This Wooden O

This week, in true Shakespearean fashion, Monty reclaims the pod as a solo host! His first guest in his new and glorious podcast empire is actor/singer/casting-director, Daniel Kemper (www.montgomerysutton.com). Topics include:

• The fact that websites are, by definition, a tool for self-aggrandizement
• YouTube live chat questions
• Daniel’s belief in having an affinity to certain skills and how working hard can sometimes bridge the gap
• The different pleasures achieved when working within natural skillsets versus working in areas that require additional effort
• What Daniel looks for as a Casting Director
• Treating an audition like a first date (or, don’t be a jerk)
• The production and personal experience that inspired Daniel to become an actor
• The power of theater to help people to look outside of themselves
• People’s willing state of readiness for change as audience members and the responsibility to do justice to people’s time that goes along with it
• The special atmosphere created by the communal knowledge that each theatrical performance is a singular and irreplicable moment.
• Loving cats while being allergic to them
• Daniel’s love for Shakespeare being born out of their enduring impact throughout the centuries and their abilities to ask the big questions
• Daniel’s beautiful rendition of a speech from the Archbishop Scroop from Henry IV part 2

Shoutouts, recommendations, and further reading include:

• The West Wing
• Jesus Christ Superstar
• Carl Anderson
• James Gandolfini
• The Sopranos
• Zoom Dinners with your friends
• Circle in the Sand
• International Actors Ensemble
• Alex Theatre
• Melbourne, Australia
• Shakespeare’s Age of Crowns

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

This week, in true Shakespearean fashion, Daniel stages a coup and takes over the podcast as a solo host! His first guest in his new and glorious podcast empire is actor/director/writer and Master of the Revels for Rude Grooms, Montgomery Sutton (www.montgomerysutton.com). Topics include:

• Daniel’s boundless capacity for benevolence as a resplendent podcast dictator
• How Monty was (maybe?) dropped as a baby.
• Where Monty gets his drive to constantly create
• Using accountability to others as a means to spur productivity
• Using art to engage with the world around you.
• Toddler Monty’s 3 hour, living room Batman plays
• The religious experience of live theatre
• What makes a good actor?
• Figuring out your own artistry through exposure to other artists and forms of theatre
• The importance of a degree of “messiness” in live theatre
• The difference between emotionally honest and performative acting
• When do you impose structure on the sense of play when managing a show
• The essential relationship between an actor and the audience
• How much rehearsal is too much?
• The importance of a small amount of challenge or fear on opening night
• Which TV show would Monty put himself in if given the opportunity?

Shoutouts, recommendations, and further reading include:

• The Drawer Boy
• Shakespeare Dallas
• Rene Moreno
• The Dallas Children’s Theater
• Dallas Junior Players 
• Shakespeare Happy Hours
• Michelle Tarry
• Colin Hurley
• Toni Morrisson
• “Different Every Night” by Mark Alfreds
• Ed Dixon
• David Baynes
• New York Shakespeare Company

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

Daniel & Monty are back with our first episode recorded during Corona. In a Facebook livestream (using Skype), they virtually sit down with Rude Grooms Associate Artist Laura Piccoli (check out her website lauracpiccoli.com). Topics include:

• Shifting to a virtual Wooden O
• How Laura’s super-high work ethic developed and has influenced her life from undergrad, through freelance acting, producing with Rude Grooms, and into a Masters program
• The benefits for an actor of wearing other theatrical hats and feeling more power in the process of creating opportunities
• How the feeling of empowerment from getting more involved on the producing side of theater inspired Laura to start writing her own short films
• Pursuing a Masters degree in Energy and Environment Policy to learn more about subjects so that she should start writing projects, like a recent short film she wrote inspired by studying in Bolivia
• Shifting as a writer from writing for herself as an actor to writing with a hope towards other actors flourishing
• Finding your Artistic Family
• Imposter Syndrome
• How a Process-oriented approach can benefit even Product-oriented environments.
• COVID brain

This week, Daniel & Monty both recommend Shakespeare Happy Hours, co-produced with Seven Stages Shakespeare Company - 90 minute virtual performances of all of Shakespeare’s plays, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at shakespearehappyhours.tv. Other shoutouts, recommendations, and further reading include:

• Pachamama
• Cloud Forests of Bolivia

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains mentions of sex, and references of drug use. 

This week, Daniel and Monty reconnect with a former acting classmate turned entrepreneur and International Tea Master, Mike Ortiz (@sipjojo on Instagram) to discuss his journey from theatre school to brewing tea on the world stage. Topics include:

• The return of “Danny” Kemper
• Finding your weirdos in action!
• The parallels between auditioning and building a business.
• The importance of unapologetically taking up space.
• Being comfortable with not having answers, and being willing to constantly ask questions in life and theatre.
• The proper way to drink tea
• How Mike went from actor to tea salesman and entrepreneur
• Brewing tea as a practice of meditation
• The importance of persistence in developing relationships
• Learning under pressure
• The influence of slave labor on modern tea consumption and sales.
• How an actor with no business training starts a company
• Resilience as a necessity in the pursuit of your goals
• What makes a master?
• Understanding a structure well enough to break it.
• The origin of the name Jojo Tea

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, and further reading include:

• Anya Saffir
• EBE Ensemble
• Master Chufei Tsai 
• Jojo Tea Company
• Badia Spice Company
• World Tea Expo
• Grandmaster Maurice Ashley
• Tea Master’s Cup
• Osteria 57
• Cafe Integral
• Malaparte
• Tiger King on Netflix
• Hollywood Caucus podcast

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

WE HAVE MERCH! Official This Wooden O coffee mugs and baseball tees are available on our website. Get yours at http://www.thiswoodeno.com/shop today!

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

WE HAVE MERCH! Official This Wooden O coffee mugs and baseball tees are available on our website. Get yours at http://www.thiswoodeno.com/shop today!

This week Daniel (@thedanielkemper) and Monty (@montgomerysutto) sit down with Rude Grooms' Master of Movement Bridget Bose (@bridgetbose on Instagram). Bridget has choreographed dances, jigs, and creepy death movement pieces for all Rude Grooms productions. Listen to her talk about her journey from Colorado to New York, starting and running Guilty Pleasures Cabaret, and much more.

Topics include:

• Rude Grooms’ Secret Shakespeare Hunt (possibly returning in 2020)
• Performing at Lincoln Center with Bridget’s cabaret troupe, Guilty Pleasures
• Dancing in a circus in the Middle East
• Touring the world in a Bollywood dance company, and becoming a tourist attraction by rehearsing in Central Park
• The happenstance creation of Guilty Pleasures in a tiny UWS bar
• Defying expectations at The Duplex by making dance that functions in a non-traditional space
• The power of appealing to the 11pm timeslot niche
• How Guilty Pleasures alters shows from late-night to mainstage, from smaller venues to larger venues, and from 1.0 to 11.0 versions
• Repurposing successful material to fit in different shows
• Parallels between creating frequent cabaret content and the incredibly prolific rate of new plays in Shakespeare’s London
• Keeping all of her creative work in notebooks and having an archive dating back to high school
• The importance of overplanning and yet being able to throw it all out in the moment when none of it works for the bodies in the room
• Cue Scripts and the power of muscle memory from writing down, going back to the beginning until you make no mistakes, or just repeating things over and over
• The difficulty of dancing someone else’s choreography vs. what comes naturally to your own body
• The importance of letting dancers write choreography down in the performer’s own vocabulary because there’s no standardized form of notation
• How to navigate the balance choreographing for character and for an individual actor
• Is there a point at which a piece is “done” for Guilty Pleasures?

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to [email protected], visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include:

• Guilty Pleasure Cabaret | email: [email protected]; website guiltypleasurescabaret.com; twitter/instagram: @gpcabaret
• The Duplex
• 54 Below
• LineLearner App, available on the App Store or Google Play
• Kast App: kastapp.co
• The Show Must Go Online, produced by Rob Myles (@robmyles)

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

WE HAVE MERCH! Official This Wooden O coffee mugs and baseball tees are available on our website. Get yours at http://www.thiswoodeno.com/shop today!

This week Daniel and Monty sit down with actor, singer/songwriter, and Rude Grooms Master of Music, Kara Arena. Kara has composed music for every Rude Grooms production, as well as the music for this very podcast. Listen to her talk about her journey as an artist, how her creative process works, and then go and follow her on Instagram HERE.

Topics include:

• Kara’s artistic origin story.
• Fearless, mystical writing
• Learning to play an instrument for a show
• The difficulty of consistent practice
• How the comfort of the theatre and performance can relieve the pressure of learning an instrument
• The difference between the artist and their artistic persona
• Playing your own music for the first time
• Learning not to take judgement personally
• The inherent compelling nature of fictional villains
• The fun of playing roles that go counter to “type”
• Looking internally at your own experience as a catalyst for character development
• Separating your own sound from your influences
• How to write music for a show
• Finding the vibe of a show
• The power of oooooh’s and aaahh’s in music
• How simplicity in songwriting leads to adaptability
• What most people get wrong about Romeo and Juliet
• Why Juliet is out of Romeo’s league
• Allowing your creations to take on lives of their own
• Improvisation within structure
• Why you don’t need lessons to be a musician
• Kara’s first music video!
• How the meaning of a song evolves as you spend more time with it
• The differences in writing for Greek theatre vs. Shakespeare

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to [email protected], visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include:

• Rickie Lee Jones
• Spring Awakening
• Joni Mitchell
• Sufjan Stevens
• Arcade Fire
• The Beatles
• “Heart Song” by Kara Arena on YouTube
• Gilbert Theater
• Portland Stage Company

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

WE HAVE MERCH! Official This Wooden O coffee mugs and baseball tees are available on our website with a special 10% Discount (offer expires 3/16/2020). Get yours at http://www.thiswoodeno.com/shop and use code “WEIRDOS” at checkout!

This week Daniel and Monty sit down with director, producer, and Associate Artistic Director of Shakespeare Dallas, Jenni Stewart. To learn more, follow her on Instagram @jennalola

Topics include:

• Monty’s life’s work of getting everyone he knows from Dallas to move to NYC
• The enduring splendor of snow for people born in the south
• Jenni’s journey from producing intern to Program Coordinator to Associate Artistic Director in her 14 years with Shakespeare Dallas
• Jenni’s background in performance art, avant-garde, and making really f*$%ing good shadows
• Infusing principles of anant-grade performance into her interpretations of Shakespeare so that any type of learner can absorb the story
• Directing a play so that a dog could watch and follow the story
• The job of directing as being a professional audience member
• The importance of the setting up character, concept, and setting first 7-10 minutes of a Shakespeare play for audience members
• Jenni’s early 1900s Suffragette-era Taming of the Shrew and its Silent Film homage to the Induction
• The unique difficulties of working in large, outdoor, mic’d spaces
• The Tablework Controversy: essential, or a waste of time?
• Shakespeare practitioners who have open disdain for scholars
• Shakespeare Dallas’s Canon Completion Project: The Complete Works of Shakespeare as unabridged staged readings with just a week of rehearsal
• The fake news of Romeo and Juliet’s “two hours traffic”
• The importance of bridging the gap between the skills and knowledge of an Elizabethan actor and those of a contemporary actor in “original practice” rehearsal environments
• Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s PlayOn project, modern playwrights translating Shakespeare’s plays
• Words that only appear once in Shakespeare’s plays: translate them, or play them as a character making up a word?
• How to bring the inherent collaboration built into Shakespeare’s plays into a 21st century production setting.
• The fact that every time to produce Shakespeare you are doing an adaptation by cutting, choosing a version, putting on a concept, etc.
• Protecting capital “S” Shakespeare versus collaborating with a down and dirty playwright
• Folio vs. Quarto versions of the texts, and the incredible opportunity we have to get our fingers dirty and collaborate with Shakespeare by working from the original source material and choosing the versions that work for our particular productions and groups of actors.
• Moving out of the “Newlywed” phase of directing Shakespeare and becoming less “precious” with the plays.
• The fact that cutting one line of Shakespeare means you are adapting the play, and its implications for more “controversial” adaptation.
• The potential problems with how our educational system teaches Shakespeare (and literature)
• Send us your own personal translations of Shakespeare! Daniel will read them and Monty will wear his Darth Vader mask while maybe or maybe not paying attention!
• Jenni’s journey from actor to director and the clear crossroads where that new journey began.
• ASMR

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to [email protected], visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week, Daniel recommends the upcoming Album It is What it is by Thundercat (releasing April 3), and its single “Dragonball Doorag.” Monty Recommends the podcast An Actor Despairs, hosted by Ryan Perez, and available wherever you listen to podcasts.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include:

• Shakespeare Dallas
• ProjectX Theatre
• Shakespeare Theater Association
• Shakespeare’s First Folio (Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria)
• Folger Online Editions of Shakespeare
• shakespeareswords.com

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

WE HAVE MERCH! Official This Wooden O coffee mugs and baseball tees are available on our website with a special 10% Discount (offer expires 3/16/2020). Get yours at http://www.thiswoodeno.com/shop and use code “WEIRDOS” at checkout!

This week Daniel and Monty sit down with actor, yogi, and Rude Grooms Sharer/Founding Member Deb Radloff who has been featured in every RG production going all the way back to Much Ado about Nothing. She shares her story today about finding your wins in the theatre industry, and the importance of community. To learn more, follow her on Instagram @debfindingherwin

Topics include:

• The importance of training for different mediums
• The lies we tell ourselves as actors that inhibit our progress
• Maintaining positive, clear relationships.
• Giving yourself permission to fail.
• The dangers of knowing “just enough”
• Staying focused and positive during career dry spells
• Knowing the difference between what you can control vs. what you can’t
• The self-sabotaging habit of intentional under preparation
• The safety of familiar failure
• The power and terror of being fully present and open.
• Counting your victories, no matter how small.
• Rude Grooms origin stories!
• Finding people you like to do work that matters to you.
• Being proactive about maintaining and building relationships.
• How creativity breeds creativity, and practice breeds preparedness.
• How to find or create your artistic home
• An actor’s secret superpower.
• The camaraderie of community.
• Knowing your worth as an artist.

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to [email protected], visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include:

• Devin Shackett On Camera
• Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender- Dr. David Hawkins
• Michele Shay
• Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre
• Richard Easton

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

This week Daniel and Monty sit down with actor Elisabeth Ahrens, who was featured in Rude Grooms’s 2019 productions of Romeo & Juliet and The Changeling. She’s also the person we specifically referenced in Episode 1 of the podcast whose audition was so strong we added an entire actor track to a production. To learn more, follow her on Instagram @elisabethahrens.

Topics include:

• Finding alternatives to clichéd one-note character choices through non-traditional casting choices
• How a rural, pre-Nintendo childhood inspired young Elisabeth to write, act, and direct in plays for her family to keep herself entertained.
• Elisabeth’s time in the MFA program at the Asolo Conservatory (Florida State) and the Ringling Circus Museum, Art Gallery, and historic theater space
• Monty’s inability to differentiate between Jeff Bridges and Jeff Daniels
• White Russians as Daniel’s entry to drinking in NYC
• Elisabeth’s extraordinary sense of play as an actor and its root in the text
• Learning how to work on limited rehearsal time by being thrust into the fire of a condensed rehearsal period
• The benefits & responsibilities of working in a condensed rehearsal period that doesn’t give you time to procrastinate as an artist
• How to find freedom and play even in rehearsal rooms where the job is to fulfill a director’s predetermined plan
• The difference between watching actors who are present with other actors on stage and actors who are checked out and going through the motions
• The energetic tether between two people who are truly present with each other, on stage and in life
• The return of Mirror Neurons!
• The difference in watching theater as an audience member and as a practitioner
• How to keep things fresh and new and present after you’ve reached the fourth week of a run
• How rediscovering our spontaneous play as actors requires us to abandon our “good student” desire of some arts to “get it right.”
• The importance of playing the reality of “mistakes” (or gifts) that happen in performance
• How difficult it can be to enjoy watching theater as a theater maker
• The power of being easeful on stage
• Working on classical texts as a puzzle for the artist to unpack for the audience
• Elisabeth’s turn as Peter in our production of Romeo and Juliet & finding new ways to “translate” jokes that resonate in hurtful ways for modern artists and audiences

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to [email protected], visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include:

• University of Kansas
• FSU Asolo Conservatory
• The Ringing, the State Art Museum of Florida
• Tootsie the Musical
• Shakespeare’s Globe
• Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
• Taylor Tomlinson’s “Quarter-Life Crisis” on Netflix
• Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations

This week Daniel and Monty sit down with self-described Method props artist, set decorator, and producer, Sara Slagle. Sara and Monty have collaborated on numerous projects for 10 years, and Sara was the brains behind the world Rude Grooms created this summer with Romeo and Juliet. To learn more, follow her on Instagram @ehtoozee.

Topics include:

• How Sara found her way into props and design
• Method props design
• How fully realized, hand-crafted props help with immersion, and the power of physical objects on an actors’ performance.
• The dangers of burnout.
• The desire for effective world-building and realism in the theatre.
• How many things does Sara make by hand? Listen to the episode and tweet us your answers!
• Mishandled prop horror stories.
• The importance of CHECKING YOUR DAMN PROPS.
• Navigating whether or not to stay in your lane when problems arise
• The importance of communication between performers and technical artists. 
• How observation and noticing small details affect big decisions in a production.
• Theatre ghost stories!
• How suggestions lead to better direction.
• ACTORS- be nice to your production crew!
• The cost of kindness.
• The pros and cons of the current power dynamic structure in modern theatre.
• Switching hats between crew member and producer on the same production.
• The creative advantages of independent theatre vs. Broadway.

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Follow us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts & further reading include:

• The Gallery Players
• Retro Productions
• Carl Forsman
• Comedy Central Presents: This is Not Happening
• Roy Wood Jr.
• Heather Cunningham
• Steven Walters (and the play “Booth” which inspired the podcast “1865”)
• Jessica Renee Russell
• Your Colonel (Monty’s Aaron Burr play)
• Shakespeare Dallas

This Wooden O is a production of Rude Grooms. Learn more at rudegrooms.com or follow us @rudegrooms on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/this-wooden-o/donations