I got the chance to sit down with Andrew Hobgood this week. He was coming from a meeting with a producer of The New Colony remount of FRAT. After the meeting proper, and he and I talking about manufacturing, education, and mathematics, he was off again to a TNC development meeting.

Andy has always struck me as one of the most entrepreneurial people I know, and is hands-down the most entrepreneurial theater artist I’ve ever met. He constantly has a busy schedule (he mentioned TNC has about 8 different shows in development right now) but he always makes time for me and for new people in his circle, and what’s more, is always fully present in conversation. If I ran a company developing 8 shows at once (which is only the tip of the Colony iceberg), I think I’d be headed for a mental institution.

I expected that Andy would have some unusual ways of looking at the auditioning process. He certainly does, but what really fascinated me is just how much he’s brought his auditioning process in line with the work he does at The New Colony, and uses it to find actors ideally suited to how they do theater.

In talking to him about how we might do things on December 5, Andy boiled it down to one word: trust. He has to be able to trust the actors he works with, and needs the actors to trust each other. The New Colony works with the playwright in the room, actively making and filtering changes. Andy will often tell an actor to run a scene again, but — without any preparation or input from the writer — change a line. On the fly. Live. The actors he works with need to not only be able to think on their feet, but rely on themselves as an expert in what the character is doing. Instead of just waiting for a cue line, “they have to enjoy what the other actor is giving them,” he told me.

This means he needs his actors to be very entrepreneurial, themselves. “Do the actors tell themselves what do to,” he asked, instead of waiting for a clue about each little thing from Andy?

Talking with Andy and working through what December 5 will look like, it strikes me that this Launch Pad Casting Workshop will really benefit actors who have the ability, have the talent, and have the drive, but need to settle in to their own professional skin and learn to trust themselves and the choices they make as artists. This one’s going to be a little bit scary, and a little bit unnerving for the classically trained actor who needs to find their motivation, find their center, discover the line, then rehearse its perfect execution. Andy and the way The New Colony do theater demands that the actor be immersed and invested in the creation of the whole piece… always.

It’s going to be a wonderful LPCW. You should join us!

-Lance

Tags: Andrew Hobgood

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2011 and is filed under Director Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.