All Categories - Scheer Brilliance

Back in Vermont!

6/27/2018

Yesterday we had our first read through for Twelfth Night at Lost Nation Theater and it was a wonderful experience. It's a revelation to hear the play out loud, share your work with your cast for the first time, and take in their choices. There was more laughter than you sometimes hear at a table read, especially for Shakespeare.

I also know and have worked with most of the team already, and those that I haven't are fellow LNT regulars so I already feel familiar with them. This in itself is a remarkable feeling - a reunion of a rehearsal process, a homecoming.

Meanwhile Ora and Jacob are hard at work on The Amazing Story Machine back home in NYC.

I miss working on Gruff! (the team at LICM killed it btw) but being up here and doing Shakespeare again with so many friends is the perfect antidote.

UPDATES! April 05th, 2018

4/5/2018

I GOT SOME NEW KILLER REVIEWS!

"Christopher Scheer also does a stand-out job as the primary monkey. He has clearly been trained in some of the more dynamic and difficult acrobatic tricks, and while the entire cast presents some impressive skills, Scheer shows a level of comfort while performing that made for a memorable performance." - Luke Muench, East Penn Press, on Wild! - a new circus project by Atlas Circus Company at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre

Photo by Ken Ek

"The most beautiful and romantic moment of the evening was an exquisite [aerial] pas de deux between Kate Kenney and Christopher Scheer as the fairies Peaseblossom and Mustardseed." - Jim Lowe, Times Argus, on A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Highland Center for the Arts

GRUFF! GOT A KILLER NEW REVIEW TOO!

While I was off having those theatrical adventures, GRUFF! was gathering more acclaim Off-Broadway in NYC. I am a proud co-author. Check out this entire review by Deb Miller which says things like:

"Everything that great children’s theater should be... entertaining, engaging, and educational, in its delightful interactive delivery of an important message... Along with that is the unspoken goal of getting kids excited about going to the theater from an early age. Message received and mission accomplished!

The show is at once smart and silly, with humor that will get even the adults laughing and heeding the warning about our endangered planet.

The entire cast is irresistible...Gruff! is guaranteed to keep children (and adults) spellbound."

images by Eric Michael Pearson

DOPPELSKOPE WON A GRANT FROM THE JIM HENSON FOUNDATION!

We'll be using the funds to create a new show called The Amazing Story Machine.

I MADE A NEW PUPPET REEL!

CREATURES OF YES IS STILL AWESOME!

I puppeteered several characters in this amazing Christmas special. New character voiced by me coming soon!

OTHER THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

I recently played Perseus in Andromeda by Kate Mueth and the Neo-Political Cowgirls! I'm getting ready to direct Gruff! at the Long Island Children's Museum. I'm returning to Lost Nation Theater this summer to play Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Things! Things!

Me as Perseus, with my hobby horse, Sparkletuft.

Bears, Goats, Clowns, Creatures, Fairies and Gods

7/3/2017

Well it's been a year since my last post and there are a lot of updates! Let's start with Doppelskope.

Doppelskope: Taking Over the World Maybe

photo by Eric Michael Pearson

GROWL! The completion of The Grilogy

In the summer 2016 we premiered Growl! at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, thereby completing our puppet musical Grilogy (Gruff!, Grimm! and Growl!). Growl! is a zany reinvention of Goldilocks that could be summed up as "baby bear's revenge, but also lots of 1950's-style commercials for fake woodland products and ridiculous chase scenes and a lightsaber karate battle". We deconstructed capitalism, explored the ethics of scientific inquiry, and flushed a bear down a toilet.

Artistic Director (and one of my mentors) Charlie Richter called the show our "most hilarious entry yet" and "performance art for kids".

All the main characters were played by Ora's beautiful, intricate tabletop puppets, but parts of the show were told with giant overhead projections, and others with tiny rod puppets. I love playing with scale.

Ara Bartlieb of Lehigh Valley Stage called the show an "effervescent concoction" and "inventively eye-popping". He also wrote

“More adults than tots littered the theater during yesterday's 1PM performance, and I honestly can report that their response was even more enthusiastic than the youngsters'. And, trust me, the tykes were getting their money's worth of giggles and often outright guffaws at the non-stop onstage antics of this fine assembly of actors. I am willing to bet that, unless you're under ten years of age, you won't be able to keep up with its relentlessly sharp turns and witty reinterpretations of the story you thought you knew. The show runs one hour to the precise tick of a finely wound watch, with nary a child nor grandparent nor nanny showing signs of distraction for even a second.”

You can read Mr. Bartlieb's entire review here.

One of the songs from the show became a stand-along slam piece that we were able to perform twice at La MaMa. Check out the video!

An Existential Sing-Along goes to Puppet Showplace

In November 2016 we brought our original signature show to Puppet Showplace in Boston. We had befriended the artistic director, the fantastic, talented and intelligent Roxie Myhrum at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival. We stayed with Paul Vincent Davis while we were there, and it was a real privilege to hear some of his stories and puppetry/life wisdom.

GRUFF! Everywhere!

GRUFF! at the PIT...
We first performed GRUFF in 2014 at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre. It was the first show in our Grilogy and it was also the project where we first discovered that all three of us are coincidentally passionate environmentalists. It seemed more important than ever to bring back GRUFF! in 2017. The show uses ridiculous comedy, high drama and catchy songs to call audiences to action in the fight against climate change and the fossil fuel industry. We updated and improved on the script, and filled the audience for nearly every show at the PIT!

Ran Xia wrote a fantastic review for Theatre is Easy. Among other kind and insightful things, this is what she had to say about me! "Scheer is extremely likable as Aquifer, the progressive and optimistic young troll, with nuanced chemistry with both Gruf and Mimir (which is not easy since muppets don't have that many facial expressions)."

My ultimate dream is to have GRUFF! published and/or adapted into a film, and our momentum is continuing. GRUFF! is currently being performed at the Lilly Theatre of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and will shortly open OFF-BROADWAY at the Vital Theatre Company, where it will run for the entire month of August.

In Defense of Pleasure

Back in October of 2016 I finally premiered my solo show In Defense of Pleasure at Lost Nation Theater. I've been performing at LNT for eight years so it felt absolutely like the right place to premiere such a personal work, in a place that's come to feel like a second home with many important friends and family. The show is about my early years in NYC, struggling to make a living as a clown, to find love, and to reconcile my background studies in philosophy with the realities of freelance clowning.

Jim Lowe of the Times Argus wrote that my performance was "very personal, and very funny….it was certainly for adults, but filled with plenty of child-like joy. The stories were riotously funny, as told by an expert storyteller. Throughout, Scheer offered samplings of his magic tricks and comic schtick. He brought a couple of brave audience members into the show, involving them in his delightful zaniness. But In Defense of Pleasure is a lot more than a barrel of laughs. Beyond the clownish exterior is a man seeking love and truth."

The Creatures of Yes

Of all the different styles and media I perform in, one of my very favorites is puppetry on film. There is something so satisfying, playful and magical about working with a monitor as you perform. Over the past year, I've occasionally helped as an assistant puppeteer for a web series which is also my Favorite Thing on the Internet, the Creatures of Yes!

Jacob Graham (the show's creator) is a wonderful collaborator: he also designed video and lasers for our new production of GRUFF!, and is stepping into the role of Aquifer in my absence for our August run of the show.

What Else?

I dialect coached Maybe Never Fell for Axial Theatre! German accents (my favorite). I continue to be the resident pediatric clown at three Brooklyn hospitals. Ora and I performed twice at Puppet Playlist and we had a weekly performance of SHRINK: Puppet Therapy going for a little while.

What Now?

I am currently performing in Wild by Atlas Circus Company (back at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre). It's a beautiful nouveau cirque show about a boy who joins a group of run-aways in the jungle. I play the first run-away he befriends who brings him into the tribe.

1. It's awesome to be back in the air for a show

2. I am way better at juggling now

3. It's amazing working with Noah Dach, Tommy McCarthy and the whole Atlas team

4. I am always sore

What's Next?

Performance Schedule

--Until July 29th
WILD at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre

--August 9th-13th
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Highland Center for Performing Arts in Vermont (with more aerial acrobatics!) (and with Kate Kenney!)

--August 27th - September 3rd
ANDROMEDA by the Neo-Political Cowgirls (Montauk)

Because of my Summer adventures, I've had to momentarily leave the cast of GRUFF! for our first off-broadway run. It was a tough choice, but I realized it was the best of both worlds - I get to have new adventures that continue to stretch and challenge me as an artist, while the story I created with Doppelskope continues to have a life of its own. I'll be stopping by several GRUFF! rehearsals as an outside eye and I look forward to fully rejoining Doppelskope in the fall!

Well, it's been a crazy year and a half...

11/12/2015

Being too busy to update your website means you're successful, right? Or just bad at the internet? Or good at not being on the internet? Enough chit-chat, down to brass tacks. We've got 8 major theatre productions and several other exciting gigs to cover, which I'll do in roughly roughly chronological order.

Gruff!

Gruff! was Doppelskope's first musical. It premiered in 2014 at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre and it was our first collaboration with Toby Singer as composer. I was Gruff!'s co-writer, assistant director and puppet captain. I also puppeteered Aquifer, a frantic little troll with a big heart.

Gruff! allowed us to take the playful and absurd aesthetic that we developed for ourselves and expand it to a larger ensemble and a higher level of production value. Among other things, it's The Three Billy Goats Gruff retold through a radical environmentalist lens.

The Morning Call wrote that Gruff! is "a playful romp with a serious message". With a 36 show run, I like to think we started many family conversations and instilled a love of nature and a distrust of corporate greed in thousands of children.

Fellow playwright Josh Shapiro wrote "Gruff! doesn't dumb down language or plot for the sake of kids, and it doesn't toss in the occasional joke aimed exclusively at adults. It is truly for everyone. Gruff! knows that kids are smart. It teaches them without insulting their intelligence. I see their faces light up whenever their inputs are acknowledged. And some might think to themselves 'if I can make a difference in the show, why not in the world?'"

Audience member Alyssa Trombitas wrote "Gruff! made me laugh so hard out of pure delight the lady next to me shushed me."

Image by Mark McGillivray

Team Spirit's Surrender

Ora Fruchter and I both puppeteered for Team Spirit shortly after Gruff! In this wickedly odd music video, the band, all portrayed as puppets, sell their soul to the devil. The band prerecorded their voices and I puppeteered the lead singer, Ayad. Rocking out with a puppet may be the closest I come to being a rockstar.

In addition to getting to rock out, Ora and I puppeteered Satan's limbs as he sat on his thrown (with Julia Darden as the head puppeteer).

The 39 Steps

I played Richard Hannay in Lost Nation's production of The 39 Steps. I've wanted to play Hannay for years, ever since I first saw this show at New World Stages.

Jim Lowe of the Times Argus wrote "Christopher Scheer, an expert clown, was the only actor to play a single role. As Hannay, he managed a wonderful balance among hero, fool and clown." Incidentally he also wrote that I was "straight enough for the others to play off him," and I had a lot of fun using "straight enough" by itself as a pull quote.

Alex Brown of Seven Days wrote "Scheer is a delight as the square-jawed hero.... He makes the jokes, stunts and storytelling all appear effortless, a mark of consummate skill.... Scheer captivates by losing himself in the moment."

The Comedy of Errors

Comedy ran in rep with 39 Steps. I played both Antipholus twins, opposite Eric Love playing both Dromios. This was a very exciting project for me, as it was my first opportunity to explore Shakespeare with my Fiasco training. Under Kim Bent and Brett Gamboa's direction, we raised the stakes as high as we possibly could, and between that frantic urgency and the direct relationship I was able to create with the audience, this was the most fun I've ever had with Shakespeare.

Jim Lowe wrote "Christopher Scheer and Eric Love, both expert comics, simply reveled in the roles of Antipholus and Dromio respectively. They not only delivered delightful comic characters, their intimate interaction is dangerously funny." Alex Brown focused on the differences between my two characters, writing that "His transformations are sharp enough to make his mustache look like a villain's as Ephesus and like a sweet youth's first facial hair as Syracuse." This is the first, and so far only critical analysis of any of my mustaches.

Widdershins

Right after 39 Steps and Comedy of Errors, Kate and I devised our own mini-circus to perform at Lost Nation's annual halloween party! Widdershins is a hybrid of aerial acrobatics, clown and theatre. We're currently shopping it around to book gigs.

Winter 2015

I had a few months off between theatre contracts, so: I became the resident pediatric clown at 4 different Brooklyn hospitals. I recorded a voice over for the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. I had a callback for the Dinosaur Train tour. Ora and I created two new short pieces for Doppelskope. I worked on Long Spoon with Sara Newman. I played an awkward youth pastor for a new web series called Church Office (footage forthcoming). And of course I did a bunch of shows for Shrink: Puppet Therapy with Ora, Bradford, Toby and Yoshie.

Eurydice

I played Orpheus in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice at Lost Nation Theater. Eurydice was the most beautiful, moving, epic and effective theatre project I've ever been a part of. It was directed by the extremely talented Eric Love, who I've now been working with for years as an actor and who has rapidly become a formidable director. I played opposite the sublime Kate Kenney. The play was a beautifully integrated hybrid of text, aerial acrobatics, music, mask and dance.

Jim Lowe called Eurydice "a spectacular dream."

Alex Brown wrote "In outstanding performances, Kenney and Scheer emphasize the simple clarity in Ruhl's distinctive language. They play lovers without irony and suffer without artifice, giving equal weight to the play's humor and its dreamy lyricism....Scheer is a charming mix of ardent and offhand. His love never needs its flames fanned — he has simply discovered a powerful truth and doesn't need to embellish it."

It's always exciting to return to LNT and grow with my ensemble members old and new.

Treasure Island

Lost Nation produced Kim Bent's adaptation of Treasure Island in rep with Eurydice. Jim Lowe wrote that I "created a colorful and delightfully enigmatic Long John Silver." Arrrrrgh!

Grimm!

Ora, Toby and I returned to Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre to create another original musical puppetry/clown hybrid! It felt like we took the artistic success of Gruff! and grew on top of it as writers, theatre-makers and collaborators. I love working for SMT - they are wicked smart and supportive as producers, and they hook us up with amazing designers (in this case - Lex Gurst on costumes, Tim Averill on set, and Daniel del Busto on lights.)

Ora and I played Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Toby accompanied live all summer. As Ora frequently pointed out, I was born to play a German steampunk clown.

Grimm! is a new family musical about the wonder of storytime and imagination, and the new challenges that families face as personal devices divide our attention. In Grimm!, a dad falls under the spell of the Blue Glowing Madness and gets lost in his personal devices. His daughter Charlotte must travel through her storybooks and through outer space to save him. In this highly interactive, fast paced show, audience members cheer for storytime and blast lasers at attention-sucking alien robots.

Images by KenEk Photography

The Morning Call described Grimm! as "bizarrely inspired" and said "Doppelskope has crafted a creative and quirky fable about imagination!"

Muhlenberg professor Irene Chien nailed it with this audience feedback: "The show was thematically dead-on in terms of playfully (and non-didactically) addressing the tension between the undivided attention of live, face-to-face storytelling that parents all aspire to and the reality of parenting distractedly while attached to mobile devices. And it gave the kids and I a platform for an important and hopefully ongoing conversation about how those screens of 'blue glowing madness' fit into their lives and our family interactions. As a parent who is sick to death of Disney's colonization of fairytale princesses as plucky but ultimately insipid and gender-normative, I appreciate the irreverent physicality and boisterousness of the two main female actresses, and the re-imagining of the Grimm fairytales to focus on the agency rather than passivity of the girl characters while still remaining true to the brutality of the original stories. The puppetry and choregraphy with the smartphone/tablet lights was clever and played tricks with stage illusion in a visually delightful way. Harriet's (three-year-old) feedback: 'I loved it! It was so funny and not scary at all! The glowing was mysterious.'"

The National Puppetry Festival

I met wonderful people and saw some amazing puppetry at the National Puppetry Festival, held at UConn. I went as part of the team for Depict-O-Mat, which performed for 6 hours on the opening day. Then Ora and I performed The Existential Variety Hour as part of the fringe portion of the festival.

Lee Armstrong and Kamela Portuges wrote in the National Puppetry Journal that Doppelskope was "a highlight of the festival" and that "the show embraced the audience, sharing the innocence of childhood and the angst of adult life."

Here we are embracing some of our amazing new puppeteer friends after our performance.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Back at Lost Nation Theater, I dove right into a new quick change comedy. I played Sherlock Holmes as well as all the alluring females and dastardly villains. Jim Lowe wrote "Christopher Scheer, a Lost Nation veteran and virtuoso clown, plays Holmes and most of the other characters, morphing quickly and easily."

My favorite character was Cecile, a mysterious Brazilian woman, pictured above. Playing Sherlock wasn't bad either...

Photographs by Robert Edy of First Light Studios

As You Like It

Photograph by Kim Bent

Kim Bent cast me as Touchstone in As You Like It, inviting me to bring whatever clown skills I could to the table. This got me inspired about the role of clowns in Elizabethan theatre, and through a little research I discovered that then (as now) the clown's most important function was rule-breaking. I stuffed pancakes and mustard in my mouth during my first speech and tried to share them with the audience, I got attacked by a raccoon in the forest, and I generally ignored the fourth wall (my favorite).

Also, in an innovative move, Kim had me play Audrey (Touchstone's new girlfriend) and William (a rival suitor). Audrey and William were both portrayed by sock puppets that Touchstone invents out of boredom and desperation while stranded in the forest.

Jim Lowe wrote "Contrasting [Rosalind's] subtle comedy was Christopher Scheer’s ridiculously funny clowning as Touchstone. This wasn’t slapstick; rather it was overt comedy that was delivered with wit. It was just too funny, and it fit this play perfectly. (He also plays Audrey and William, but you’ll need to see the production to find out how.)"

Alex Brown wrote "the boldest move is the production's most memorable innovation - all three sides of the Touchstone-Audrey-William triangle are put in one actor's hands. That hint as to how it's accomplished is the only one you're getting, but actor Christopher Scheer conveys all the necessary nuances of a last set of lovers in a play already stuffed with them.

Next up... the future! Stay tuned.

Today Was Not Atypical

4/9/2014

11 AM - Costume fitting for upcoming stilt walking gig

1:30pm - Hospital clown shift

5pm - rehearse "clown and chicken" interaction at The Muse (see picture). This is for a benefit performance this weekend.

6:45pm - aerial silks class

9pm - puppet improv rehearsal

This week has also involved design meetings, script writing, and grant and residency applications. Also looking forward to magic performances and an entire weekend of Shrink: Puppet Therapy.

Been Too Busy to Update!

3/18/2014

Check out this interview I did with the fantastic Erin McIntyre for broadwayworld.com - we discussed my upcoming shows in Allentown and in Montpelier, as well as Doppelskope. Speaking of which, Ora and I just had a successful run at The Tank of An Existential Sing-Along. Here is an awesome review!

image by Colleen Napolitano (based on a photograph by Zach Kronisch)

Upcoming performance calendar:

Shrink: Puppet Therapy
March 20th @ 7pm @ The PIT
April 11-13 @ The Tank

Gruff! A New Family Friendly Musical... with Goats!
by Doppelskope
June 18th - July 26th

The 39 Steps and The Comedy of Errors
at Lost Nation Theater
September 18th - October 19th

That's all for now!

An Update of Epic Length

11/22/2013

Where have I been?!

That's a good question.

A lot has happened since I left Pennsylvania in June.

A whole lot!

I shall try to document all of it in one blog post!

(Have you seen this man?)

I started improvising again with Ora almost right away. Here we are performing at the Gershwin Hotel. We've done several more performances of our full length improv show Shrink: Puppet Therapy at the PIT - and also a special Halloween-themed improv show called Shriek: Puppet Therapy. People keep thinking our improv show is scripted, and that our scripted shows are improvised. It's very flattering!

In August I also helped devise a physical theatre piece called For the Sins I Can Remember for Vagabond Inventions which they performed at IRT in October - because of my availability, I just rehearsed the role in August before Denni Dennis stepped in to play the character. This was a very exciting process. Also, I was still playing the character when the company had their photo shoot, which led to me being in beautifully weird shots like this one. Also, we were the Photo of the Week in Time Out New York! That was my second time as Photo of the Week this year!

So I'm cringing in the corner of a freight elevator wearing short white pants in one picture, and I'm making a puppet arm wrestle another puppet in the other - but I'm still in two different Photos of the Week!

And while we're talking about strange press, I should mention that the NY Post strongly suggested that I might be the internationally famous street artist, political activist and filmmaker known as Banksy.

(I'm not Banksy, but I did get to ride in his truck and operate his puppets)

Rewinding somewhat, I spent a good part of September participating in Fiasco Theater's Free Training Initiative! Here's our entire class at a beer hall with our magnanimous teachers, Jessie Austrian and Noah Brody.

This class - which focused on Shakespeare and rehearsal technique - was inspiring, recharging and an amazing learning experience.

Next fall I'll be diving back into Shakespeare at Lost Nation Theater of Vermont- playing both Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors. I look forward to bringing all of my new tools, perspective and awareness from this class to that process! The Comedy of Errors will run in repertory with The 39 Steps, in which I'll be playing Richard Hannay. Mustache party!

In September I also helped Andy Sapora pull off a surprise edition of tinyDANGEROUSfun to surprise John Leo for his impending nuptials.

Andy ended up breathing fire outside during intermission, and I may have taken my clothes off in the second act...

In the beginning of October, Doppelskope went to Allentown to perform and teach during a brief artist residency at Muhlenberg College. I can't stress enough what a wonderful experience this was. Everyone at Muhlenberg is so positive, intelligent and talented - faculty, staff and students alike! We performed our signature show - An Existential Sing-Along - and it was amazing to realize how directly this show speaks to college students!

This was a really great step for us as a company. We're now very excited about the idea of touring around to more colleges!

We recently brought the Sing-Along back to NYC, performing it at the Tank last week. Next month we're premiering The Apocalypse Show at the Tank - and in February we're doing a full weekend run of the Sing-Along at the Tank as well.

This poster is hanging in my room now....

Here's a picture of me at Muhlenberg with my first clown teacher - Francine Roussel. Francine invited Ora and I to guest-teach her Experiments in Acting Class. Francine's students were all awesome - and it was great to re-meet Francine as an adult!

Oh! And Muhlenberg has invited Ora and I to write and direct a show for their Summer Music Theatre season! We'll be adapting The Three Billy Goats Gruff into a family-friendly musical with puppets. I'll be performing in it as well.

More details to come!

As the project with Banksy was wrapping up, I was asked to perform a sock puppet (pictured left) for a segment on NY1 with Shelley Goldberg and Cheryl Henson, promoting the Puppets on Film festival.

I ended up seeing several films in the festival as well, it was a blast.

Oh, and if you have Time Warner, you can watch the clip from NY1 here!

More Vermont news - Lost Nation Theater asked me to perform an aerial act for their annual Edgar Allan Poe Spooktacular. My first thought was "oh no - I don't have an act." My second thought was "ooh! I have an idea!"

I devised a new aerial act that I'm quite proud of - I finally figured out how to combine clown with aerial acrobatics. My character Stampy had a wonderful time on the ground and in the air.

I'm pictured here simultaneously warming up and entertaining as part of the lobby pre-show.

I wish I had photos and video from the act itself. I'm hoping to perform this act more in the future!

OH! And I was nominated for best actor in a play for my performance in Irma Vep at Lost Nation! (I was nominated last year for my Irma Vep performance at Cortland Repertory Theatre as well, where I played the other half of the characters.) I was also nominated for best featured actor in Hamlet (in which I played Laertes). LNT's Irma Vep is also up for Best Play, and many of my talented colleagues are nominated in almost all of the categories. You can vote HERE.

That's all the news for now. I imagine I'll be following up with more details about The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The 39 Steps and The Comedy of Errors - as well as upcoming Doppelskope projects - and hopefully other exciting news as well!

Adventures in A Midsummer Night's Dream

8/5/2013

Right after I finished my second production of Irma Vep, I went off to play in my second production of A Midsummer Night's Dream! Last time I was Demetrius; this time I was Oberon and Theseus - at the Millbrook Playhouse in Pennsylvania! Millbrook is an awesome theatre and I'm so happy that I was there. The Playhouse is very popular and people come out in droves to see the plays. There are usually productions up and running in both of their theaters (a main stage and a black box) with another play rehearsing at the same time - so the Playhouse, an old converted barn, is a beehive of industry - and a wonderful, positive community. I frequently found myself walking past an actor from another show in a hallway and we'd ask each other about our respective projects. And with so many artists, designers, carpenters, directors and technicians, our communal dinner times were always a blast.

I'm very proud of our Midsummer. Teresa assembled a very strong cast. I especially loved working with my scene partners, Ariel as Puck/Philostrate and Mary as Titania/Hippolyta. We aimed to create as restrained and refined Athenian characters as possible, to create the greatest contrast to our dark and wild fairy characters. We wanted the fairies to be animalistic and physical - Puck and Oberon would signal each other with animal noises, climb all over the set and could smell characters before they entered. Titania and Oberon's relationship was very sexual and visceral, with an intense emotional core expressed through prowling, violent physicality. It was a total treat to commit so fully to our scenes and then spy on the other characters as Oberon while "invisible," as well as to watch the mechanicals' ridiculous clowning at our wedding in Act V.

All of the actors lived together in a large dorm complex at Lock Haven University. I had limited access to the internet there, which I LOVED. Without facebook et. al. as a distraction, I had more time to spend with my castmates - we'd often stay up late talking. I would go to the university's gym most mornings, and often some of us would go to the local coffee shop together, or walk along the nearby river. After shows we would all go out together to get VERY inexpensive drinks. There was also an opening night party every week, which would involve a fancy gala at the playhouse. And every Saturday post-show the playhouse has a cabaret that audience members would stay for and that we'd all perform in. I hosted it the second week with Jonathon (my roommate, who played Demetrius) and we had more fun than should be allowed. The third week was themed "Christmas in July" - and I dressed up as a Christmas elf and gave a PSA about Krampus, the Christmas Devil (a real German tradition - look it up!)

Summary: I made many friends, had a great time and got to be a part of a magical, beautiful play in an awesome place. Yes, please, any time, thank you!

Two Irmas!

8/3/2013

I thought it would be fun to post photos from both of my productions of Irma Vep side by side - I played Nicodemus and Lady Enid last year at Cortland Repertory Theatre last year and I played Jane and Lord Edgar this year at Lost Nation Theater. The styles and designs of the two shows were quite different - between that and playing opposite tracks, the whole process was an awesome challenge for me.

Before we get to the pictures, I should post our reviews from the more recent LNT production!

Jim Lowe of the Times Argus said we "played off each other with an intimacy & discipline with the depth of a theater version of chamber music…. It was joyous fun and sidesplittingly funny….several audience members were sure there were more than two actors performing until they were told otherwise at intermission.” You can read Jim’s whole review here – and you can also read the interview he did with us during our rehearsals here.

OH and you can WATCH an interview with us – spliced together with some rehearsal footage! Here it is!

Alex Brown of Seven Days wrote “Scheer is equally adept at wordless clowning and mile-a-minute dialogue, and he turns his limber body into a comic instrument in itself.” She also used words like “lithe,” “acrobatic,” “graceful,” and “androgynous”! She ends the piece by saying “Love and Scheer connect so well onstage that they remind us of what only live, collaborative theater can do. As tightly rehearsed as this show is, the actors never telegraph a moment. Each exchange blooms up fresh before us, with all the hard work concealed and all the fun conveyed.” You can read her whole review here.

You can read reviews from last year’s Cortland production on my reviews page.

And NOW – the PICTURES

Make up test @ Cortland, 2012. Gothic!

Jane with Nicodemus. I am missing a leg.

Me as Pev Amri, the mummy princess. Ah those breasts.

Jane with Lady Enid. I feel so pretty.

The Hillcrests, with Enid played by a Scheer.

^ Christopher Scheer, professional transvestite

Christopher Scheer, professional transvestite --->

Make up test @ Lost Nation, 2013. Glam!

Jane with Nicodemus. I am getting groped. I've looked at love from both sides now...

Another journey to Egypt! This time as Lord Edgar

Jane with Lady Enid. This time I'm Jane!

The Hillcrests, with Edgar played by a Scheer

One More!

Christopher Scheer and Eric Love (Scheer Love, as it were)

Gratitude

5/28/2013

Sometime last week I decided I would write a blog post about gratitude, even at the risk of sounding like a New Age facebook status update.

I’m in Montpelier, doing what I love for my job. April Fools’ Day marked the 4 year anniversary of having no day jobs. My singular day job was a few months at Starbucks, after my contract with New York Circus Arts ended and before I got a job offer from Theater of the American South.

When I’m not acting, I clown and coach and model – I’m always creatively engaged. Last year I did three major out of town projects on my own and two tours with Doppelskope. This year I got rave reviews for King Executioner at Theatre for the New City, slowly grew an underground NYC following with Doppelskope, and booked two summer gigs.

Both of these are favorite shows of mine that I get to do again – playing different characters! I’m playing the other track in Irma Vep, which is a fascinating experience. I can now say that I’ve played every character! And after Irma closes I’ll go on to my second Midsummer, this one at the Millbrook Playhouse. I played Demetrius two summers ago at Lost Nation, and this time I’ll be playing Theseus and Oberon!

There were a lot of exclamation marks in that paragraph. I’ll delete none of them.

I’m so grateful that I get to keep experimenting and pushing the boundaries of clown and theatre with Doppelskope. I’m so grateful that I can take my experiences working with the Jim Henson Company on X-Tink-Shun and use them in my new puppet projects. I'm so grateful for the communities I've found in the underground clown, theatre and puppetry scenes of NYC - and that I can explore the world and come back to them.

And again, I get to experience these feelings in Montpelier, surrounded by trees and mountains, sore from the gym, from the chiropractor and sore from picking up Eric in every conceivable way. These are all good hurts. I’m surrounded by great people here – and it’s a small town, like the one I grew up in. I get to walk everywhere. I get to feel like I’m home.

Woo hoo! Did I express gratitude?