RAT In the service of moving on.......

[brad rothbart <scrdchao@nni.com>]

>Actually somebody did say that brad calls himself brad and so he was called
>brad by someone else out of respect.


Ratz,
Brad is really tikcled by  outpouring  ofg caring that was engendered by
the spelling of his name.  Brad would alkso like everyone to know  that he
really enjoys being brad, bRad, brAd, braD, Brad, BRad, BRAd, BRAD, bRAd
,bRAD,  BrAd, bRaD, brAD, or even the late and lamented b the ar....

 Howevrr, he would like to try to steer this list back  to  something more
important than  the permutations of his name.....

 Re: readings into productions... I doing a reeading, I'm oftern steered by
something Joe Chaikin said to me at an audition:  "If I knew what it was, I
wouldn't have to do it. " If  I read a play and I know where it's going,
and why, and by page 156 I'm already screaming inside: "Of course your
roommate  forgot to give you the  message that your lover was  called away
on emergency business- don't you understand that she has Multiple
Personality Disorder?"
  (and I have read  that play , though not from anyone here.   P.S. I
immediately  went out and apologized   to a tree, that its sister should be
put to such a use. ) In other words, If I find myself getting mad at the
obviousness of it all, I don't want to do that play.


 Which means I end up reading plays that  I don't fully understand yet-
hoping that through the unique magic of actors, I will understand more. In
my experience, often the actors  often  don't understand the work either-
we arrive at it  together.,

Since I am working with a piece I don't  understand, I  often cast
conservatively, looking for types or the  fantasy  of the "best" actor.
What the piece invariably teaches me is that I need not be so conservative.

 So, no, I don't often use the same actors in a production as  I do in a
reading- but that first group of actors is invaluable to me in better
understanding the work. I let them  know that . I also let them know,
before they agree to the reading, that being in the readings does not mean
being in the finished piece,, that , in fact, we BOTH have an opt-out
clause.....


---bra(d)