Cast. 13th Street Repertory Repertory Company Theatre production of: The Cat and The Moon

Work in Deborah Carlson/Word of Mouth Studios on really, Really, REALLY cold reading has been paying off:

I did a monologue by "Sydney," a cynical divorce lawyer from John Patrick Shanley's Where's My Money for a new 13th Street production of resident playwright Tom O'Neil's The Cat and the Moon, based on the poem of the same name by William Butler Yeats.

I got called back for a cold reading of the script -- no preparation: the director just put the script in our hands and we traded off reading parts -- cold.

I had nothing else to go on but the rhythm & structure, "no spin," "no attitude" -- I just breathed deep, didn't skim, slowed down, kept it clean, stayed innocent, discovered my way though the text, and lo and behold, the character just came out by itself.

You don't create the character out of your opinions, your subjective feelings, or ideas, or concepts -- you find the character, in the text, in the sentences, in every word, in every syllable:

PETER O`TOOLE, ACTOR: The script sits in front of you .

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.

PETER O`TOOLE: . the writer has translated into ink what is in his spirit, in his soul, in his mind. I come along, I pick it up, and the ink goes into my eyes, into my mind, into my body, flows around.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yes...

PETER O`TOOLE: And that part begins to inhabit me. And I know good parts make good actors, Charles, and I know a good part when I see one. If you find a good part in a good play, that`s double joy . . .

. . . no . . . it is everything that the author has done. Whether or not (your) subjective attitudes towards a piece of work are valid or not, I don`t know. But that comes in, and one`s job really is to make the words flesh.

I got the part (and it’s big – gulp)! Rehearsals start next week sometime. I'm still in Line, but rehearsals for that won't start for a while, and because the show is ongoing, there's no real set date before I'm plugged in.