Tag Archives: spf5

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Five Questions With Gerald Alejandro Ford

Onwards and upwards with SPF #5! Today–five questions with Gerald Alejandro Ford, whose Chicha plays tonight and April 30 (tickets $12 adv./$15 door). For all our coverage of this year’s SPF, see here.

1. Where did you grow up, and how did you end up where you are now?

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona. I left because I was tired of being asked to show my papers every time I ran into a cop. I’m kidding, I miss my hometown but I don’t have plans to move back any time soon. I moved up here so I could study at Cornish College of the Arts. I received my BFA in Theater with an emphasis in Original Works. I love Seattle, but I have itchy feet. My ideal situation is to not have any one place to live. I would like to go on tour performing. If I keep getting work in Seattle I’ll stay, if a better offer comes from another place that’s where I’ll go.

2.  Which performance, song, play, movie, painting, or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

All of John Waters’s films, I was exposed to them as a kid by my uncle. I remember laughing and being disgusted at the same time during these films. That feeling has shaped my sense of humor and I crave all things funny/raunchy. I have developed my own style when it comes to the shows I write, but you can see how Mr. Waters has had an influence on me. One of my dreams is to be in one of his films someday.

3.  What skill, talent, or attribute do you most wish you had and why?

I wish that I could drive. I mean, I know how to drive (basically) I just never got my license. This is something I could have easily fixed but I just never find the time to. I also wish my Spanish was better so that I wouldn’t look stupid when I’m on Telemundo.

4.  What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.

Well, all I can say is that I work at a Seattle Tourist Attraction. I deal with tourists all day and it’s pretty much just a day job. I would hate to still see me working in this industry in a few years. During the evenings or my days off I go on auditions or rehearsals for a show or I am writing new material.  I’m always busy and yet I still find time to procrastinate and be lazy.

5.  Why solo performance? What made you decide to pursue this show in this form?

I’m kind of selfish because I honestly don’t trust anyone else to perform the show the way I want it. Most of my shows have dialogue between several characters and it could be cast with many people, but then the rhythm and comedy would be lost. Plus less actors means cheaper production and more pay for me. My first solo show was my Cornish senior project and it was called EL ULTIMO COCONUT. It was about a Mexican American teen who was socially awkward and addicted to World of Warcraft. That show received the city of Seattle’s Smartventure grant and was used as the inaugural production of the newly formed Latino Theater Collective, eSe Teatro.  I even made some money off of it, which is unheard of for Cornish Senior Projects. I expect to have even more success for Chicha. There is something about this character that people will love. The show is outrageous, when you have a mix or prison life, the fashion world, cholas (Mexican American gangstas) and lesbians in one story it has to be good right? This isn’t another Drag act. This is essentially a love story, I hope to have everyone dancing and crying at the end.  SPF #5 here I come!

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Five Questions With Troy Mink

Our ongoing series of profiles of performers at SPF #5 down at Theatre off Jackson continues today with local fave Troy Mink, whose MeNtAl opens tonight. Tickets $12 advance, $15 at the door.

1. Where did you grow up, and how did you end up where you are now?
I was born & raised in Lexington, Kentucky (which, by the way, for what it’s worth, is also the hometown of George Clooney).  I ended up here in Seattle by getting a job as drama/music teacher at a private church school in Sea-Tac.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting, or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?
As cliche as it sounds, and at the risk of seeming too sappy, I was really struck by the musical Les Miserables. I’d never heard the story of the bishop and the encounter with Jean Valjean and the silver candlesticks which really moved me at the time.  It was one of the things that inspired me to go into social work.

I also was and still am inspired by Robert Duvall in the films Tomorrow and Tender Mercies. In both films he plays a Southern, quiet man with incredible subtlety and heart. Also, both pieces were written by Horton Foote a favorite playwright/screenwriter of mine.

3. What skill, talent, or attribute do you most wish you had and why?
I wish I were more comfortable speaking with authority and comfort as myself.  Mike Daisey, whose show Wasting Your Breath was the first show I’d ever directed and the first solo show he performed, is a big inspiration for me. I watch Mike’s performance and am always taken by his performance and ability to capture an entire audience’s attention.

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.
I am a “Community Outreach Worker” for Community Psychiatric Clinic.  I go into the office first thing in the morning where I receive a notice(s) from the county informing me of clients (of CPC) commitment to a psychiatric hospitalization, or arrested in county jail.  I then look up info to see what their crime was & when their trial is set.  For those clients involuntarily hospitalized I call the facility they are in to find out when their court date/time is.  I then go to the jail or hospital, meet with the clients, make a note of my visit & assessment & go back to the office.

5. Why solo performance? What made you decide to pursue this show in this form?
This is a personal account/story of a time and experiences that I, personally, have went through. I do multiple characters, who often interrupt the narrative and wish to tell their take on whatever it is I’m talking about. By doing the show as a solo performer my hope is that the audience, while they are following the narrative also get a sense of me “schizophrenically” (so to speak) telling the stories. The name of the show is Mental and as such deals with many of the mentally ill folks I’ve worked with in the past who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, etc.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Five Questions With Terri Weagant

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Terri Weagant is one of the Seattle theatre community’s treasures: a brilliant, witty actor with diverse talents. She’s wowed us here at The SunBreak before, and we’re excited for her new solo show, Karaoke Suicide is Painless, which opened last night down at Theatre off Jackson as part of Solo Performance Fest #5. See the whole line-up and festival schedule online; tickets are just $12 advance.

1. Where did you grow up, and how did you end up where you are now?
I was born and raised in Lake Chelan, Wash.–population 2500, but part of my childhood was spent at the north end of the lake in Stehekin–population 100. There were no roads that led to the town. You had to boat or fly in. We mail ordered groceries. There was one telephone for the entire valley. I went to a one room log cabin school house with his and hers outhouses. I shit you not. Full-on Little House on the Prairie. Oddly enough,  this was where I did my first play and decided that I wanted to be an actor. I became a theatre fanatic at 10 years old and read every play I could get my hands on. After I finished high school I got the hell out of town and came to Seattle to attend Cornish College of the Arts. I’ve been here ever since.

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting, or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?
Art has been in integral part of my upbringing. My father is an incredible landscape painter and he encouraged me to draw and paint when I was very young. My folks would drag us to museums and galleries all the damn time. I didn’t understand a lot of the pieces that I saw. Dad is a plein air painter and the whole family would often go on big day trips and he would take photos or paint studies. Once we went to a draft horse expo somewhere in Eastern Washington. Hundreds of horses were pulling old tractors and working the fields and Dad took tons of photos. I didn’t really think much more about it. Horses. Tractors. Fields. Blah. It all looked the same to me. A few weeks later he finished a huge painting of four draft horses pulling a some sort of tractor. I’ve never seen anything like it. They were individuals. Each horse had its own distinct personality, sense of humor and style of movement. He captured their spirit perfectly. I don’t know what kind of personal metaphor or what deeper message that is supposed to mean in my life, but that painting is still my favorite.

3. What skill, talent, or attribute do you most wish you had and why?
I would sell my feet for amazing musical ability. I plunk around on the ukulele and I can sing in my own way, but I wish that I was one of those people who could just pick up an instrument and play. I also wish that I was one of those musicians that plays better when I’m drunk. I’m not one of those people. At all.

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.
I pretty much work piecemeal. I am the development director for Strawberry Theatre Workshop, substitute teach at Cornish, do voice-overs, babysit, cater for rich people’s weddings, pick up pennies off the road. I spend a lot of time at coffee shops and Than Brother’s House of Pho.

5. Why solo performance? What made you decide to pursue this show in this
form?
I don’t know exactly why. Because it’s new to me. I never had the balls to do it until a couple of years ago. I was intimidated as hell by it, and that was reason enough for me to give ‘er a go. Some of the most incredible plays that I have ever seen are solo works: Robert LaPage’s The Far Side of the Moon, Julia Mackay’s Jake’s Gift, and Jane Wagner’s (and Lily Tomlin’s) The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Most of my experience to this point has been doing interpretive work with a large ensemble cast. I want to start moving into generative work and crafting small, simple stories.  A few other local theatre artist’s and myself have recently formed a collective called The Radial Theatre Project. We are creating new work that is geared towards touring. I want to take shows to rural communities similar to the one that I grew up in. I have an insatiable case of wanderlust and have a very hard time staying in one spot, but I also love theatre. I’m trying to figure out a way to meld my two loves together.