Transcript
Speaker: You'll see something that you're just like, that can't be inherently Christian necessarily.
Speaker: But then you dig deeper into it and you're like, oh, there's Jesus in that.
Speaker: You know, like you see it.
Speaker: The creation can't help but reflect its creator because the creator is in some way infused into that creation.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like how when we as humans create something, you can kind of see the human creator in it, but going back even further, you can see the great creator in it.
Speaker: Hello, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Artists of the Way.
Speaker: I'm John, the host.
Speaker: Today, I am joined by a good friend of mine, Jordan Awe, who I haven't seen in like a long time.
Speaker: It's been a while.
Speaker: A couple months, maybe, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jordan, we got to know each other through the Grand Rapids theater scene.
Speaker: You, kind of like me, have done things in as many theater communities as you can.
Speaker: You've done Kalamazoo Civic, Master Arts, Arise, HPA, and
Speaker: a whole lot of stuff.
Speaker: And now you're studying at Sight and Sound with their conservatory.
Speaker: That is correct.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like you said, just trying to
Speaker: get my, uh, artistic hand, I guess, in as many areas as possible.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I am, I'm super excited to chat with you about that.
Speaker: Cause like conservatory and theater training is something I've always thought would be like really cool.
Speaker: Um, but was never just not where God led me.
Speaker: So I'm, I'm really excited to delve into your experience there.
Speaker: Um, and just catch up and see how you're doing.
Speaker: So I got a couple questions that I ask everybody at the start of each episode.
Speaker: First, are you working on anything at the moment?
Speaker: Um, that's a good question.
Speaker: Uh, there's a lot, um, kind of as you would suspect with, um, a conservatory program.
Speaker: Um, I think the main thing that I would say I'm working on right now, um, is being a part of a conservatory in a theater setting, um, being, being attached to a theater that like we are,
Speaker: Um, we are not only just students there, but we are also working alongside cast members with their current show.
Speaker: Um, so that show currently is Moses.
Speaker: Uh, we opened back in March and, uh, we're actually, as of recording today, um, we only have 44 performances of Moses left.
Speaker: So we got about four weeks left of, of Moses.
Speaker: Um, so, um,
Speaker: Yeah, so that's what I would say I'm currently working on, and then we're about to, once we're finished with Moses, we get right into rehearsal for the Christmas show, Miracle of Christmas, which will be November to December.
Speaker: Those are shows that I would say I'm working on right now.
Speaker: Of course, there's things for classes, monologues, songs, a lot of movement-oriented things.
Speaker: This semester, I have
Speaker: two dance classes and a stage combat class.
Speaker: So that keeps me physically active as well as doing shows, uh, nine to eight times a week.
Speaker: So, um, yeah.
Speaker: And then, um, I was debating when you asked me this question, I was debating if I was going to talk about this or not.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But I feel like it'll, the more people that know about it, the more it'll kind of push me to keep working on it.
Speaker: I started dabbling in writing and composing as of the beginning of this year.
Speaker: Me, it started with just an idea that I wanted to work on.
Speaker: And then eventually a classmate of mine, we kind of became a team and started working on this together.
Speaker: I've started dabbling very lightly in writing and composing with some just simple, simple song ideas and stuff like that.
Speaker: And then overall, we're working on trying to write a full musical song.
Speaker: that hopefully will happen.
Speaker: I'm not sure if it will.
Speaker: It's a very big daunting task.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're very busy.
Speaker: We started it when we were in rehearsals for Moses back in February.
Speaker: And then as soon as we opened in March, we did nothing with it again until it re-entered my brain a little bit a couple weeks ago and started working on it again.
Speaker: But yeah, so...
Speaker: That's super exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's everything I would say I'm working on at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker: That...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Writing is a whole, whole different process and is a whole different timeframe from, from doing shows and acting, but that's super cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm really finding that like, it takes way more.
Speaker: I mean, I knew this before, but like really doing it, it takes way more than just an appreciation.
Speaker: I feel like as, as performers, you have an appreciation for
Speaker: the intricacies of writing.
Speaker: Like I love when composers or even the writers of the, the, the book of a, of a play or a musical, they create such depth with,
Speaker: reoccurring themes, especially musically.
Speaker: I love reoccurring themes and like the ability to story tell with the orchestration and then trying to be that complex with my own writing when I have never written anything and have had the very basics of music theory in conservatory.
Speaker: And now I'm like, I'm going to write a whole two act musical.
Speaker: It's a very daunting task, but yeah, you really learn appreciation for what others do when they do that regularly.
Speaker: Yeah, that's super cool.
Speaker: And I do think there's something to be said for like, yeah, it's daunting, but you do learn a lot by just jumping right in because every other minute, a lot of times it's like you're running into something where it's like, oh, I haven't encountered this before.
Speaker: What's the way that I approach this?
Speaker: And so I feel like
Speaker: Yeah, that's a lot, but it's also, it can be a great way to like learn because you're just constantly checking off new things that you're discovering how to navigate and do with something.
Speaker: So that's awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So the second question is how has God been using art in general in your life right now?
Speaker: yeah um wow he every day uh every day he uses it um just um i think i am a lot more in a better situation to
Speaker: for for god to work in in art um as i'm surrounded by not just art but surrounded by christian art all the time um both in shows and in classes with um different bible and discipleship classes um
Speaker: I mean, he's just been really honing in on, and this is something that I've been learning for years, but...
Speaker: has just become such a bigger part of my life as I am studying, studying musical theater.
Speaker: And that's just that, that every story is his story in a way, in a much deeper way.
Speaker: And that's, I think that just stems from the, the,
Speaker: us as humans, as his creation, we are the living, what's the word?
Speaker: Just the living creation of his story.
Speaker: Like his story is just weaved into our very being.
Speaker: So you see that even in Christian art and secular art or non-Christian art and all that stuff is just seeing
Speaker: seeing him in in everything and um yeah he's just been really making that apparent in like you'll you'll see something that you're just like that that can't be inherently christian necessarily but then you dig deeper into it and you're like oh there's jesus in that you know like you you see it
Speaker: um the creation can't help but reflect its creator because the creator is in some way infused into that creation exactly yeah just just like how when we as humans create something you can kind of see the human creator in it but going back even further you can see the the great creator in it and that's yeah that's been something um
Speaker: that that he's been working on.
Speaker: Yeah, working on for a long time, but very much so this, this, this year.
Speaker: And, yeah, I think that's awesome.
Speaker: anything else, but yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that's enough.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: I mean, I guess the glory of God and things is fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure that question could take us the whole entire podcast to be like, well, there's this thing and this thing.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, I want to jump to chatting about just what, what it's been like working training at, at sight and sound with the conservatory and especially how that's been,
Speaker: intersecting with your faith.
Speaker: But first, just in general, like, what's that experience been like studying at this conservatory?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, it's great.
Speaker: Um, I, it's both entirely what I expected and not at all.
Speaker: Um, I think was one of the biggest discoveries getting here, um, a year ago.
Speaker: Um, literally it's very interesting that we're, we're talking about this now, cause it's literally been a year that I've been here like this week.
Speaker: Um, so yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, it's just a great environment to be surrounded in.
Speaker: I mean, theater has always been a love of mine to be in that sort of family community.
Speaker: Theater just creates sort of a family dynamic of how tightly knit you are.
Speaker: But then for that to be a Christian family,
Speaker: people that you know you can go to about things that are going on or struggles that you're having.
Speaker: Just looking for advice.
Speaker: People that you know you can count on and trust.
Speaker: And I know that, like John, I know you're kind of familiar with that, with like the experiences that we have shared, like Arise.
Speaker: It's like Arise, but on steroids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is an insane thing to think of with, um, Arise already feeling like it's on steroids.
Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's steroids taking steroids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But yeah, and it's just so nice to be, because even people outside the cast, like people that we'll run into, because there's so much more than just the cast and the crew.
Speaker: It's, sight and sound is a huge operation, not just in scale of building, but in team.
Speaker: You run into people from HR or customer service or the people that work in the lobby helping the guests with
Speaker: ticket sales or with merchandise or any of those things and all these people are just it's so cool to see all these people just working for the same goal um of just bringing christ to the world yeah um but yeah and then and then just being able to to study something that the lord has
Speaker: worked in me with and and and placed a desire to work on of my artistic craft just being in a place where that is like celebrated and in a way redirected because of course it's it's you go to any you know secular conservatory they're going to celebrate your creativeness right
Speaker: But here it's, it's like, that's great.
Speaker: And how are we going to use that for the Lord, you know?
Speaker: And it's just great to have that, um, that knowledge and direction.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Has there been something that you've studied so far, like a class or something that has been super fresh or exciting that you haven't gotten a chance to work on before in like the high school or community theater world?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's there's so much because I feel like when you're in high school and I really appreciate all the training I got in high school, I would not be the performer that I am today without any of the people that helped me in high school.
Speaker: But even when you have like with HPA nine months, you're, you know, it's so little time to like instill a lot of like
Speaker: very intricate ideas because acting is on the surface.
Speaker: Acting is kind of, oh, you're, you're acting, you know, you're doing the thing.
Speaker: But then I got here and we started learning specific things and I'm like, there's so much more to everything because, you know, you break theater up and it's like, oh, you got singing, dancing, acting.
Speaker: But like then you go deeper and you're like, OK, with singing, you know, you have tons of different techniques there.
Speaker: Music theory, instruments, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: You get to dancing, you have ballet, you have tap, you have musical theater.
Speaker: And then with acting, it's the same way.
Speaker: I think we talked about this a little bit before I even knew any of it, but I'm a little bit more trained now.
Speaker: We've had our first semester with Stanislavski and followed the second semester with Chekhov.
Speaker: And right now we're doing Meisner, which are just hitting all my homeboys, man.
Speaker: Those are the acting homeboys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just to like have my eyes kind of like opened to, oh, we're not, we're not just acting.
Speaker: There's like, there's a method to this madness.
Speaker: And of course what's great is there's no one way to do it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, that's one of the things that's been really cool that they've instilled in like what they're doing is they're not being like, you have to be, when you leave here, you need to be a Stanislavski actor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because they're like, nobody does that.
Speaker: Nobody has one thing.
Speaker: So I really like how they're like, we're going to give you, as kind of our motto has become for all these acting classes, they're giving us tools in our tool belt that we can just use later.
Speaker: Well, and that's so important because it's such a psychological thing that if you're trying to do it in a way that either doesn't click with your brain or that isn't emotionally healthy for you,
Speaker: then that can be not just unhelpful for you as an actor, but so dangerous.
Speaker: If you're doing something that just doesn't work for your brain, but it's like, oh, this is the way to do it, so I have to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And another aspect of it is actors, we are not just storytellers, but we're truth tellers.
Speaker: Even though we may be playing something that is not necessarily in the real world true for us,
Speaker: But we're still portraying truth.
Speaker: And to do that consistently, I think that's one aspect that Sight and Sound really covers because they're familiar with
Speaker: long show runs.
Speaker: I mean, on a normal year when they're doing their premiere show and they do one show throughout the whole year, they're doing over 400 performances.
Speaker: Luckily, we're switching up being able to do two shows, but still we've been, by the time we're done with Moses, we'll have have done 300 shows.
Speaker: And so one of the things they really hammer in is like, if you just do one type of acting,
Speaker: And you're just doing the same thing every single day.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, you're eventually going to just lose that authenticity, that truthfulness.
Speaker: And I know our Chekhov teacher talks about this all the time.
Speaker: He's like, there are there are things that will work great in this for a while.
Speaker: And then you just need to be ready that like when that stops working, you need to know what the next thing to go is.
Speaker: Yeah, the next thing.
Speaker: the next center to work in or the next memory to pull from.
Speaker: And so something that you can keep that performance fresh and alive, not necessarily changing your performance because you don't want to mess with the whole picture, but it's something new for you that you can keep being real and telling the truth.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember when I did, I've done, I've done like traveling troops for years and years and years, and you've always got to keep them fresh.
Speaker: But when we did Fiddler, for some reason, I had a really hard time at the end when everybody's leaving Anatevka, still being emotional.
Speaker: I like just somehow like once we got to opening, I was like, it's sad, but like I've already been sad.
Speaker: So we were all like separated into these family units.
Speaker: And so every time me and my family unit would meet together before we went on stage for Anatevka, and we would talk about a new memory and create this new fun story from our past as a family unit.
Speaker: And then our family unit was splitting in Anatevka.
Speaker: Half of us was going one way and then the other half was going another way.
Speaker: And so then we would always walk on with that memory in mind.
Speaker: And that was always that new fresh layer, because then eventually it would expire.
Speaker: Like at a certain point, my yarmulke was like really emotional.
Speaker: And then like two days later, I was like, yeah, she gave me this yarmulke.
Speaker: That's sad.
Speaker: But it didn't expire.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: right yeah because it's it's it's difficult to be even even though you're reliving the same moment every night for you you you can't keep reliving that because eventually right because you're numb to it yeah you're like you're like oh well it's it's what it is and that's and that's something that's helpful to us in the real world when with true sad things or true difficult things
Speaker: But when you need to convey the same emotion every night, eventually the audience is going to get that from you unless it's fresh and it's new.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So just going deeper in everything and realizing there's so much more.
Speaker: Not that I came with the thinking that I was like, I wasn't going to learn here or that there's not a deeper level to it, but just realizing how much of a deeper level there is to every aspect of performing.
Speaker: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm...
Speaker: decently studied on it and I still am like there's so much more that I could learn if there were resources in the area for it it's just the amount of people that have written such wisdom on acting which is of course my love but there's just there's just yeah it's crazy so um are there any ways where throughout the process of studying acting or dance or music um
Speaker: or any other classes at the conservatory that you found it like assisting or like God using it in your spiritual growth over the last year?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: Yeah, the easy answer I feel like is in our discipleship classes because that's a real direct line of like, of being in the word or being reading books and commentary on the word and just discussing our faith has been just really influential to have this a weekly meeting of just
Speaker: discussing biblical themes and, and, and living our lives as Christians, um, has, has been one of those, those really obvious, understandable, um, ways of, of the Lord reaching, um, me, but yeah, I mean, um,
Speaker: I think, I think in, in all of my classes, um, there's a, there's a common theme of, um, just the Lord, um, just opening up my, my heart and mind to, yes, this is what he has called me to do.
Speaker: but I still have much to learn, which I know, but a lot of the times, one of the hardest things for me is comparing myself to others, which I think is a struggle for a lot of performers.
Speaker: Because in this industry, that's what everybody else is doing.
Speaker: They're comparing you to so-and-so and so-and-so to so-and-so.
Speaker: So then to
Speaker: um just just be working so tightly with um nine other classmates that are all so talented and and i mean you're all in this program together for for a reason but just um seeing where others succeed and you're you're struggling is just tough and then and then
Speaker: other areas when you're, when you're striving and, and they're struggling.
Speaker: But yeah, the Lord has just really instilled and worked on community.
Speaker: I feel we even had, we had a whole book for discipleship one, a couple of weeks for just building a community as Christians.
Speaker: Because of course we have the church as our community, but
Speaker: within that you have you have closer communities and you need communities where you are each day, where you work, where you your family unit is a community in a way.
Speaker: So yeah, just just growing in the the awareness of
Speaker: we are all there with different gifts and talents and abilities within this grander gift and ability of performing that he has given us.
Speaker: And just kind of finding where we fit in that.
Speaker: Hey friends, I hope you're enjoying today's episode.
Speaker: I just wanted to take a second to share with you guys the exciting project that's in the works here at Artists of the Way.
Speaker: We're going to be staging a production of Godspell in 2024.
Speaker: Godspell is a musical based on the Gospel of Matthew.
Speaker: The script is comprised mostly of excerpts from the Gospel of Matthew.
Speaker: And the songs are mostly old hymns or straight scripture, which has been recomposed into kind of a rock musical theater style song.
Speaker: It's a wonderful show.
Speaker: I grew up on it.
Speaker: It's been a passion project of mine to direct for five years, and I'm so excited to tackle it.
Speaker: If you want to know more about that, you can visit our website, artistsoftheway.com, and visit our Godspell page.
Speaker: There you'll be able to find show details and information on fundraising if you're interested in helping support the production.
Speaker: If you want to stay up to date with everything regarding Godspell or our podcast, sign up for our email newsletter.
Speaker: We have a newsletter that goes out every two weeks.
Speaker: We'll let you know when new episodes are posted.
Speaker: I'll share some thoughts that I've had over the last couple weeks, and we'll be keeping you guys up to date on everything Godspell related.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Enjoy the rest of the show.
Speaker: So, um...
Speaker: As you guys have been working on things, have you guys done scenes together, scene work, and then presented stuff?
Speaker: Or has it mostly been monologues and solos and things like that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've had a few chances to work on things together.
Speaker: One of the actually very cool aspects that I
Speaker: we didn't know about until we actually were in class and being told this.
Speaker: What they like to do a lot, and we've gotten a couple chances too, is
Speaker: um not only do we get scenes with other classmates to work on um but they get volunteers from the professionals in the company um to then come and and and work with us so we'll we um we've gotten a couple chances where we'll get paired up with um a cast member and the first time we did it we didn't know anybody but they
Speaker: They just paired us up for scenes that they had picked out.
Speaker: And then we were in charge of like the rest of the weeks before presenting it, we would meet together and run the scene and work on it.
Speaker: And then we'd present it in class and we'd get notes and we'd work on it for a couple of minutes and then somebody else would go.
Speaker: And then in like two weeks after that,
Speaker: we would present it finally for a grade to kind of see like where the scene will grow from there.
Speaker: We've done that I think only in two classes.
Speaker: We've done scenes with castmates and classmates in our Stanislavski class and we've so far only done
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: We've only had scenes with castmates for Shakespeare.
Speaker: But we're about to... We're actually about to do scenes with classmates for this semester of Shakespeare.
Speaker: Yeah, I completely forgot about Shakespeare.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: Have you done Shakespeare before doing it here?
Speaker: I have not.
Speaker: And it...
Speaker: That kind of bums me out, but I'm also thankful for that.
Speaker: Just because I thought I kind of liked Shakespeare.
Speaker: I thought it was interesting and I was excited to learn about it, but I had never been like truly introduced to it and getting to do it.
Speaker: And then coming here and like.
Speaker: during the first semester we had a theater history course and we had to watch or read Hamlet so that was like my first time like watching a full real Shakespeare thing that wasn't like an adaptation of the story so I watched the one with what's I'm totally blanking on his name what's he played
Speaker: Dr. Who.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: David Tennant.
Speaker: David Tennant.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It was really good and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: And, and something I found over this year.
Speaker: I mean, it, it kind of stemmed from kind of learning this in our Shakespeare class of like Shakespeare is meant to be heard.
Speaker: Like a lot of people will read Shakespeare and they'll be like, I don't get it.
Speaker: And then other people will like,
Speaker: listen to Shakespeare and they're like, I kind of get it.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, that makes so much sense.
Speaker: But also just seeing the difference in classmates of like kind of who gets Shakespeare and who doesn't.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: There are some who get it, some who still struggle with it, but they're trying.
Speaker: They're not like, I give up.
Speaker: I don't get it.
Speaker: But they're like, it's just a lot harder.
Speaker: And I'm like, good for you for still trying.
Speaker: But like, some of them will watch it and then have subtitles and have the script.
Speaker: And they're just trying to absorb as much as possible.
Speaker: And I remember when I watched Hamlet, they were like, how did you intake it for class?
Speaker: And I was like...
Speaker: I just watched it.
Speaker: I threw on subtitles to make sure I didn't miss anything, but I just watched it.
Speaker: And they were like, and you understood it?
Speaker: I was like, yeah.
Speaker: Well, when you have actors that understand, which this is the challenge of doing Shakespeare, but when you have actors that understand it,
Speaker: then even if you're not catching all the lines or every meaning of every word, like you understand the story because the actors are communicating that to you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's definitely like what I found so much more helpful was like, I was like, well, you could tell kind of what they were saying just from the inflection of their voice, how they were saying the line, the intentionality behind it.
Speaker: And it really just clicked.
Speaker: And, but I also, I also feel like I've been finding things,
Speaker: It feels like a blessing from the Lord of him being like, you're going to understand Shakespeare just a little bit more than some other people.
Speaker: And I'm like, cool, thank you.
Speaker: It's also great too.
Speaker: And the more you understand it, the more you start to see where he's coming from, and especially from a Christian perspective, there's so much in those.
Speaker: Because we just did Hamlet, and there's like...
Speaker: Now I'm totally off topic.
Speaker: Now we're just talking about Shakespeare.
Speaker: But I mean, there was just, and I'd spent, I wanted to do Hamlet for like five years before we did Hamlet.
Speaker: I wanted to do it.
Speaker: when I did Mary Poppins in 2017, Brad Garnott was like, you could do Shakespeare.
Speaker: And I just watched Hamlet.
Speaker: And then Tim and I joked about it.
Speaker: And we were like, we could be like David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.
Speaker: Then we were like, hang on, that would be super cool.
Speaker: So for like five years, I'd read it once or twice a year and was like forming what I would want to do with this character.
Speaker: And then when I was actually doing it, just so much more rich theological meaning came out of that story.
Speaker: And he just put...
Speaker: So much in there, and it's so incredibly Christian.
Speaker: It's crazy.
Speaker: What's crazy is Hamlet is just...
Speaker: I love how it's it's always Hamlet because that was the same thing for me.
Speaker: Like it's always Hamlet is the introduction.
Speaker: Like I just just being on the Internet like two years ago, I think it was the first time I saw it.
Speaker: Probably just being on the Internet.
Speaker: I scrolled across a video of.
Speaker: I'm terrible with actors names.
Speaker: um but he is a i think he's a scottish actor and he is he the was he the one who played more andrew scott and sherlock yes andrew scott yep i just i almost said adam scott and that's a completely different actor who i don't think has done shakespeare or should do shakespeare but shakespeare parks and rec let's go oh
Speaker: You know, it would be its own thing.
Speaker: It would be its own strange thing.
Speaker: But anyway, yeah, I just saw it like it was just the to be or not to be speech of his performance.
Speaker: And that was the first time that I like heard Shakespeare because I had heard Shakespeare before because it's referenced everywhere.
Speaker: It was the first time I heard it.
Speaker: And I went, oh, he's talking about death.
Speaker: He's talking about like I literally just pieced it all together.
Speaker: I was like, I know exactly what he's saying and thinking through.
Speaker: And I think that was very much on Andrew Scott's performance of that.
Speaker: And so then I just kind of became obsessed with the to be or not to be speech.
Speaker: So that was one of my monologues in Stanislavski.
Speaker: I did that and I was not prepared to yet because I hadn't taken any Shakespeare.
Speaker: It was fine.
Speaker: It's crazy how differently everybody interprets, well, just his character as a whole, but that speech especially too.
Speaker: Like, he's such an ambiguous character.
Speaker: You can really...
Speaker: almost make him whatever and it's so cool to see what an actor does with that when they approach it right which i think is just it's just shakespeare's excellence just shining through like you wrote a character that so many people take in so many different directions and unless they're way off base which i mean i'm sure there are some out there but unless they're way out there
Speaker: Even then, it may still work, but most of the time, it's like, wherever you take it, wherever they take it, if they are understanding the text, it works really, really well.
Speaker: Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker: Anyways, let's get back on topic here after geeking out about Shakespeare a little.
Speaker: We can nerd out about Shakespeare some other time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's been here for 600 years.
Speaker: He'll be here still.
Speaker: He'll be here still.
Speaker: I guess as you've been...
Speaker: exploring more characters or even before conservatory, just in the process of creating a role and, and living that out on stage, which I think is a really profound experience.
Speaker: Um, is there one that really sticks in your mind where the process of playing a character or delving into them, God has highlighted something or helped you with something or used that in some way, or it's, or it's made you realize something else about the world or God.
Speaker: Wow, yeah.
Speaker: I know, it's a really small, easy question.
Speaker: I'm, like, thinking through all of my roles.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Luckily, I can skip most of the, like, the ensemble ones, you know?
Speaker: The ones I think they created.
Speaker: Playing the plant in Mary Poppins, I'm sure, revolutionized.
Speaker: I just learned so much about nature.
Speaker: I love how you brought up the plant.
Speaker: I didn't even get the chance.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, just Mr. Bundles just completely changed me.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah, probably the one which I feel like this is kind of cheating because it's not, but it's not.
Speaker: But Pilgrim was such an experience that, I mean, for the first, honestly, for the first run when we were in Colorado, there was a little bit of work being done, but kind of that was just the preliminary, I feel like, softening of my heart to certain themes because...
Speaker: Yeah, I was just doing the role, whatever.
Speaker: This is, you know, I'm good at being the funny, flamboyant British guy.
Speaker: Like, it's what it is, you know?
Speaker: And then when we brought it back to Michigan, it just, it kind of, I dove even deeper into it.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: I can't think of when it actually was, but at some point through touring and stuff like that, hearing a devotional that we got before a show, I was just like, I think it's time that I actually look for myself in these characters.
Speaker: And it was not hard once I started doing that.
Speaker: Once I opened my mind and heart to it, I was like...
Speaker: okay how is not necessarily how am i like but how is lord formality like me or how is uh judge hate good or even eventually later how is um um discontent like me you know and um yeah just just being able to search within those characters and i think that's
Speaker: that one's really easy because it's Pilgrim's Progress.
Speaker: And, you know, that's such a human story of like, you can see yourself in almost any of those characters.
Speaker: And that's the real power of the show because, I mean, after shows, you'd have people coming in and be like, I saw myself and so-and-so and so-and-so.
Speaker: And I know you had stories of that with persecution and other roles.
Speaker: But, yeah, just...
Speaker: taking the time to like dig in and find yeah, just parts of parts of myself that just needed to be worked on through that.
Speaker: And I feel like that's most of the time where where it feels like
Speaker: where you see yourself in a character um it's it's i feel like it's rarely oh me and this character are good in this same way you know like it can be but like most of the time you're like man this character did this awful thing shoot i would do that i've done that oh man um
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, could you remind me of the question real quick?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: It was, it was how's God used the roles or the process of portraying or creating one to kind of highlight something or shape you in some way.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm like, I was like, I feel like I'm veering off, but no, um, no, you're good.
Speaker: So just, just really to, um, work on me in that way of, um,
Speaker: And that kind of opened me up to, okay, now you need to look in these characters that you're playing and find things.
Speaker: I feel like in that way, even though somebody on Earth here has casted me in a role, I think it's something that I don't often think about, but I think we should, of like, yes, somebody on Earth cast you in this role, but
Speaker: But more importantly, God cast you in this role for some reason.
Speaker: And yeah, I feel like he always has some sort of something you're going to learn, learn from that.
Speaker: And now it may be an experience, like it may be something from the experience of being in that role.
Speaker: But I feel like more often than not, like, there's going to be something that you have to do as that character or something.
Speaker: that is just in that character's story that's going to relate to you.
Speaker: Yeah, and there's some directors that are aware of that too.
Speaker: And I'm even thinking about that too.
Speaker: There's a show I'm going to direct next year that I'm almost at the point of going public with talking about.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: There's one role in particular that I'm like, I really want whoever God wants to play this role.
Speaker: Well, there's several, but one in particular.
Speaker: I'm trying to be very vague because I haven't announced things.
Speaker: But it's a similar role to one I've played before.
Speaker: And so I just know the power that is in playing a role that...
Speaker: Somehow God was just like, hey, you're going to get this at just the right point in your life where it's going to... I'm going to use it to shape you so much.
Speaker: I really do think there's some divine ordering there in who plays what characters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But you definitely... I feel like you definitely just can't look at the surface of a character.
Speaker: You have to dig deep into that character.
Speaker: Because, I mean, you can...
Speaker: totally destroy yourself if you keep getting villains and you're like ah what am i doing what's i know what about me is like you're evil you're a villain you know well i i legit like had that for a second because around the time of pilgrim i kept playing bad guys and i was like i just need a break from bad guys because i i keep doing that thing where i'm finding the similarities between me and the character and i was just like this is just unhealthy for me
Speaker: Then I got Quasimodo and everything was okay.
Speaker: And then it was all good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I definitely feel that of like Pilgrim was eye-opening, but also at the same time.
Speaker: Well, it was eye-opening in a lot of different ways because I think definitely before that, I would see interviews with actors who either...
Speaker: um are believers or are not believers and are playing some sort of um evil or demonic role or something something very dark and they talk about just the heaviness of the role and like having to shake it off and in my little little child of an actor brain i was like that's crazy that's weird don't get that into acting but then doing pilgrim like
Speaker: Vanity Fair is a tough scene.
Speaker: It's easy.
Speaker: It's child's play.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It was tough for me.
Speaker: When we first did it, I was barely in it because I came in just for the courtroom scene.
Speaker: My character's name was Hate Good and I had that grouchy face on the whole time.
Speaker: It was physically taxing, but then later I realized this is emotionally taxing too because I'm just...
Speaker: radiating hatred.
Speaker: I'm just spewing hatred from every orifice of my body.
Speaker: And people could definitely feel that because they would be like,
Speaker: avoiding me.
Speaker: Like I found at the end of the show when we all come out in costume, nobody would talk to me.
Speaker: I think I had one person talk to me at the end of the show when we did it in Colorado.
Speaker: I had like one.
Speaker: It was like, that's because I murdered somebody.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you can take that as a bummer, but also I did my job.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: And then once I got moved up to discontent, I was in that scene a whole lot more.
Speaker: And I was just like,
Speaker: It's less about like – it was just such a different character and different things I was finding of like different areas of like where this is like, whoa, I need to separate from this.
Speaker: And luckily the Lord is with me and so it's never in such a dark place that I can't get out of it.
Speaker: But then I started to open my eyes to it.
Speaker: It was like, oh, that's no joke and I need to – I need to not worry about it but also not –
Speaker: just fufu it.
Speaker: Just pretend like it's nothing.
Speaker: I just need to be aware of that.
Speaker: Yeah, there's definitely something to be said, which I think especially in community theater is not often taught, and I'm hoping to shine a light on a little bit more, to separating yourself from the character even as you identify similar things.
Speaker: And Stanislavski talks about the magic what of what would you do in that situation if it were actually you to help you
Speaker: disconnect, but because there was one show I did the singer where the character was so much like me that I just like, I, that's the closest I've gotten to method acting, which is why I, uh, method acting is the one method of acting where I'm very, uh,
Speaker: strongly like maybe maybe don't um yeah because it was it was it took me back to all my spiritually dark places and I didn't disconnect at all because the character every line connected back to something in my relationship with God so I was just like I'm just gonna play me yeah and that was in a way it's like yeah which in a way like I think we can sometimes go there because it's just easier you're just like oh well if it's just me then it I'll just be me
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, wait, you're being you, and it's... And it just led to, like, an unhealthy kind of... Because my brain just went back there, and I was like, well, I just regressed.
Speaker: But then doing Hamlet, and it kind of built this up doing all these villains as well, but Hamlet especially, he's such an emotional character, you have to really get into him.
Speaker: But everybody has a really strong view of Hamlet, and Hamlet generally makes a lot of bad, bad, bad decisions.
Speaker: And so I was like... I know!
Speaker: So from the start, I was like, I have to work really hard at making sure that Hamlet is Hamlet, not John.
Speaker: And John is John, not Hamlet.
Speaker: Even though I can get in and relate.
Speaker: And I think there's not a lot talked about in community theater about how to do that healthily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I feel like it's because, like I said before, you're such a limited time to then...
Speaker: to teach such intricate ideas because those are those are very intricate ideas in stanislavsky and yeah stanislavsky and chekhov and utahagan and all those different things there's just so much untangling you have to do when you get into it that yeah you know you're coming in for two months to do a production of
Speaker: I don't know, some sort of musical.
Speaker: You're coming in trying to do the Sound of Music.
Speaker: I was just about to say Sound of Music.
Speaker: What's the most money-making musical we can think of?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You're coming in to do Sound of Music for two months.
Speaker: You can't be like, okay, sit everybody down.
Speaker: How are you not a Nazi?
Speaker: Let's talk about that.
Speaker: How are you not like them?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: I do feel like
Speaker: I'm almost soapboxing here, so I'm going to say it and then be done so I don't soapbox too long.
Speaker: But I definitely feel like there's a lot of room for, especially in GR, because I feel like it's borderline a professional theater city.
Speaker: It's almost there.
Speaker: So I feel like there's definitely room for the theaters and the creatives to take a lot more time in forming the artists that are there and working together to...
Speaker: Do that now we've talked about that at master art some, and I think the broader community is looking into that a little bit, but I think, I think bringing that more in-depth professional training to a amateur quote unquote, or hobbyist.
Speaker: realm has a place because people are like smart enough to get it.
Speaker: Um, so I'm hoping that happens.
Speaker: Anywho, um, before I monologue too long, um, we are getting near the end of this episode.
Speaker: It's been really lovely to talk to you again and really great to see you.
Speaker: Great talking to you, John.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've missed you too, man.
Speaker: This is awesome.
Speaker: Um, so I have a final question that I ask everybody.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Again, I'm going to get back on my soapbox because this connects to my soapbox.
Speaker: Bring it back on.
Speaker: I grew up in the amateur theater world, but I have such a passion for acting.
Speaker: And so for me, it was hard to find resources, and I felt like I had to learn from doing.
Speaker: So something I really want to do with the podcast is help people find resources to grow in their art and their faith.
Speaker: So if there were some resources you would recommend, or what are some resources you would recommend for people who want to grow as an actor or grow as a follower of Christ?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: I, I, I've been listening to the podcast since the beginning and I know this is the question.
Speaker: And literally since like the first episode, I have been thinking about,
Speaker: If John ever asked me to be on the podcast, what might answer this question be?
Speaker: So I've had a lot of time to think about it.
Speaker: It's not going to be a great answer, I feel.
Speaker: But anyway, yeah, because I agree.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Especially before coming here and even being here, this is why the sight and sound was such a draw for me is that unlike a lot of what I've heard of college theater programs,
Speaker: there's a lot of hands-on doing and i feel like theater is learned best hands-on doing yeah now that i've been here and i've gotten some of the stanislavski udahagan check off meisner all that stuff i i'm finding that idea is important those techniques and stuff like that but on top of that what we do here so it's so hands-on
Speaker: yeah with those that i just i um that's that's my main main thing of resources like just go do it like it's it's it's hard at first but like you just got to jump in wholeheartedly and do it um it's also hard to recommend stuff i should since i'm in school for it i should have resources but we kind of don't
Speaker: do a lot of book learning, like any book learning we do, we get like handouts and like, we're going to talk about this and stuff like that.
Speaker: So I don't have a lot of books.
Speaker: Um, I would say for acting, do research, um, just try and just, just get as much as you can, because it's, that's the beautiful thing about acting techniques is they're, they're, they're so subjective and objective in a way of like, yeah,
Speaker: You can learn the history of it.
Speaker: You can learn everything about how Stanislavski, you know, started it and then the, the modern style of acting.
Speaker: And then just, there's this tree trickle down of all of the students that took their own ideas.
Speaker: And that was the thing that like Stanislavski started it.
Speaker: And then they all were like, I really liked this part of it.
Speaker: I'm going to expand on this.
Speaker: Almost like immediately.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Immediately.
Speaker: They were just like, just spread out and do whatever you want based on this.
Speaker: so but i feel like we're blessed with the the the hindsight of being able to now go and just study stanislavski and then study each of those students and those the students of theirs and students of theirs and just accumulate knowledge and then the beautiful thing is if some you don't agree with something you don't understand it if you don't understand something i would highly recommend trying to understand it even more research it more but if it's it's something that just doesn't work for you as an actor
Speaker: you don't have to use it.
Speaker: But it's good to just have knowledge to be able to
Speaker: discuss with other performers when you're working with a director or other actors.
Speaker: If you can speak in the same language, it's so helpful.
Speaker: So that would be my thing for acting.
Speaker: Do you have a technique or method that you're vibing with in particular?
Speaker: I...
Speaker: I was really vibing with Chekhov.
Speaker: That was very helpful and interesting, especially once we got later into it.
Speaker: And I thought I was starting to struggle with it,
Speaker: And then we got done with the class and I was getting feedback from my teacher and he was like telling me all the, all the areas of where it was really working for me.
Speaker: And I was like, I, okay, I didn't think it was working in those areas, but apparently it did.
Speaker: And so it was just really, cause I already used,
Speaker: i already knew that imagination was such a key part of of that and check off really harnesses on the imagination um so yeah that's that's method i'm not saying i'm a checkoff actor but i'm right i'll probably use ideas of that um more than in in other areas because i can i have his book so i can throw that on the website if that's yeah yeah that would be a good one with yeah um
Speaker: And I honestly can't give Meisner a fair shout out because we were very new to Meisner.
Speaker: Meisner's a little weird.
Speaker: I did Meisner with an acting class I just taught and it was all community theater actors.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, you're just going to say the same thing back and forth over and over again.
Speaker: And they were like, what?
Speaker: They had such a hard time wrapping their heads around it.
Speaker: But then by like week three, they were like, wow, this is amazing.
Speaker: But, and I wish I had like taken a picture and like reminded myself this book.
Speaker: Cause now I'm thinking of it.
Speaker: One thing that I also found very helpful from Stanislavski was actioning.
Speaker: And there's a, there's a specific, I can picture it.
Speaker: It's a little red book and it just, it has all these like actioning words in it.
Speaker: Oh, like verbs.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I have, I don't know if it's a red book.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: you might, there's also two versions of the book.
Speaker: There's like the purple one.
Speaker: It's this little thesaurus of verbs.
Speaker: That one, there's the purple one that kind of like explains it a little bit, but the red one, this one that's just like, here, do you need a verb?
Speaker: That was so helpful.
Speaker: Once that was explained in Stanislavski, I was just like, um, okay.
Speaker: Um, yeah, I'm going to interrogate.
Speaker: I'm going to interrogate.
Speaker: That was, I hold on to get that, get that book and then hold on to that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to try and get through here and try to condense my thoughts.
Speaker: Yeah, you're good.
Speaker: The other thing I would just highly recommend being an actor, something I didn't even do.
Speaker: I did in one area, but not in another area when I got here.
Speaker: It's just just consume the material that you want to work like that that is in the area that you're working on.
Speaker: I already nerded out and listened to as many musical theater albums as I could get my hands on, but I'm still, there's still so much that I haven't heard and I need to listen to and stuff like that.
Speaker: And that's the, that's the great thing with musical theater is music.
Speaker: You can just listen to it.
Speaker: That one's really accessible.
Speaker: One thing that's hard for me that I haven't done is just reading plays.
Speaker: I need to read more plays.
Speaker: That's really hard because you usually have to go to the publisher and order the script and read it or watch a bootleg, but those are hit or miss.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and I mean, even my Chekhov teacher and we've gotten really close and his advice to me was just like, just read plays and they may not be, but you'll find material you'll get used to stuff like that.
Speaker: And luckily, even though I don't like reading,
Speaker: Reading plays is a lot easier.
Speaker: It's dialogue, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, just get as much knowledge as you can in those areas.
Speaker: And then kind of switching gears to the more Christian aspect.
Speaker: Easy answer, read your Bible.
Speaker: Just dig deep in that.
Speaker: That's something I've been trying to do a whole lot more.
Speaker: And if you can, Hebrew and Greek, look into that part of it.
Speaker: Cause there's a lot there.
Speaker: Um, that's just really cool.
Speaker: Sometimes I just get lost in like studying Hebrew names and going, oh, that's, oh, cool.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, I think I can't a hundred percent condone this book, not condone.
Speaker: That's a weird word.
Speaker: um recommend yeah i i recommend the book but again like with any sort of like um material that isn't just straight up the bible um
Speaker: Examine it for yourself, dig deep into it and just figure out what aligns with scripture and what doesn't really.
Speaker: But we had a book in our discipleship class called Who Do You Think You Are by Mark Driscoll.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I knew exactly what that face was.
Speaker: That was the oh, Mark Driscoll face.
Speaker: Oh, Mark Driscoll.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's now you can understand why I'm not like this book because they were even things and and that's what they encouraged us to do when we read through the book and made a book report on everything they were like What do you agree with?
Speaker: What do you disagree with?
Speaker: What did we and we just it was just all discussion of like our thoughts on different things and There there are some definitely good things in there about Identity it's a book on identity and all right how our identity is in Christ and all areas of that and
Speaker: And that was such a good book just describing to me how I need to live my life as a artist because I'm not first and foremost an artist, even though that's what the Lord has made me.
Speaker: He has put me on this path to pursue this field.
Speaker: I am first and foremost primarily a Christian, a servant of God.
Speaker: I'm in Christ.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then just, and then, and then, and then secondary, I'm an, I'm an actor.
Speaker: And, and just having that mindset has just changed so much.
Speaker: I kind of had that mindset before, but it just, it really honed in on that.
Speaker: And if I'm to recommend one more thing, it would be.
Speaker: Oh, I remembered it.
Speaker: I was like, do I remember the name of this book?
Speaker: Living Together...
Speaker: uh by dietrich bonhoeffer um that was another book that really um impacted me i because i kind of talked earlier about community and how we are community and that just was eye-opening of community with your your family with your church and with your workplace and yeah and ministry in that way so yeah that's awesome
Speaker: I feel like I really stretched that question out.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: That was good.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Jordan, thanks again for coming on to the podcast.
Speaker: This has been super awesome.
Speaker: It's been great to catch up with you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
Speaker: It's been awesome.
