Dennis was excited to return to the outdoor stage of Saratoga Shakespeare Company in historic Congress Park in Saratoga Springs as Sir Toby Belch! Directed by Helena Binder, the show was set in the late 1960s and given a modern twist!
Dennis is excited to present the regional premiere of Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky in the Black Box Theater at Skidmore College. Performances run from October 15th through October 19th. Tickets are free and are available here.
When Henrietta Leavitt begins work at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900s, she isn’t allowed to touch a telescope or express an original idea. Instead, she joins a group of women “computers,” charting the stars for a renowned astronomer who calculates projects in “girl hours” and has no time for the women’s probing theories. As Henrietta, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars, she must also take measure of her life on Earth, trying to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love. The true story of 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt explores a woman’s place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, when women’s ideas were dismissed until men claimed credit for them. Social progress, like scientific progress, can be hard to see when one is trapped among earthly complications; Henrietta Leavitt and her female peers believe in both, and their dedication changed the way we understand both the heavens and Earth. Commissioned and first produced by South Coast Repertory with support from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Dennis is excited to be returning to Saratoga Shakespeare Company for their production of Much Ado About Nothing in Congress Park, directed by Wesly Broulik. It has bee several years since he was involved in the production of The Tempest at the Spa State Park and this is the company's first production in Congress Park since King Lear (also directed by Wesley Broulik) in 2019. Dennis will be playing Don Pedro and George Seacoal and is working with an stellar cast and creative team! The performances begin on July 20th and run until July 23, at 6:00 pm. Come down to the park, bring a blanket or chair, some food and your sense of whimsy for this lighthearded and fun production!
Dennis is pleased to be directing Heddatron by Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl, Dropout) at Skidmore College, which will run from April 22nd to May 1st.
A pregnant housewife is abducted by robots and taken to the rainforest and forced to perform Hedda Gabler by her robot captors. Meanwhile, her family is back home in Michigan trying to find her, and Henrik Ibsen is in Norway attempting to write Hedda Gabler, as Strindberg taunts him. A hilarious and savage journey to freedom. For more information and tickets, check out the Skidmore Theater Department website. Dennis is pleased to announce the upcoming publication of the book Building a Performance: An Actor's Guide to Rehearsal, co-written with John Basil.
Dennis is proud to announce that the book Objectives, Obstacles and Tactics in Practice, edited by Valerie Clayman Pye and Hilary Haft Bucs, which features his chapter "Money in Your Pocket: Meisner, Objectives, and the First Six Lines" is now available, published by Routledge. You can purchase a copy of the book directly on Amazon.
Objectives, Obstacles, and Tactics in Practice is the first book that compiles practical approaches of the best practices from a range of practitioners on the subject of working with Stanislavski’s "objectives," "obstacles," and "tactics." The book offers instructors and directors a variety of tools from leading acting teachers, who bring their own individual perspectives to the challenge of working with Stanislavski’s principles for today’s actors, in one volume. Each essay addresses its own theoretical and practical approach and offers concrete instructions for implementing new explorations both in the classroom and in the rehearsal studio. In "Money in your Pocket", Dennis takes Meisner’s famous Repetition exercise further, connectingimprovisation to the first six lines of scene work. By having students approach their scene as “an improvisation with text,” he takes the pressure off the student perfecting the character objective, and focuses on play, which in this case is throwing “snowballs.” Schebetta explores William Esper’s perspective, “a good objective is like money in your pocket,” which means “objectives are not something you can act … but actions are the specific building blocks of behavior upon which you achieve (or don’t achieve) your objective.” Dennis is excited to be directing the contemporary play American Soldiers by Matt Morillo at Albany Civic Theater. Performances begin January 30th and run until February 16, 2020. In this dramatic and funny play, the patriarch of a politically prominent family in Long Island, who is also a Vietnam veteran, struggles to hold his family together when his eldest daughter, an Army veteran, returns home from deployment in Iraq. Through a tug-of-war of morals and conformity, long buried resentments and scars are revealed, forcing the father to confront painful memories he believed were buried. For more information and to purchase tickets, please go to the ACT website. Dennis is excited to make his acting debut with the Northeast Theatre Ensemble in their site specific and immersive production of An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde, playing the witty Lord Goring. Directed by Dr. Krysta Dennis, the production runs three weekends, Thursdays through Sundays, from April 11-28. Thursday through Saturday performances take place at 7:30 pm; Sunday shows are at 3 pm. Performances are inside the historic Ten Broeck Mansion in Albany, built in the 1790s.
Guests will arrive for Sir Robert Chiltern's evening party, be handed champagne and then move from room to room as the play progresses. Seating and tickets are limited due to the nature of the performance venue, so purchasing tickets in advance is required. Tickets can be purchased online here. According to Oscar Wilde, "Sooner or later, we shall all have to pay for what we do." But, he adds, "No one should be entirely judged by their past." If a young man makes a mistake early on in his political career, should he be held accountable for it twenty years later? Wilde tackles this question with his trademark wit and style in "An Ideal Husband." NorthEast Theatre Ensemble will be bringing this delightful 1893 play to life in an immersive site-specific performance at Ten Broeck Mansion in Albany. This environmental production will take place in various spaces throughout the mansion, so come prepared to move around and enjoy cocktails, a party at the Chilterns' house, and tea with some formidable (even ruthless) women. Ten Broeck Mansion is located at 9 Ten Broeck Place in Albany. Parking is available in the mansion's lot. The performance space is ADA accessible, but please notify us in advance so we can make sure you are properly accommodated. Dennis is excited to announce that he will be playing the role of Gerald Strange in the world premiere of Agatha Christie's The Stranger at iTheatre Saratoga, the professional theater at the National Museum of Dance. Performances begin January 25th and runs until February 3rd.
The Dame herself penned this stage adaptation, which was lost in the shadows of a later collaboration of the same work, Love from a Stranger. The play confronts themes of feminine vulnerability and the seduction of the trope “love at first sight.” For more information and to buy tickets, check out the iTheatre Saratoga website. Dennis is pleased to be part of Theater Voices first staged reading of the 2018-19 season, Marjorie Prime by Jordan Harrison, directed by Krysta Dennis.
With help from an intriguingly innovative artificial intelligence technology in a future not far from our present, 85-year-old Marjorie examines her past, sometimes replacing her realities with idealized memories. Jordan Harrison’s thoughtful, spare, subtly shattering work, a 2015 Pulitzer finalist, explores the ways our humanity is shaped and warped by the mysterious ebbs and flows of memory. What would we remember, and what would we forget, given the power of authorship? Performance dates are: October 12 at 8 pm October 13 at 3 pm and 8 pm October 14 at 3 pm All performances are held at Steamer No. 10 Theatre, 500 Western Ave., Albany. House opens one half-hour before each performance. Admission is free! For more info, contact info@theatervoices.org. |
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