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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 Shap
iro 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."
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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."
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The Comedy of Errors

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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.
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Eurydice

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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.
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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

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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.)
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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.

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

The Hound of the Baskervilles​

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

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Photographs by Robert Edy of First Light Studios

As You Like It​

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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

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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.  

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Been Too Busy to Update!

3/18/2014

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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!
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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!

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An Update of Epic Length

11/22/2013

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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!

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(Have you seen this man?)

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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!

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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!

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

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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...

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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....

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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! 

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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!

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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!

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Adventures in A Midsummer Night's Dream

8/5/2013

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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.

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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. 

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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!

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Two Irmas!

8/3/2013

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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
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Make up test @ Cortland, 2012.  Gothic!
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Jane with Nicodemus.  I am missing a leg.


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Me as Pev Amri, the mummy princess.  Ah those breasts.
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Jane with Lady Enid.  I feel so pretty.

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The Hillcrests, with Enid played by a Scheer.
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^ Christopher Scheer, professional transvestite


Christopher Scheer, professional transvestite --->
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Make up test @ Lost Nation, 2013.  Glam!
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Jane with Nicodemus.  I am getting groped.  I've looked at love from both sides now...
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Another journey to Egypt!  This time as Lord Edgar
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Jane with Lady Enid.  This time I'm Jane!
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The Hillcrests, with Edgar played by a Scheer
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One More!
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Christopher Scheer and Eric Love (Scheer Love, as it were)
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Gratitude

5/28/2013

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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?

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Performance Schedule!

4/16/2013

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I'm at one of those relaxing times when I have plenty of work in the upcoming months.  Here's an upcoming performance schedule, with listings through OCTOBER!

April 18th at 8PM: Shrink: Puppet Therapy at the PIT! 
http://thepit-nyc.com/show/doppelskope-presents-shrink-puppet-therapy-7/

May 4th at 9:30pm: The Existential Variety Hour at the Tank! 
http://www.thetanknyc.org/comedy/5-the-existential-variety-hour/

May 16th at 8pm: Shrink: Puppet Therapy, back at the PIT!

June 6th - 23rd: The Mystery of Irma Vep at Lost Nation Theater in Vermont (playing Jane and Edgar this time)

July 12th - 21st: A Midsummer Night's Dream at Millbrook Playhouse in Pennsylvania (as Oberon and Theseus this time - I was Demetrius two years ago at LNT!)

October 7th - 10th: Doppelskope performs (An Existential Sing-Along) and teaches at Muhlenberg College!

There are still spaces to fill in, of course, and as always there are irons in the fire.  Stay tuned...

Some Doppelskope pictures and some great praise for King Executioner at the bottom beneath the marionette picture.
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"A production not-to-be-missed," 
"The puppetry here is masterful..."
"King Executioner" is charming, meaningful, and memorable."
"...a unique and rewarding theatergoing experience."
"The beauty of this spectacle is its simplicity..."
Kelly Aliano, New York Theatre Wire.
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Pictures!  King Executioner and Doppelskope

2/28/2013

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KING EXECUTIONER
Here are some pictures from a recent photo shoot of my upcoming project at Theatre for the New City!
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MARCH 21 TO APRIL 7
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY

Puppets and live performers enact a mysterious tale of early World War II, when a young man's duty to the Polish resistance compels him to kill two village "traitors." A parable on the complex truths of existence and dignity, based on a novel by Polish magical realist Tadeusz Nowak. Written and directed by Vit Horejs, with musical score by Frank London of The Klezmatics.
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DOPPELSKOPE
We continue to take over the world, puppet by puppet and clown by clown.
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Doppelskope is an interactive and absurd neo-vaudeville theatre group that makes wild, freewheeling new shows out of amazing puppetry, magic and clown in order to splatter your reality in an hour or less.  We have a monthly improv show at the PIT and a monthly variety show at the Tank.


"Relentlessly delightful" - burlesque sensation Iris Explosion

"This show was just marvelous! And my friend who is not an experimental theatre person at all loved it and wants to go to the next one." - Siobhan V O'Loughlin




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Annual Review!

1/8/2013

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I’ve had a fantastic year!!!!
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A Varied Theatrical Season

I’m really proud of the three major regional and stock productions I was cast in this past year – I got to perform in three VERY different styles.  

I performed in A.R. Gurney’s Black Tie, Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep, and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 

So that’s Gurney – a popular contemporary playwright whose characters are very realistic.  That’s Ludlam – whose Ridiculous Theatrical Company was well known for making absurd and totally unrealistic characters.  And that’s Shakespeare – who is known for being Shakespeare.

I got to see the ins and outs of two wonderful theatres that were new to me – the Hampton Theatre Company and Cortland Repertory Theatre – and return to Lost Nation Theater and play Laertes again (I played Laertes there four years ago in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged).

I was nominated for “Best Actor in a Play” in the 2012 BroadwayWorld Central NY Awards for my performances as Lady Enid and Nicodemus Underwood in The Mystery of Irma Vep at Cortland Rep.  I also racked up a ton of quotable accolades from critics and reviewers for all three projects, as well as for my creative love child – Doppelskope!


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Doppelskope Explores Everything

In addition to regularly being employed by other theatres, my own theatre company grew in leaps and bounds.  This is a true dream project for me where we let our freak flags fly, explore the bizarre themes that motivate us, let ourselves play with clown, puppetry, magic, music, acrobatics and improv, and get rewarded constantly by loving audiences.

Ora and I had been collaborating for over a year on little projects, including a ten minute piece called An Existential Sing-Along about a severely insecure kangaroo puppet and also about the nature of reality.  Then, only days after I returned to NYC from the Jim Henson Company’s X-Tink-Shun in Philadelphia, we premiered our new hour long version of An Existential Sing-Along to an enthusiastic packed house at the People’s Improv Theatre.

A week later we flew to New Orleans to unleash our weird on the New Orleans Fringe Festival, befriending many new audience members, clowns, acrobats and weirdos – and we kept refining the show.  Back in NYC, we developed new material at Puppet BloK. 

Then, after a few months, we took the show to New Mexico!  We were invited to the Penasco Theatre by Poki McCorkle.  Poki McCorkle is a mime, balancer, juggler and cool guy who is as good as his name – we met him in New Orleans.  I’d recently heard that another New Mexico theatre, The Cell in Albuquerque, was looking for acts too, so we cobbled together a two week tour between the two theatres.

It was at this point that our show, which had been evolving continuously, really began to take on a solid and smooth form.  Based on feedback we received from John Leo back in NYC, and from Dennis Gromelski (artistic director), Caitlin Aase (aerialist and clown) and Poki (Poki), the show went through a few more radical shifts.  We rewrote the beginning.  Our base characters became very clear, and we kept our red noses on the whole show.  My character, Stampy, stopped speaking unless he was animating a puppet or playing another character.   One matinee at the Cell was cancelled, so we spent the hour improvising and devising.  It was thrilling.

We were set – we returned to NYC and over the summer played three more packed shows back at the PIT.  We added an improv segment.  We touched lives.  We were weirder than ever.

This fall we premiered our new series at the PIT: Shrink, Puppet Therapy.  This is an hour long, entirely improvised puppet show.  It’s like jumping off a cliff and landing on fluffy mattress.  It is so fun.

On February 2nd we’ll be premiering ANOTHER monthly series – The Existential Variety Hour.  This will be hosted by our clown characters from The Sing-Along and feature new puppetry and magic pieces from us, as well as the work of a different featured guest artist each month.

It is all very exciting.


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Accidental Dialect Coach

Without promoting at all, I found myself with a lot of new dialect coaching gigs in the late spring and early summer!

In NYC I coached Bosnian and Italian for Nora’s Playhouse’s production of The Fallen, and I coached Dad Doesn’t Dance, a wonderful one-woman show for the Edinburgh Fringe.  I also had a bunch of private clients!


New Puppet Reel!!!

I can't embed a vimeo clip, so HERE is the link! http://vimeo.com/55887706
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Looking Forward…

 I’m acting and puppeteering for King Executioner: a Wartime Love Story at Theatre for the New City for the Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre.  This will play at the end of March and beginning of April

I’m going to be in Irma Vep again!  At Lost Nation Theater in June!  This time I will likely play the other track – i.e. the characters I didn’t play last time.  Very exciting

In April I’ll be doing a one day puppetry festival at Daemen College in Buffalo, with Liz Dapo, one of my collaborators from X-Tink-Shun.


And I'll continue performing both Shrink: Puppet Therapy and The Existential Variety Hour.


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    Scheer Brilliance!

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