An Interview with Theater Director Carlos Martin

Carlos Martin, a Southern California based actor-director, directs "Light", a new one-act play by Andrea Sloan Pink opening this Saturday, December 5th, at STAGEStheater in Fullerton. The play features Oscar Martinez Jr., Ted Leib and Gina Allen and runs through December 2oth. www.stagesoc.org

Carlos took a few minutes before tonight's dress rehearsal to grant SOCA Film and Theater an interview.

SOCA: Carlos, you've been a working actor for years. How does this inform your work as a director?

I have an insight as to the nature of how actors work. I try to be aware of actor's needs and give them the freedom to explore. I have also been directed by many directors and I observe a lot. I see bad directing all the time, and I learn from it. Some directors over direct, or microdirect, and some do not direct at all.


So often actors walk away from a rehearsal saying "I'm not getting anything from him/her" or "I don't know what they want." You can see those pieces on most any stage in the world. It is obvious that a director hasn't done their homework when you leave a theater saying "Why did they do that?" or, "What was that about?" Not that you didn't like it, because that is subjective and there will always be people who don't like your work, but that you didn't understand the vision and the choices that were made.


As an actor you have to be willing to put yourself on the line and trust the director to guide you. As a director you have to realize it is not about you or even the actor, but about the piece. Someone was motivated to write it. Why? That is what you have to find out, and give the audience.

SOCA: When you get a new piece of material, what is your process? Where do you start?

I read it! I look for works that make me passionate and give me a vision right away. I want to see the play in my head as I read. I block it, and hear the lines, and find the hidden gems the writer has given me that will make it unique. I also love research so I like works that challenge me to learn. I am a big proponent of Dramaturgy and giving the actors information and getting them off book as soon as possible.


Too often as an actor, you find your stride halfway or at the end of a run because you finally have it in your body. I want the actors to get that feeling right away. This confidence shows on stage and the choices will always be more interesting and more compelling because they have done the work and had time to figure out their character's story.

SOCA: Tell us some of your tips for taking a good performance from an actor and making it great.

Communication. Oftentimes actors are their own worst enemy. They get in their own way by acting. I try to find ways to speak to them, and listen to them, and ask for their input. Every actor is different and needs different things. As a director it is my job to be a sort of parent; you give guidance and lead by example, then let them go live life in the guise of a character you have helped them to create.


Drawing from reality always. Making sure every movement or stillness, no matter how dramatic or silly, is motivated by reality. But again letting them explore by giving them the information, tools, and freedom they need to be successful.


Actors are very smart people. They are intuitive and can show you things about a character you didn't know where there.

SOCA: You are a young director with the potential to become a leader in the Southern California theater community. What would you like to create and what are your goals?

I want people to want to work with me, not just because I can offer a job, or it is a part that they believe they are perfect for, but because they want to be involved in the process with me. I want to create a community of artists that are passionate about art and can infuse the community with that passion.


My goals are to make my livelihood as an artist, to see the world and share what I see through the arts. Oh, and I wouldn't mind a Corvette!


SOCA: Thanks, Carlos! I've certainly enjoyed working with you and I hope you get your Corvette!

Different. Bold. Original. The Holiday Stimulus Package presented by OCPA and STAGEStheater

Tired of the same old holiday shows? Looking for something new? OCPA & STAGEStheatre bring you a"Holiday Stimulus Package"Different. Bold. Original. All new works from OC playwrights who have been produced across America.

The 40-member Orange County Playwrights Alliance (OCPA) and STAGEStheatre are teaming up to bring you a Holiday Stimulus Package – a production of original, funny and intelligent new plays about the holidays.

The production runs December 5-20 at STAGEStheatre, 400 E. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, with showtimes Saturdays @ 5:00pm and Sundays @ 3:00pm. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors and students. Ticket reservations may be made at stagesoc.org; unreserved tickets will be released 30 minutes prior to curtain. Information at 714.902.5716.

The Christmas Tape by John Lane [Stanton] - Hannah's holiday greeting to the kids and grandkids may not be so cordial this year - Grandma has a few things to say. Directed by Yvonne Robertson. Featuring Leslie Joyce, Cori Knight and Janelle Smith.

The Bike by Beverly Arrowsmith [Laguna Woods] – at Christmas, Jessica decides to buy herself the perfect gift, the one her husband should have given her years ago. Directed by Jill Forbath (Founder, West Coast Ten-Minute Play Festival). Featuring Marcia Bonitz.

Will Work for Food by Donna Bader [Laguna Beach] – Guess who's coming to dinner: a homeless man. Are Steven's affluent friends as tolerant and generous as they perceive themselves to be? Directed by Katherine James. Featuring Justine De Jesus, Stu Eriksen, Alexis Kiley, Jared Sorenson and Jim Thoms.

We Can Still Rock 'n' Roll by Eric Eberwein [Huntington Beach] - an edgy couple rekindle their marriage at Christmas by recounting their youthful misadventures and the way their unique and wild love helped save each other's lives. Directed by Tamiko Washington (Chapman University). Featuring Tyler Cherman and Taylor McDermott.

Christmas Future by Ray Jacob [Costa Mesa] - a down-on-his-luck Santa crashes a wealthy couple's Christmas celebration, cutting them down to size. Directed by Jo Black-Jacob (Long Beach Playhouse). Featuring Chad Glazener, Jen Vogt Lowell and David Rusiecki (with Fred Peters at selected performances).

Light by Andrea Sloan Pink [Irvine] - Joe returns home with a gift for his brother Mort and his wife Tabitha. Will Mort and Tabitha accept it? Or will the mysterious nature of faith intervene? Directed by Carlos Martin. Featuring Gina Allen, Ted Leib and Oscar Martinez Jr.

Happy Holidays by Jerry Berning [Huntington Beach] – one inquisitive and entertainingly loose-lipped grandmother prefers to celebrate Christmas year-round, if only as an escape from reality. Directed by Geoff Gread (New Voices Playwrights Theatre). Featuring Jo Anne Carrillo and Rachel Panas.

Chelsea De Jesus, Stage Manager / Trisha Siedlecki, Assistant Stage ManagerBenjamin T. Morrow, Sound Designer / Philip Presentadi, Lighting Designer / Nate Cargill, Set DesignerOCPA began in 1995 and has grown to be one of the largest playwrights groups on the west coast. It presents a quarterly staged reading series of new works (Discoveries) as well as occasional co-productions with notable OC storefront theatres. OCPA members have won the OC WEEKLY Award for Best New Play (Johnna Adams's Cockfighters), the Reva Shiner Playwriting Award (Johnna Adams's Sans Merci), the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works Competition (Eric Eberwein's Great Western Wanderlust), the Grove Theatre Center New Play Initiative (David Hogan's Capital) and others. STAGEStheatre traces its roots to the early 1990s. It was started by students and alumni of CSUF and Fullerton College. They had produced theatre in Hollywood, and they wanted to present the kind of theatre they loved in north Orange County. Its attractive, welcoming Fullerton venue has hosted numerous new plays – in fact, it is safe to say STAGEStheatre has produced and presented more new plays than any other theatre in the county. STAGEStheatre has put up more than 275 productions in its history.

Order tickets at stagesoc.org – just $12, $10 students/seniors.Info: 714.902.5716

Laguna Beach New Play Festival: All the details you could want and more

Gallimaufry Performing Arts & OCPA present The 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival.

Exciting new plays on consecutive Saturdays from award-winning & notable OC playwrights.

LAGUNA BEACH - Gallimaufry Performing Arts, in association with the Orange County Playwrights Alliance, presents the 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival -presentations of new plays in staged readings at the Festival of Arts Forum Theatre (Pageant of the Masters grounds), 625 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. The plays will be presented on successive Saturdays - November 7 and November 14, starting at 12:00pm each day. These script-in-hand staged readings will have the power of a production.

A $10 “festival pass” admits you to as many of the new plays as you wish! Order tickets online at www.gallimaufry.org/buytickets.html or by calling (949) 499-5060. Parking is plentiful and readily available in the lot directly across from the Pageant of the Masters grounds (simply cross the street at the traffic light) and in nearby city-owned lots.

Saturday, November 712:00pm -- Murielle’s Big Date by Kenneth La SalleIt’s Murielle’s third date with Mark. Will it come off without a hitch? Absolutely not! Murielle is hesitant about relationships, but her “friends” Sam and Angela are going to make sure Mark is Mr. Right … if they don’t scare him away first. [A comedy with adult language + themes.] Directed by Kenneth LaSalle.

2:00pm -- Freed by Erica BennettSally’s life is flashing in front of her eyes. A near-death experience causes her to revisit her past relationships with men, and a psychiatrist challenges her to confront her demons. Is she going to live or die? [A drama with adult language + themes.] Directed by Tam Warner.

4:00pm -- A High Concept Killing by Donna Bader Ralph Schumacher is nobody: just another 31-year-old screenwriter in L.A., struggling and unemployed. K.C. Kendall is a hot property - he can’t write, but he did six years in jail for manslaughter, and that gives him street cred with studios who want his next high-concept screenplays. Ralph hates K.C. from afar but secretly envies him, and he comes up with a madman’s plan to advance his career … one that intriguingly backfires. [A black comedy with adult themes.] Directed by Tira Palmquist (UC Irvine, Company of Angels).

Saturday, November 1412:00pm -- Inside My Father’s Apple Tree by Mark Piatelli Matthew lives in L.A with his lover Christian. Life is good. Then his dad passes away, and he has to go back to Boston … back to the house where he was abused, back to the family he had to escape. Will the journey home scar Matthew, or allow him to make peace with his family and childhood? [A drama with sexual situations + adult language.] Directed by Chris Calumpong (Cypress College).

2:00pm -- Hard by Eric Eberwein When an Orange County community college professor recruits two of his former students to make a sexploitation film in the Mojave Desert, nothing is as easy as it seems … and nothing about their lives will be the same. As the shoot unfolds and unravels, a mysterious young woman appears, hinting at a story untold. [A drama with sexual situations + adult language.] Directed by Tamiko Washington (Chapman University).

4:00pm -- The Troubles on 42nd Street by Jordan R. Young It's the mid-1950s: Fergus O’Shea is dying, and his famous Irish tragicomedy about The Troubles is being turned into a Broadway musical … with enough backstage drama to sink a battleship. Good thing he's attached his Dublin actor pal Jimmy Gallagher to the project as an insurance policy … or is it? Directed by Jill Forbath.

OCPA unites 40 playwrights with Orange County in common. OCPA members have won the OC WEEKLY Award for Best New Play (Johnna Adams’s Cockfighters), the Reva Shiner Playwriting Award (Johnna Adams’s Sans Merci), the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works Competition (Eric Eberwein’s Great Western Wanderlust), the Grove Theatre Center New Play Initiative (David Hogan’s Capital) and other competitions.

Gallimaufry Performing Arts was founded in 2004 by Laguna Beach native Steve Josephson, who serves as its Executive Artistic Director. Since its inception, Gallimaufry has produced more than two dozen fully staged musicals and dance events, more than one dozen musical concerts and a variety of plays and special events. In April of 2009, Gallimaufry presented the world premiere of Hollywood screenwriter Sherwood Kiraly’s play Scared Money. Gallimaufry has also taken shows to the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, receiving rave reviews and "Pick of the Fringe" acclaim.More information: gallimaufry.org and 949.499.5060.

2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival Update

An update on the November Festival: http://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles/news/10-2009/lineup-announced-for-2nd-annual-laguna-beach-new-p_22218.html

Announcing the 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival

The directors of Gallimaufry have announced the line up for the 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival co-produced by Gallimaufry and Orange County Playwrights' Alliance. It should be a knock out weekend of staged readings:

Freed by Erica Bennett
Hard by Eric Eberwein
A High Concept Killing by Donna Bader
Inside My Father’s Apple Tree by Mark Piatelli
Murielle’s Big Date by Kenneth La Salle
The Troubles on 42nd Street by Jordan R. Young

The Festival will take place the weekend of November 7th and November 14th at the Forum Theater in Laguna Beach. Stayed tuned for details.

The Beauty of Ambiguity

Too often, writers want to tie things up in bows. I, for one, am wary of tying things up too neatly. After a table reading, I frequently ask the writer to resist the urge to resolve their story precisely, leaving nothing to the listener's imagination.

I am also a fan of juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements. I love how the mind jumps to fill in the gap. Isn't that the pleasure of engaging in an artistic experience? I liken it to viewing an impressionist painting. The object is not rendered precisely, and therefore, the viewer's mind must fill in the "missing" visual stimuli. I argue that this causes a deeper level of engagement. In contrast, a more realistic painting may require less engagement on the part of the viewer. There is nothing to fill in.

Finally, there is data to support my creative intuition. Scientists have found that exposure to "nonsense", or nonsensical elements, primes the human brain to seek patterns, freshens it anew to perception, and even causes sub-conscious learning. Check out this New York Times article on the topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html?_r=1

Next time you set pen to paper, have the courage to remain in the ambiguous nature of reality. You may be doing a public service.

An Open Letter from Playwright Arthur Kraft on the Craft of Playwrighting

At a recent Orange County Playwrights' Alliance meeting we heard a new work by a playwright who prefaced the reading by saying it was a farce and that, a la Moliere, it would start out realistically with farcical elements arriving later.

After the reading there were several comments beginning with "Farces are supposed to have..." or "Farces should have..." Examples: In farces everyone is some kind of oddball except the central characters. In farces characters should be exaggerated. In other words our members were stating rules for farces.

I objected then and am objecting now--in detail.

These so-called rules are devised by people who couldn't write a play to save their butt. Instead they read 25 farces find a certain characteristic in 23 of them, and conclude that the characteristic must be used in a farce.

Well, damn it, the plays came first, not the rules.

When I was taking screenwriting courses a couple decades ago, the students learned about Syd Field's book, virtually a bible for screenwriters, in which the author promulgated "plot points." Plot points became screenplay jargon. There should be a plot point around page 20 and another around 95 and in between something like it in the middle. Plot points, really plot twists, enliven the story and keep it moving.

I looked at the screenplays I had written. Sure enough there were plot twists at the designated pages. Not because of Syd Field, whom I had never heard of up to that point, but because I felt the scripts needed twists and turns at those points. Again, writing preceded rules.

Then there was the advice that the protagonist needs a mentor to set him straight. The mentor would be an Indian or an old woman or someone who could give sage advice. This "rule" provided me with much laughter. Sure, there are mentors in some movies, but saying you "should" have them? Grow up!

My favorite was the "rule" that the central characters should have sex on page 60. I looked at the screenplay on which I was working and found that the central characters had sex on page 58. (At the time screenplays were typically 120 pages long; nowadays they are shorter in keeping with the shorter attention span of the audience.) When I turned the script in to the teacher, I appended a note apologizing for being two pages early.

True, there are some aspect of plays worth keeping in mind. If there is no character to care about or if nothing much happens by page 20, the audience will fall asleep. Those are not rules. They are facts of life.

Rules are for people who think inside the box. If you're going to think rules, you might as well paint by the numbers. Writers are creative people So create. The hell with "shoulds" and "musts" and rules.

End diatribe.
Arthur Kraft

Freed by Erica Bennet at LA Women's Theatre Project New Works Festival

Fellow Orange County Playwrights' Alliance member, Erica Bennet, will have her play, Freed, read as part of the LA Women's Theatre Project's 2nd 20% New Works Festival this weekend. The LA Women's Theatre Project promotes the work of women in the theater.

LA Women’s Theatre Project
2nd 20% New Works Festival
October 9 – 11, 2009
Stella Adler Los Angeles
6773 Hollywood Boulevard
2nd floor
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Presents…
Freed
Written by Erica Bennett
Directed by Tam Warner
Saturday, October 10, 2009
12:15-1:45 pm

Featuring Anne Lee Mako, Lee Anne Moore, David Mingrino, Lane Wray, Chris Smith, Timoteo Marselino Gonzalez, Paul Breazeale

Freed transpires in the mind of a woman whose life is flashing in front her eyes. At the onset, she fantasizes emergency medical technicians as the men who have been in her life. She revisits her rage and grief at her many failed relationships. A psychiatrist challenges her to confront her demons. Ultimately she ends up back at the beginning. Does she live or die?




Box Office: http://www.lawomenstheatreproject.com
Industry professionals,
Please call or e-email to make reservations and for parking information.

The Los Angeles Women's Theatre Project
Source: www.lawomenstheatrep...

STAGES Theater of Fullerton (http://www.stagestheater.org/), in cooperation with Orange County Playwrights Alliance (http://www.ocplaywrights.org/), is making its own efforts to stimulate the economy with the Holiday Stimulus Package collection of new work. The show will run three weekends, December 5th through 20th, and will include works by veteran writers, Eric Eberwein and Andrea Sloan Pink, among others.



For all you actors out there, auditions will be held this Sunday, Oct 4th from 10am to 1pm at STAGES Theater in Fullerton.