The Vs. Studio Blog

In addition to recapping my end of year favorites (films, plays, books, albums, etc.) I thought for 2025, I’d share each month. Without further adieu and in no particular order, here are April faves…

FILMS:

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer – A masterpiece. One of the most haunting films I’ve ever seen featuring one of the greatest and most gut-wrenching performances ever given. (By Renee Falconetti. Talk about an artist giving a pound of flesh.) The film is nearly a hundred years old, yet feels like it was made today. Thus affirming that great art is timeless.

The Best Years Of Our Lives by William Wyler – A terrific film and one of the earliest to deal with soldiers’ difficult adjustment coming home after WWII. The ensemble is first rate, but it’s Harold Russell (a non actor and real-life Veteran) who steals the show. He won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award and also won an “Academy Honorary Award” making him the only person ever to win two Academy Awards for the same performance.

PLAYS (Live, In Person):

Mary Page Marlowe written by Tracy Letts – A magical Vs. Tuesday Night Live @PRT reading. A packed house filled with tremendous buzz and supportive energy coupled with a dynamite play and cast. As an Artistic Director, it was everything I hope these live readings can be, and harkened back to the readings in our old Vs. Lobby. Big thanks to Dalia Vosylius for sponsoring and Pacific Resident Theatre for giving us space. More to come!

1984 adapted from George Orwell’s novel by Robert Owens, Wilton E. Hall Jr. and William A. Miles, Jr. – Directed by my good friend and Vs. resident production designer, Danny Cistone, the production was spellbinding and compelling as hell. In addition to the play’s (and novel’s) urgency and relevancy, it had so many great takeaway moments, especially the lead character’s breakdown in the second act. I won’t forget “the rats” and “2 + 2 = 5.” A great Vs. Theatre Club night out. Bravo Danny!

Furlough’s Paradise written by ak payne – An awesome “Vs. Ally Night” at the Geffen Playhouse. Winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the writing is poetic and beautiful yet also incisive, with tons of dialogue pop. The two performers are fierce and phenomenal and leave it all out there. The show also has incredible production design. Don’t miss it! Runs through May 18th. Tix/Info Here. (Big thanks to Vs. Board Member Karen Gutierrez and the Geffen Playhouse for arranging these Vs. Ally nights.)

ALBUMS:

Emmy Lou Harris – “Luxury Liner” – I’ve been on an Emmy Lou kick recently and this early one in her canon is outstanding.

R.E.M. – “Murmur” – I always love going back to the beginning to hear a band’s debut. So many great, catchy tracks on here.

French Kicks – “Swimming” – Underrated and overlooked band from the early 2000’s. If you love The Strokes and The Walkmen (which I do), you’ll love this album.

PODCASTS:

Lex Fridman – “Robert Rodriguez” – Perhaps the best conversation ever about creativity. A must listen which you can get Here. I wrote this blog post about it.

“We might deserve something.

We might be entitled to it.

But expectations are a story we tell ourselves, and that story is up to us.

The simple life hack is to lower your expectations, regardless of what you’re entitled to. Create the conditions for the outcome you seek, but leave yourself room if it doesn’t arrive.

Lowering expectations is a way to ensure that tomorrow is even better than you hope it will be.” -Seth Godin

“The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, she is present, and can welcome all things.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” -Shakespeare

“We listen with expectation, insight and point of view.” – Howard Fine

“Our actions are the result of immediate needs and expectations…In rehearsals we must discover and test the actions that are needed from moment to moment in conjunction with what we expect from them…My passion for acting returned, never to desert me again, once I had understood how to suspend knowledge of what was to come by unearthing the character’s expectations.” -Uta Hagen, book A Challenge For The Actor

In life, having low expectations is good.

But having no expectations is really, really good.

Love of process. Outcome is irrelevant.

On stage, the more and specific expectations you have, the better.

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.” -Tom Robbins, book Still Life With Woodpecker

“What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don’t have the f-ing nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”
―Tom Robbins

Speaking of being dangerous, this 2022 commencement speech from author Tom Robbins, who sadly passed away earlier this year, is truly inspiring…

I am often asked whether there is life after death. Certainly, there is.

There is also death after life, and life before death, and death after life. It goes on forever. There’s no stopping it. You will live forever and die forever. In fact, you already have.

As for heaven and hell, they are right here on Earth, and it is up to each of you in which one you choose to reside. To put it simply, heaven is living in your hopes and hell is living in your fears.

One problem with the notion of Heaven and Hell, is that although they are exact opposites, an astonishing number of people seem to be confused about which is which. For example, all over the United States on this very evening, commencement speakers are standing before audiences not greatly unlike yourselves describing hell as if they were talking about heaven.

Their speakers are saying things such as, ‘Graduating seniors, you have reached the golden age of maturity; it is time now to go out into the world and take up the challenge of life, time to face your hallowed responsibility.’

And if that isn’t one hell of a note, it’s certainly one note of hell.

When I hear the word maturity spoken with such solemn awe, I don’t know whether to laugh or get sick.

There circulates a common myth that once one becomes an adult, one suddenly and magically gets it all together. And, if I may use the vernacular, discovers where it’s at. Ha ha. The sad funny truth is adults are nothing but tall children who have forgotten how to play.

When people tell you to grow up, they mean approximately the same thing they mean when they tell you to shut up. By shut up they mean stop talking. By grow up, they mean stop growing.

Because as long as you keep growing, you keep changing, and the person who is changing is unpredictable, impossible to pigeonhole and difficult to control. The growing person is not an easy target for those guys in slick suits who want you to turn over your soul to Christ, your heart to America, your butt to Seattle First National Bank and your armpits to the new extra crispy Right Guard.

No, the growing person is not an ideal consumer, which means, in more realistic terms, he or she is not an easy slave. Worse yet, if he or she continues to grow, grows far enough and long enough, he or she may get too close to the universal mysteries, the nature of which the Navy and the Dutch Reformed Church do not encourage us to ponder. The growing person is an uncomfortable reminder of the greater human potential that each of us might realize if we had the guts.

So, society wants you to grow up to reach a safe, predictable plateau and root there. To muzzle your throb. To lower the volume on the singing in your blood. Capers all cut, sky finally larked, surprises known: SETTLE DOWN – settle like the sand in the bottom of an hourglass, like a coffin six months in the ground. Act your age, which means act their age, and that has, from the moment they stopped growing, always been old. Growing up is a trap.

As for responsibility, I am forced to ask, responsibility to what? To our fellow man? Two weeks ago, the newspapers reported that a federal court had ruled that when a person’s brain stops functioning, that person is legally dead, even though his or her heart may continue to beat. That means that eighty percent of the population of the Earth is legally dead. Must we be responsible to corpses?

No, you have no responsibility except to be yourself to the fullest limit of yourself. And to find out who you are. Or perhaps I should say to remember who you are. Because deep down in the secret velvet of your heart, far beyond your name and address, each of you knows who you really are. And that being who is true cannot help but behave graciously to all other beings – because it is all other beings.

Ah, but we must be responsible, and if we are, then we are rewarded with the white man’s legal equivalent of looting: a steady job, a secure income, easy credit, free access to all the local emporiums and a home of your own to pile the merchandise in. And so what if there is no magic in your life, no wonder, no amazement, no playfulness, no peace of mind, no sense of unity with the universe, no giggling joy, no burning passion, no deep understanding, no overwhelming love? At least your ego has the satisfaction of knowing you are a responsible citizen.

The only advice I have for you tonight is not to actively resist or fight the system, because active protest and resistance merely entangles you in the system. Instead, ignore it, walk away from it.

Turn your backs on it, laugh at it. Don’t be outraged, be outrageous! Never be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority proves itself respectable.

So be your own authority, lead yourselves. Learn the ways and means of the ancient yogi masters, pied pipers, cloud walkers and medicine men.

Get in harmony with nature. Listen to the loony rhythms of your blood. Look for beauty and poetry in everything in life. Let there be no moon that does not know you, no spring that does not lick you with its tongues. Refuse to play it safe, for it is from the wavering edge of risk that the sweetest honey of freedom drips and drips. Live dangerously, live lovingly.

Believe in magic. Nourish your imagination. Use your head, even if it means going out of your mind. Learn, like the lemon and the tomato learned, the laws of the sun.

Become aware, like the jungle became aware, of your own perfume. Remember that life is much too serious to take seriously – so never forget how to play.

P.S. – Big h/t to Erik Rittenberry and Poetic Outlaws for inspiring. You can read the full post Here.

“Used to be ‘Stay safe.’ Now it’s ‘Stay dangerous.'” -Nipsey Hussle (featuring Kendrick Lamar), song Dedication

“The most dangerous person is the one who listens, thinks, and observes.” -Bruce Lee

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” -Albert Einstein

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” -Oscar Wilde

“You’re dangerous ‘cos you’re honest.” -U2, song Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” -Gustave Flaubert

Avoid danger. Yes.

But not at the expense of being dangerous in your art and work.

Playing it safe gets you nowhere.

Stay dangerous my friend.

“The measure of a person is the congruence between their words and actions, their kindness, their confidence, and their decisiveness about who they are in the world and who they intend to remain.” -Peter Cundill

“In place of the term “realness” I have sometimes used the word “congruence.” By this I mean that when my experiencing of this moment is present in my awareness and when what is present in my awareness is present in my communication, then each of these three levels matches or is congruent. At such moments I am integrated or whole, I am completely in one piece. Most of the time, of course, I, like everyone else, exhibit some degree of incongruence. I have learned, however, that realness, or genuineness, or congruence—whatever term you wish to give it—is a fundamental basis for the best of communication.” -Carl Rogers, A Way Of Being

Some definitions of “congruence”:

-agreement or harmony; compatibility.

-The quality or state of agreeing, coinciding, or being congruent. The happy congruence of nature and reason.

-a match between psychological attributes and behavior.

Aspire to have your thoughts, words, and actions all working together. In alignment. In harmony. In congruence.

When you have this congruence, you will find inner peace. As well as evoke inner peace in others.

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But Heaven knows, I’m miserable now
I was looking for a job and then I found a job
And Heaven knows, I’m miserable now

In my life, why do I give valuable time
To people who don’t care if I live or die? -lyrics from the song, “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” by The Smiths

“Are you amazed to find that even with such extensive travel, to so many varied locales, you have not managed to shake off gloom and heaviness from your mind? As if that were a new experience! You must change the mind, not the venue.” -Seneca

“How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away.” -Socrates

“God laid down this law, saying: if you want some good, get it from yourself.” -Epictetus, Discourses

“Here is how to guarantee you have a good day: do good things. Any other source of joy is outside your control or is nonrenewable. But this one is all you, all the time, and unending. It is the ultimate form of self-reliance.” -Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. There is no way to peace, peace is the way. There is no way to enlightenment, enlightenment is the way.” -Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Mindful Living: How to Bring Love, Compassion, and Inner Peace into Your Daily Life

You can get everything you ever wanted and still be miserable.

It’s not that you need more or different wants (though per Arthur Brooks, having less wants does lead to greater satisfaction.)

It’s you.

Change you.

And do some good things.

That will change everything.

“Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses. Just get out there, and whatever you’re doing, do it to the best of your ability. And no one can do more than that. I tried to get across, too, that — my opponents don’t tell you — you never heard me mention winning. Never mention winning. My idea is that you can lose when you outscore somebody in a game. And you can win when you’re outscored. I’ve felt that way on certain occasions, at various times. And I just wanted them to be able to hold their head up after a game. I used to say that when a game is over, and you see somebody that didn’t know the outcome, I hope they couldn’t tell by your actions whether you outscored an opponent or the opponent outscored you. That’s what really matters: if you make effort to do the best you can regularly, the results will be about what they should be. Not necessary to what you would want them to be, but they will be about what they should, and only you will know whether you can do that.” -John Wooden

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” -Richard Feynman

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you had a good outcome, it means you were working correctly. You might just have gotten lucky.

Over the long term, it’s process that counts. That is what you can control.

Process, process, process.

The final outcome, the final score, the championship trophy, etc…that has a lot more to do with the Fates. Speaking of, this poem from George Moriarty (former MLB player, umpire and poet)

The Road Ahead or the Road Behind

Sometimes I think the Fates must grin, as we denounce them and insist, the only reason we can’t win, is the Fates themselves that miss.

Yet there lives on the ancient claim: we win or lose within ourselves. The shining trophies on our shelves, can never win tomorrow’s game.

You and I know deeper down there’s always a chance to win the crown; but when we fail to give our best, we simply haven’t met the test, of giving all and saving none, until the game is really won.

Of showing what is meant by grit, of playing through when others quit; of playing through not letting up, it’s bearing down that wins the cup.

Of dreaming there’s a goal ahead, of hoping when our dreams are dead, of praying when our hopes have fled, yet losing, not afraid to fall, if bravely we have given all.

For who can ask more of a man, that giving all within his span. Giving all it seems to me, is not so far from victory.

And so the fates are seldom wrong, no matter how they twist and wind, it’s you and I who make our fates — we open up or close the gates, on the road ahead or the road behind.

In the late 1960s, researchers at Stanford conducted what became known as the Marshmallow Test. A preschooler was placed in a room with a marshmallow and given a choice: eat it now, or wait a few minutes and receive two marshmallows instead. Early findings suggested that children who could wait tended to be more successful later in life, helping popularize the idea that self-control was a key ingredient in achievement.

But as writer and ADHD advocate Gray Miller explains, later research added crucial context. A child’s willingness to wait turned out to have less to do with innate self-control and more to do with trust. Kids who believed adults would keep their promises were more likely to wait. Kids from less stable backgrounds often took what they could while it was available. Choosing the marshmallow wasn’t a failure of character. It was a rational response to uncertainty shaped by experience.

What if self-control came less from trying harder, and more from designing lives that work with our natural drives?

Maybe it’s not a test of willpower at all, but a reflection of what (and who) we trust. -excerpt from a Medium blog post (Edited by Scott Lamb and Harris Sockel)

Some love is just a lie of the heart
The cold remains of what began with a passionate start
And they may not want it to end
But it will, it’s just a question of when
I’ve lived long enough to have learned
The closer you get to the fire, the more you get burned
But that won’t happen to us
‘Cause it’s always been a matter of trust -lyrics from the song “A Matter Of Trust” by Billy Joel

“I’ll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equals love.” -Hal Hartley, writer/director of the film Trust

Thanks to everyone who showed up this past Vs. Tuesday Night for “Cocktails and Conversations”. Our theme was “directors.” There were so many terrific insights and opinions shared. A consistent one was “trust.”

The actor needs to trust their director. To trust that the director always has their back and won’t let them fail. That the director is doing what’s best for the play.

The actor is out there on the edge, putting it all out there, risking, revealing their emotions. Think of actors like firefighters. They’re rushing into a burning building when everyone else’s instinct is to rush out. That’s what it means to truly open yourself up and be vulnerable.

To do this, the actor needs to fully trust their director. They need to feel safe and loved and supported. As well as pushed to go to places they never thought possible. The actor needs to know that if the director gives them a compliment, it is true and meaningful. Not B.S. If the director gives criticism or feedback, that it is well thought out, constructive and is what’s best for the actor and the play.

Much like character or reputation, trust takes a long time to establish, yet can be ruined in one false move. So if you’re a director, be aware of this. Cultivate and nourish that trust with your actors, designers and collaborators. Never break it.

And if you’re an actor and have that trust with a director, cherish it with all your heart. Do everything you can to continue working that person.

P.S. – This scene. So good!

For the director…

When you make it (your direction) solely about what’s best for the play, you can’t go wrong.

When you make it about anything else like your ego, your “vision”, your career, etc…do so at your own peril.

The play’s the thing. It’s always been the thing. It’s the only thing.

P.S. – This soliloquy from the master, Ian McKellen.

P.P.S. – H/t to my close friend and phenomenal director, Ron Klier, for inspiring this post.