have to tuck my chin to hide my laughter.

From the Post…
December 17, 2007 — IT was Wednesday night. It was Geezer gate. It was Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Rich ard Rodgers Theatre. The respectful audience, as befits this celebrated revival, remained properly hushed. Not a candy wrapper crinkled, not a sneezer wheezed. But in Row Q sat a little bald old man. His heart was obviously in the right place, but his eardrums weren’t. Poor guy couldn’t hear a “wherefore art thou” from a “whithersoever goest thee,” and from the stage those “prithees” all knocked together with their “mayhaps.”

Finally, mustering up nerve, the gent actually cupped his hands and shouted through the packed house, “Speak up louder!” Kevin Kline never faltered. In character, right in the middle of his scene, he adlibbed, “Methinks I hear ghosts in the theater.” The audience broke up. They applauded. And the play moved right along. But from then on, the speech level didst indeed kick up a notch.

All true but what he really said was “Talk louder puhhhllleassseeee!” Hilarious. Kevin did hear and respond to it, but completely in character. After he said “I think there are ghosts in this theater, but that’s what happens when you go to the theater, you never know what is going to happen!” The audience was very respectful in Kevin’s handling of the situation. We were all backstage asking each other, “What just happened? Did you hear that?” After Kevin found his way back to his own text, the audience applauded. He did indeed speak louder, and the energy did pick up. The man who yelled at Kevin must have been 110 years old. In the orchestra and he couldn’t hear! After the show, Kevin started the auction, and said, “you have all been a terrific audience, with the exception of one!” The audience roared with laughter. Kevin was still gracious about it. What people don’t know about kevin is that he loves a challenge, and he is so poised and aware of what is going on around him that he is ready to react all the time. I mean…he’s Kevin Kline people!

So, Jonathan has closed his show, and so has Katya Campbell.  For those of you who don’t know, Katya Campbell is another amphibian who was on Broadway this fall with the play Mauritius, by Teresa Rebeck.  I was very sad for Jonathan, as I know I will be sad when our show closes.  Cheers to you Jonathan and Katya.

I have been staying busy with the show.  It is hard to get things done when the show occupies so much of your time.  I’m by no means complaining because I could do this forever, and i want to do this forever.  In the meantime, Republic, where i bartend has been very good to me.  I pick up a shift a week, and when the show closes will go back to doing three a week.  I’m not entirely looking forawrd to it, but i am greatful to have it.

On another note the Cyrano company raised 86,000 dollars for equity fights aids.  The Ritz raised the most on Broadway, with 140,000…They also had six weeks to raise money where we only had two weeks because of the strike.  Not bad, but had we had those weeks we would have done better.  In addition to auctioning the nose, Jennifer was taking photos with fans for 100.00 dollars a piece and for 200.00 dollars a piece the next nite, because the previous nite went so well.  Everyone chipped in to raise money for AIDS awareness.

Baylen Thomas, who plays Marquis de Cuigy, had a baby boy this morning, taking him out of the show, and putting Amefika back on for Baylen.  We had the first grade class from the Performing Arts School come and watch the fight call, that I led along with Tom Schall.  They were soooo precious.  They were the most well behaved kids ever.  Kevin was really great with them.  He answered their questions…mostly about his nose and not about the fights.  Something they could relate to…Then when he left “the purple grape” fielded questions about why I like grapes so much!  Very cute and funny!  I met Jessica Hecht, fantastic and beautiful, and Steve Martin came to the show and I missed him.  Sort of bummed about that, but I’ll meet him soon!

Well it’s over.  I couldn’t get my contact lenses to cooperate for Sunday’s show and so my last Broadway memories are a bit blurry but I suppose that’ll just hasten it fading away into oblivion.  No I’m not in the slightest bit saddened by it being over, he said meekly.

Several came off the stage sobbing.  Several Broadway debuts for this show but also a general consensus that it was a good show with good people which apparently isn’t always the case.  At the after-party everyone was feeling a bit exhausted and everpresent so I was able to have meaningful conversations with everyone, even those I might have been a distance from, but more often than not I found myself sitting and listening and smiling as I looked out across the candle lit interior of Un-Deux-Trois.  It’s funny when you know you’re somewhere that will live in your memories.  Memory itself tricks you (thanks Tennessee) and somehow if you know you’re somewhere that you’ll remember your mind seems to do the same thing in present time.

After the party Doug Stender and I went to our agent’s holiday party.  A fitting end to this entire adventure was to see guru teacher Bill Esper, my mentor and constant inspiration, seated near the rear of the back room!  He was with his wife and another friend.  They sat facing me.  Through the dozens of revelers I tentatively approached and politely intervened and after appropriately greeting them, finally confided to him where I was coming from.  A great big smile came across his face and his voice arced up and replied “That’s wonderful!” 

“A triumph” Claire said to me when she walked off stage last night. 

A few things happened yesterday, the first being that the cast and crew assembled between shows for a holiday/Christmas dinner in the trap room.  Roundabout bought a turkey and spiral ham and several others brought side dishes and desserts.  It was heartwarming, and again, all due to the fine planning of Fallon.  During the meal Brad, Curtis, and set up a screening of a 12 minute film we created during the coarse of the run about what we do in the dressing room.  It also showed a few pictures of Times Square and the Selwyn Theater (now the American Airlines, where we perform).  The movie was filled with gags (some good, some not so) and we luckily got Jay O. Sanders to narrate the beginning.  We were hoping for a few laughs but people seemed to genuinely enjoy it.  Jefferson hugged me saying “It was wonderful, thank you.”  He walked away snickering, “what have I been doing with my time”.  In fact, we put up a sign up sheet for copies of the film and by the time we left yesterday 19 people had signed up to receive theirs!  It was all a nice surprise for us, who thought it might be a silly sort of slide-show.  Over the holidays I hope to put the short film on my website if anyone’s interested in viewing.

With great highs come great lows however as we close our show today.  We’ll take our final Broadway bows and then celebrate at Un-Deux-Trois, hosting our closing party.