For weeks, the emotion was intense. Powerful. Moving. Compelling. And yet for weeks, it was contained to the three walls onstage. The actors rehearsing experienced it. But tonight was different. Tonight someone else experienced the emotion. Someone else laughed. Someone else cried. Someone else was moved. Someone else was there watching – an audience.

Opening nights are magical. There’s something indescribable about them – excitement, nervousness, anticipation, the unknown. And when opening night is also the opening of a world premiere, it’s even more magical. For one special night, the unknown becomes known. The imagined becomes reality. A hidden plot is revealed.

As the writer of Estranged Identity, watching the audience’s reaction to the unveiling of my show is the best part. Hearing laughter, seeing tears, sensing anticipation or listening to applause reveals emotion transferred from actors to audience. Knowing that the emotion is being shared beyond the fourth wall is an indescribable feeling. On opening night, I witnessed this transfer of emotion. The audience laughed, cried, and applauded. Sharing the gift of emotion in my show and watching the audience embrace it was the highlight I took away from opening night.

Opening night has now come and gone. But three more performances remain of Estranged Identity. Each performance is an opening night in itself, an unveiling to new eyes and ears. A new audience comes to see and hear what they’ve never seen or heard before. Each night, someone else experiences emotion. Someone else laughs. Someone else cries. Someone else is moved. Someone else is there watching. Will it be you?

There are so many different ways to approach creativity.  Some artists begin with first-hand experiences, others may simply use the limitlessness of human imagination.  Of course, there are so many other vehicles and mechanisms that an artist can call upon to help convey the realization of (their) artistic endeavor.  For me, at least as I continue to explore the role of “Deception,” I find that truly being creative means there must exist an inextricable link to spontaneity that’s rooted in both my own personal experiences and the delicious gift of human imagination.

Of course, I am not an evil spirit.  I do not know what it’s like to be a real demon.  However, I can extract from what I would consider to be some of the obvious traits of such a malevolent character like “Deception.”  And to do this extraction means digging rather deeply into (my own) imagination.  Sometimes during rehearsals I found myself experiencing intense (emotional) discomfort with some of the thoughts I would come up with in constructing the character.  If I allow my imagination to really and truly run wild, as it were, how far should I go?  To what degree can I “stretch,” without hurting, offending or disappointing my fellow acting colleagues and/or the audience?  These are some of the questions I keep revisiting, time after time.

What helps to guide me through the seemingly infinite maze of thoughts and emotions I try on, play and experiment with, is not to over-think the process.  I’ve discovered, at least in the case of trying to build the psyche of the character “Deception,” I must rely on simply being spontaneous.  Trying to come up with the actions, thoughts and emotions of a demon isn’t a problem.  It’s knowing how far to push it when things become a bit more challenging. Well, I’ve got a wonderful impetus sitting right under my nose:  It’s my fellow actors!  I see them as human governors, constantly monitoring and controlling just how far I should go.  In other words, I can experience the thrill and excitement of sincere spontaneity without worrying about whether I’ve gone too far, because the story has already been written and there’s already context.  As long I never lose sight of these parameters, my natural inclinations would never allow me to stray too far, or color outside of the lines.

Listening to my fellow actors’ spoken lines and watching their body language puts me in a place where I can pretend their lines aren’t, in fact, rehearsed or memorized, but that these lines are falling from their mouths extemporaneously – in the same way we don’t altogether know or anticipate what someone is going to say in an everyday conversation.  We simply respond, automatically, without much aforethought.  But my task isn’t complete yet when playing the role of “Deception,” because I’ve got my own set of lines from the script to follow also.  Where it begins to get tricky is combining those (already) written words with how to be motivated to proceed from what feels natural at the moment.  And all of this must be conveyed through physical action or facial expression – which ultimately makes for on-stage moments of extremely dense psychological excursions (that often happen in the blink of an eye).  By no means is this a complaint, but I think this is one of the reasons I find myself feeling physically and emotionally spent at the end of rehearsals as of late.

At the end of the day, I must take my hat off to the (theatrical) performer.  Conveying, acting, emoting, gesticulating, kicking some actions up a notch, and pulling others down a notch, these are all examples of the art of imitating life and making situations believable (no matter how banal or phantasmagorical they may be).  THIS, for me, is a significant aspect of how I see the creative process.

I am used to working behind the scenes, organizing and rallying people together. Not this time. As a chorus member (or Townsperson) in Estranged Identity I am now on the stage and a part of every rehearsal.

Tonight the orchestra joined us for an entire musical rehearsal. Not rehearsing the entire musical, but rehearsing all of the music. When Tiffany provided us with the CD containing the musical accompaniment I thought it was amazing. The layers were beautifully woven together. She has quite a talent and gift! Then tonight, to hear the orchestra play and for us to accompany it with our voices – oh so very rich. I play a little piano, but I am in awe of those musicians who put their talents together, under an accomplished conductor, and fill the room with fantastic layers. And only part of the orchestra was present tonight! Y ou will want to come the next two weekends and walk into Mt. Hood Community College theater and bask in the lovely sounds filling the room!

After rehearsing the song I am a part of, I wandered to another room where makeup was being experimented with – those demon faces were finally taking on life. Here I was greeted by another wonder for me to behold: more artists using their craft to create personality by applying bold colors and lines to faces. Most of the faces leaving this room were not recognizable as themselves. The makeup artists had transformed them; now their characters can really come alive!

Only a few more short days and we’ll see the entire thing come together. What a gift to me to be a part of this bigger thing, this beautiful thing and the best part is the new, interesting and varied people I have met. You’ll want to meet them too – come up close after the show and just marvel at the musicians, the amazing makeup, the costumes and the real people behind the characters.

I came into Estranged Identity not knowing many of the other actors or people involved, but ready to make new friendships and enjoy the process of bringing to life a story. I play one of the seven demons and as you can imagine the seven of us spend most of our time in rehearsals together. Over the last few months we have had some great times and become friends.

This being said, we still haven’t known each other for long, so when our fight director walked in last week and started showing us how to look like we were beating each other up, it felt like a bit of a step in the wrong direction as far as making lasting friendships goes. Grabbing someone by the shoulders, spinning them around and appearing to punch them in the stomach is a little less than friendly. As the rehearsals continue, we are gaining knowledge and confidence in ourselves, but to me it still feels like I am beating up my friend.

Tonight we learned the rest of our last fight and were able to bring our first fight up to full speed. When we did this and carried it out within the process of saying the lines that go along with it, all of the sudden it seemed like everyone fell into character. No more was it Anna “hitting” me in the stomach! It was Anger exploding at all of us and throwing herself into our mist, Revenge pulling us apart and then all of us freezing with Deception’s threat against our lives. Something had changed. After going home and thinking it through, I realized it was our characters creating violence not us. That’s why it was so easy to laugh and have fun after “beating each other up.”

I have really been enjoying my time with the people here. I am not sure about everyone else, but I am feeling the energy come into this show. The energy that comes when you no longer see a person is acting out a part on stage, but you see the character as a real living and breathing person. These next few weeks promise to be very exciting as we get closer and closer to opening night. I hope to see all of your faces in the audience!

Today starts the last week before tech. week for Estranged Identity! Wow, time flies! Before I begin, I must say how much I admire Trueheart Productions. This truly is the most heartfelt production I’ve ever performed in.

I’m Daniel Goodman, a 25-year-old actor from Birmingham, Alabama, and I’m playing Caleb and the demon Revenge. As the play begins, we see young Caleb and his lover Anne meet in secret outside in the middle of the night. Even though they’ve been in love since they were kids, their love is forbidden because Anne was recently married off to an established older man. She’s written him a letter to end their relationship, and in the letter, she discloses a secret that will haunt him and his family beyond his death. We fast forward 40 years later (and 4 minutes of speedily applying aging make-up and a gray beard), and on his death-bed, Caleb’s secret letter is discovered by his oldest son. Then, after Caleb’s death, I’m going to quickly change again and wash off the aging make-up to apply evil, demented make-up to become the demon Revenge who possesses Mary Magdalene! What an amazing challenge!?

The most challenging scene for me is the scene in which I die at the feet of my son Jaden, played by the incredible Bryce Barclay. We sing a heart-wrenching duet about what it’s like to feel like an outcast. The dissonant harmonies subtly reflect the struggles we have communicating with one another. Tiffany is SO SMART! And she’s done a good job of making us smart singers too! There were some notes in there that were so hard to find, but she’s drilled them into our heads, and it’s going to sound fantastic. Praise is also due to Mr. Barclay and Mrs. Harris who are helping me to understand what it feels like to live with such an incriminating secret for 40 years. And they’re helping me imagine what a father/son relationship would be like from the opposite perspective. AND on top of all of that, they’re helping me understand what it should feel like in my body to be old and very near death. I’ve still got a lot of work to do on this scene, but it’ll get there because two weeks in the theatre world may as well be 40 years outside of it.

And when I’m not busy rehearsing my death, I get to have a riot with all of the demons–quite literally sometimes. We’re having a really good time learning the dance and fight choreography, but you’ll never know that as an audience member because we’re going to look extremely demented…because we’re demons…get it!? HAHA! But seriously, Lorianne’s choreography is chilling. Also, the movement work that we’ve done with her and Mrs. Harris for the scenes has been such fun work, but again, it’s not going to look pretty. You’re going to be utterly creeped out, and you’re going to love it! My character, Revenge, is seriously dangerous because he won’t stop until blood is spilled. Even that is mere fuel for the desire for more blood. He’s employed as the perfect weapon for Deception who wants to see Mary ruined. He’s unworldly, inhuman, even serpentine. He slithers into Mary’s thoughts so that he can drive her to do the unthinkable.

And tonight we run through the whole show, so I’ve got lots of work to do between now and then! I hope to see you from the stage!