In My Mind's Eye with Chad Marriott

Introducing Chad Marriott! A Midsummer Night’s Deam is Chad’s first production with PCSC!

You must respect the Bard - that is first and foremost.

When preparing for your character he has already done most of your work for you, but why did good old Billy have to be so smart? I’m not sure, but I know when I begin working on Shakespeare I start by figuring out what my character is saying. From there I figure out what they want and decipher how they are trying to get it.

After doing my text work I get to do, what I consider, the fun part. I put my personal twist on the character. For example, during Much Ado about Nothing (directed by PCSC’s own Katherine Mayberry at the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, 2013) I spent a lot of time figuring out what Conrad was doing and what he wanted, essentially what his role was in his group. After that I decided how my character felt about that. I played around with things until I found one that fit and took that and ran.

One of the interesting things with Shakespeare is that he forces you to use external techniques. I’m an internal process guy, but Shakespeare makes me do more external exercises than I typically would do.

At Pigeon Creek I’ve found that the directors’ openness has been really helpful. Knowing that I’m not going to be told “Do that again, but different” is definitely a helpful thing. They are straightforward with you, but not rude. This adds up to an encouraging environment for creativity.

I’ve also enjoyed working with a multitude of acting exercises. I once had a professor who said that he was giving us tools and if we liked them we could keep them and if we didn’t we could throw it away. We’ve worked on things like Laban’s movement tendencies, text work, and internal things, like head, heart, gut, and groin.

This is a great trait for a company to have because not every actor has the same process and being able to get across to all of the actors is vital to a show.