Jeff Kirwan

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  Tonight was our designer run; the first opportunity for our costume, set, lights, and sound designers to see the show run through from beginning to end. It also happens to have been the our very first attempt at actually running the show through from beginning to end. To say that it was a little rough would do a grave disservice to the masterwork of chaos, confusion, and general bewilderment we treated our intrepid designers to this evening. To be fair, I admit that I'm being a bit hyperbolic here. In all honesty, given the complexity of this show, and the physical and emotional demands on the cast, we are about where I expected us to be at this point in the process. Note that "at this point in the process" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that statement. It is, after all, all about the process.  "Do the Work. Trust the process." These are mantras every theatre artist learns very early on, and returns to on difficult evenings like this one. There is always,

Week 2 of rehearsals is in the books. Although it feels more like 2 months because we've accomplished so much. The entire show is blocked, and Act I and Act II have both been run through at least once beginning to end. Some of the transitions in this show are brutally hectic, but I think we have a pretty good handle on them so far. There is much work yet to be done, but our venerable director, Warner, feels like we're in a good place, and I tend to agree. I'm about 95% there on my lines, and the other 5% will come with repetition. Now to turn my attention to character development. That's Frank Nicklin (my primary character) up above, taken from a profile of him written up in The Observer in 1999. Looking at those mischievous eyes and that equally mischievous grin gives me some insight into why Frank is written into this show the way he is. Frank is first and foremost the comic relief. Boisterous and quick with a quip, he's been a joy to play with in rehearsal. But m

  We are about a week and a half into rehearsals for Ink now, and it feels like we've been at it for months. I mean this in a good way, if that makes sense. There's A LOT going on in this show, and we're covering so much ground each rehearsal that scenes we blocked just three days ago seem like a distant memory. Last night and tonight we went back and reviewed scenes we blocked late last week and we were LOST. All of us. Thank Crom for Stage Managers. Kaylyn (our incredible SM) was on the spot, reviewing in real time, the copious blocking notes she had kept during our initial rehearsal. She kept us on track and moving forward.  Note to self: Blocking notes are like firewood. When you think you have enough, double it. That said, we're beginning to get into the real fun part of rehearsals now. Last night we spent the entire night running our newsroom ensemble scenes, exploring the relationships between our characters, experimenting with different dynamics, and just playin

 We wrapped up Day 2 of rehearsals this evening with another readthrough and a bit of table table work. It's incredible how different things felt and sounded tonight on just our second readthrough. I take that as a good omen for the discoveries all of us in the cast will continue to make as we work the process. Confession time. Typically, I try to build some sort of backstory for my character(s) before we begin the rehearsal process. And if they are historical figures, I'll do quite a bit of research into their lives. In this case, I (foolishly) assumed that my character Frank Nicklin, the original sports editor of The Sun, certainly must be fictional. I didn't pursue it any further, and began to sketch out what I thought would be a reasonable backstory for him. When I got home this evening, I decided to see if maybe he was, in fact, a real person. And boy was he! Frank Nicklin (1922-2002) was indeed a real person. And I could never have imagined a more colorful life story

  My current theatrical project is Wit by Margaret Edson, opening January 20th at Germantown Community Theatre .  We started rehearsals back on December 13th, took some time off for the holidays, and then I was out with Covid (very mild symptoms!) all of last week. So all in all, I've had precious few rehearsals so far. Not that I'm panicking, but I tend to learn my lines physically. I need blocking to get the lines into my body before I can really get them into my head.  I am currently at the point where I know my lines, I just don't know all of the words yet. Like I said, I'm not panicking. Yet.

I've been dabbling in photography for the past couple of years. In order to keep myself honest, I like to look back my favorite shots at the end of each year. It serves as a reminder of how far I've come as a photographer, and how far I have yet to go. Here is this year's installment.