Artist Spotlight: Christopher Patrick Mullen, Tyler Elliott, and Sarah Stryker

Tyler Elliott, Sarah Stryker, Christopher Patrick Mullen, and me!

In my time growing up in theatre, being a part of theatre, and even running this blog, I have met and gotten to know many people.  From teachers to mentors to people I just get to know through work and hanging around theatres, I’ve met some pretty damn cool people.  And I have to say…I absolutely love theatre people.  I’m definitely one of those people too, and I think we all have a shared understanding of the world around us.  It’s one of the reasons why I love talking to theatre people.  Actors, crew members, designers…they all have so much to share.  And things they choose to do.

Theatre people do things like repertory theatre.  I’m pretty sure they’re the only people in this world crazy enough to undertake this sort of thing.  Lucky for me, I have my ins with some of those crazy theatre people involved in the shows I talked about at Quintessence.  Christopher Patrick Mullen, Tyler Elliott, and Sarah Stryker are all wonderful people that I know and undertook the performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Antony and Cleopatra.  And I got to ask them some questions!

I’ve interviewed all three of these lovely people before, and am so happy to have the three of them back on my blog.  I love talking to them, and they all have so much to say and so many different experiences and perspectives.  It’s really cool to see how what they have to say differs, but also how many common threads there are.  It really goes to show the scope of all this.  Thank goodness these three have a lot to say!

What was the audition process like for these repertory shows?

Christopher Patrick Mullen: My "audition process" went thusly: I emailed Alexander Burns (director) months in advance to let him know of my interest in the Shakespeare Rep. I did not hear from him for some time (no surprise - as he is a very busy person). I had indicated in the message that I was particularly interested in a few bucket list roles, namely Oberon and Bottom. As the first weeks of rehearsal drew near, he got back to me to see if I was available still; by some miracle I was indeed still available! And he promptly offered me the roles of Theseus and Titania (And Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra)! And just like that - I was to play the Fairy Queen! And there was much rejoicing! Yay!

Tyler Elliott: I actually met Eleni Delopoulos (the Casting Associate at Quintessence) doing a staged reading of a show with Theater Exile. She reached out to me in November to inquire about Giovanni's Room, a staged adaptation of the James Baldwin novel of the same name. It was in this correspondence that Eleni mentioned that Quintessence was doing a repertory production of the Midsummer Night’s Dream and Antony & Cleopatra and I was quick to express my excitement. The audition process was actually pretty standard; On a snowy day in the winter I climbed the stairs of the Quintessence offices to a narrow hallway (a hallway that contained both Ivana (Hermia) and Gabriel (Demetrius), funnily enough). I actually only read for Lysander under the impression that I would be covering a track in Antony & Cleopatra. I remember Alex Burns being so kind in the audition room and clearly well-versed in the work (no pun intended); He mentioned that he had gotten a chance to see my work in Torch Song (1812) and I made some stupid joke about wearing a lot more clothes that day (if you saw Torch Song you know what that means). I remember walking out of that room beating myself up about a stupid joke but marveling at the beauty of the space and the surrounding area, now blanketed in snow. How lucky to now have known, looking back, that I would spend many more beautiful days in that space.

Sarah Stryker: I think my process was unusual: I couldn’t make it to the in-person auditions, so I let the trail go cold. Then in December I was in QTG’s children’s production of The Owl and The Pussycat and I think my zeal for pretending to be a Turkey caught Alex’s eye. Our mutual friend, Lee Cortopassi (who played Puck/Caesar) suggested I reach out about my interest in the Rep, but I was having major impostor syndrome so it wasn’t until QTG casting asked for a submission that I actually sent my video in. The takeaway? Believe in yourself, submit your videos, be a Turkey.

Any thoughts on why Midsummer Night’s Dream and Antony and Cleopatra were paired for this?

CPM: I would never have imagined the pairing of Midsummer and Antony & Cleopatra, but then again I was not very familiar with the latter until this QTG production. The two plays (as Alex was keenly aware) line up remarkably well. There are so many common ideas or motifs that correspond: Crazy Love, blind love, loving the wrong person (or Ass), irresponsible love, love as a drug, love's ethereal (arbitrary) nature, and (again common to both) choosing death rather than life without a love. There's even mention of a serpent eating Hermia's heart away (in a dream); this happens in earnest at the end of the tragedy! How do you like that?

TE: I must sheepishly admit that I hadn’t read Antony & Cleopatra before embarking on this project. I had initially filed it into the category of “lover” plays with titular characters (ala Romeo & Juliet), but was surprised to find it much more nuanced and complex. Ultimately I love the combination. They both are stories of epic love and lovers who are often blinded by the silly things that love makes us do or see. In Midsummer that mortal-failing is manifested in real magic, in potions and fairies, in the arguments of ethereal beings affecting the mortal world. In Antony & Cleopatra that failing is manifested in real loss, in hubris and death, and in the ways we can get so caught up in love that we lose ourselves. I think they both speak to the true title of the repertory, the “reckless”ness of it all, just approaching it from two different angles.

SS: I love this question so much! I think everyone will have their own answers, but here’s a bunch of my thoughts: both pieces feature love that thrives in risk, that stares down danger, that proceeds toward its object heedless of social norms, gender conventions, family duty, laws of state, or dangers of war. Each play explores Love so Resolute that no earthly force can stop it. Only Oberon’s magic flower can divert Lysander and Demetrius’ love from beauteous Hermia. Only death can separate Antony from Cleopatra. Both plays explore the violence born out of obsessive love, the pain of passion too intense for temperance, desire that bolts toward its object without regard for what it tramples and without turning back to see the size of its wake.

Devotion beyond reason drives the characters in each play; any sense of life beyond this singular love is utterly lost. And to these characters, such love is a cursed miracle, a blessed punishment, a tender burden bequeathed by heavenly spheres, as inescapable as our final breath and as necessary as all the breaths before it.

This magical, maniacal love is a sweet reprieve from the far more complex agonies of real love and real heartbreak. To bound fearlessly toward desire is so tempting when there are dishes to be done. But love is work. And heartbreak is work too; work to understand ourselves and take accountability for our actions. If we can fix ourselves, perhaps we can fix our loves. But these paragons of theatrical love have no such impulse for self-reflection. For their agony, they blame Cupid and the stars. And for their relief, the only solution is to continue to love. Their customary crosses must be born until the bitterest ever after. After all, their love lives on the stage, that freest space where dreams are manifest. And we can live, however briefly, in the magic of that world and imagine ourselves as bold and true as we might be, were we too guided by the stars.

One Shakespeare play is hard enough to work!  How did you completely master two?

CPM: Well, it ain't easy. I've been performing Shakespeare for 42 years, and this QTG rep was CPM's very first rep (of two Shakespeare plays)! I think most of our company of actors had one thing in common: generally we were all vastly more familiar with Midsummer than with A&C. But even having a head start on one of the two doesn't give you as much of an easy ride as might be anticipated. In short, QTG gave us ample rehearsal weeks to simultaneously craft the two shows and get them to tech and up to speed. Part of that block of time was PREVIEWS (an absolute God-send for a rep such as this).

TE: This is the first time I’ve ever done Shakespeare (or any play(s) for that matter) in repertory. It was a daunting task at first, but I think with the right leadership and cast, it serves as a wonderful exercise for an actor. Keeping both plays in your brain, active and alive, takes immense concentration. At the end of the day, I think the most digestible way of conceiving the “mastery” (although I hesitate to use that word, there’s always more work to be done) of the two is to treat the piece as an entire whole. That the two shows serve one another. Easier to conceptualize a play with seven acts, than two separate plays with five and two.

SS: One word: Help. We had so much help. An unbelievable team supporting us through the rehearsal process: Alex Burns our dauntless director, Kevin Bergen our virtuosic text coach, Sean Bradley our tremendous fight choreographer, Todd Underwood and Bess Rowen our brilliant intimacy choreographers, Melanie Julian our deliciously witty accent coach, David Cope who wrote the gorgeous melodies in Midsummer, Janet Pilla Marini our lovely and gifted choreographer, Angie Foster our stunning clown teacher, and many more whose names I failed to write down, but who helped us in so many ways. Then, outside of the rehearsal room we had our incredible lighting designer John Burkland, our dazzling costume designers Sydney Dufka and Summer Lee Jack, our superhuman Technical Director Santino Lo, not to mention the indefatigable trio of Liz Nugent, Karly Amato, and Conlee Northcutt backstage keeping the million-and-a-half props and costumes together, and to cap it all, our unmatchable Stage Manager Wilhelm Peters who ran, in his own words, “a pretty tight shipwreck!” The action onstage is truly the tip of the iceberg. If we look good, it’s because every one of these people did their jobs with such skill and grace.

How did you separate between shows?  What was your process for going between two very different shows?

CPM: Great question! Here's the magic: The task of separating the two stories gradually becomes the opposite (i.e. the two works begin to inform each other in quite unexpected and fruitful ways)! For instance, my Enobarbus (A&C) often speaks directly to the audience; this is ubiquitous throughout Shakespeare, but in certain instances the convention is laid out conspicuously in the text, and that is very much the case with Enobarbus. So... for me, that boldness of direct address in A&C began to infect my Theseus (Midsummer); that permission to address everyone - was an epiphany for me (as the Duke). It never would have happened to the extent that it did without the Enobarbus connection. And (importantly) I think it was to good effect!

TE: Separating between the two shows is actually easier than it might appear. I think each cast member probably has their own tricks within strategy, but the stories themselves are so vastly different that it’s honestly harder to mix them up than to keep them apart. For me, I found it was most helpful to hyperfixate on character first and build outward. I spent most of the first week just creating clearly distinguishable characters, in gait, in voice, in body-language, intention. Visual or audible things I could easily jump to if somebody were to just shout, “Okay show me Lysander. Now show me Pompey. Now Messenger.” Once I had clear, defined outlines or who these people were in space, it was easier to go back into the stories themselves and look for objectives and relationships.

As far as any process going between the two shows, I think it’s more of a meditative practice.

Getting a walk outside. Taking a nap. Grabbing a coffee or reading a book. Having a routine that signifies a “reset” is immensely helpful. Additionally, a rep creates a reset within the shows themselves. Doing a morning of Midsummer and an evening of Antony & Cleopatra completely resets the brain for the next production of Midsummer, so it naturally feels fresh and alive. It’s something actors are always striving for, the words being new (or at least sounding new) and the rep gives that to you by sticking a different story in between.

SS: I think once I really knew the shows, sense memory took hold: as long as I was in the right costume and standing in the right location, everything else fell into place. However while learning the shows I had some little cheats:

“Harry’s Sweaty Father Hates Feeling Hot Showers.

His Soap However Makes Him Flowers.” 

That is the unhinged mnemonic I used for all the character changes I had in Midsummer. It breaks down to this:

ACT 1: Helena—>Starveling—>Fairy—>Helena—>Fairy—>Helena—>Starveling

ACT 2: Helena—>Starveling—>Helena—>Moonshine—>Helena—>Fairy

For Antony and Cleopatra I kept a cheat sheet of all the scenes tucked into my soldier shorts until about half way through the run, just to make sure I showed up at the right entrance wearing the right shirt and carrying the right weapon!

Once we were open, it was a blessed relief to switch between shows. Midsummer goes by so fast I barely have time to breathe. It was sweet relief to get to Egypt, deliver some messages, fight some battles, and watch my amazing friends perform!

Did anything in either show come especially natural to you?  On the flip side, was anything especially difficult?

CPM: Here's what was easy insofar as it was Fun: In casting me as Titania, I think it's safe to say that Alex did not mind a somewhat prominent element of CAMP in the character building of the FAIRY QUEEN. This was something you could say I took to like "mother's milk. :-D The most difficult character for me was Enobarbus (A&C); and he was ultimately the most rewarding for me in the rep. He is a constant, chorus-like presence. He needs to be appropriately entertaining, relatable, funny, somewhat natural, and ultimately tragic. To sew all that together in a real and theatrical way was a challenge indeed!

TE: Shakespeare lovers come quite “naturally” to me at this point in my career. I have had the joyous opportunity to play so many of them (Romeo, Lysander, Florizel, Benedick, Valentine, Ferdinand). In many ways, however, that also becomes one of the most challenging things to play. I think it’s easy to slip into the “obvious answers,” the caricatures of who an audience knows a lover to be; the commedia dell'arte version. I consciously try to remind myself that while this archetype can be a good jumping off point, these characters have to be complex people in order to command the story. They also are often so different from another, despite often finding themselves in similar situations. That’s the challenge, to find the essence of the lover, but it builds within that essence a complicated human being full of life.

This of course can even extend to Eros in Antony & Cleopatra, a character I struggled with for a long time. It wasn’t until I could understand Eros as a lover of Antony that I could begin to understand Eros the character.

Both plays as a whole present their own challenges. Midsummer for the physicality, Antony &

Cleopatra for its many scenes and characters to play, but I think I found that the greatest

challenge in both was the lovers themselves.

SS: I loved speaking Helena’s text. Her brain and heart are enormous. Her capacity for fearless love and defeatist overthinking is so relatable. Her vulnerable determination was a joyful rollercoaster to ride. At the same time, this conflict between head and heart makes Helena so challenging. Teenage Sarah shrank at Helena’s obsessive boldness. Adult Sarah judged the choice to ruin Hermia’s chance at happiness. I wanted to make her sympathetic, likable, cool. I wanted to make the audience agree with her decisions. Thank god Alex stepped in! He helped me find Helena the Disruptor, Helena the Instigator, Helena the Malvolio/Iago/Don Jon. If she can’t be happy, then no one will be happy! In the end, it was so fun and freeing to be the unapologetic baddie!

What’s up next?

CPM: I have zero shows lined up right now. I Hope to be directing something at Hedgerow in the near future (TBD), and in the meantime I'm back in NYC auditioning and... continuing to write a play that's been gestating for some time, and now suddenly it's working its way onto the page! More on that anon!

TE: Square Go by Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair produced by Inis Nua in partnership with Tiny Dynamite.

A Philadelphia Premiere of a sold-out 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Show that tells the story of two Scottish boys hiding out in a school bathroom as they await the mano-a-mano of the century in the form of a "square-go" with the school bully.

SS: Up next you can catch me in a reading of ‘The Honey Trap’ with Inis Nua on May 19th!

I will also be working as a Substitute at Wilma for ‘A Summer Day,’ collaborating with Impulse Control Freaks on a Fringe show, and performing with Comedy Sportz on the odd Saturday night!

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The Philly theatre scene is really rich with talent and hidden gems.  Christopher Patrick Mullen, Tyler Elliott, and Sarah Stryker brought Quintessence so far forward with their performances and general attitude towards what theatre should be.  It’s such a treat knowing these people and getting to talk to them about repertory theatre and their work in general.  Whether it’s being an established actor or being young and up and coming, this is definitely an experience that stays with you.