{"id":1932,"date":"2016-12-10T16:36:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T16:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2018-07-24T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T20:26:23","slug":"mike-speck-is-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/?p=1932","title":{"rendered":"Mike Speck is the Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike\u00a0<\/strong>is an Unrehearsed veteran of ten\u00a0years who has performed in such plays as\u00a0Antony & Cleopatra<\/em>,\u00a0All’s Well that Ends Well<\/em>,\u00a0Hamlet<\/em>, and\u00a0Merry Wives of Windsor<\/em>. You can see him as a special guest performer in\u00a0King Lear<\/em>\u00a0on Monday<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Tuesday, December 12th and 13th<\/span><\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>: What first turned you on to Shakespeare?
\nMIKE<\/strong>: We can credit Bill Kincaid for this one. I did some Shakespeare classes \u2013 both acting and literary \u2013 in undergrad, but really never got into Bardiness before working with Bill at WIU. As soon as he introduced SVO, my game brain latched on and I was hooked.<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>: How has your approach to Unrehearsed altered over the years?
\nMIKE<\/strong>:\u00a0I\u2019ve become more and more comfortable using the audience as a buddy or a sounding board. Earlier on I spent a LOT of effort on keeping the text onstage and actively tried to keep my focus off the audience\u2026but frankly, they\u2019re the ones paying to see the show, and in shared light they KNOW I can see them, so why not engage?<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>:\u00a0What, to you, is the most intriguing thing about King Lear?
\nMIKE<\/strong>:\u00a0There\u2019s so much factional interplay \u2013 your casting breakdown gave instructions for 5-6 different costume colors based on allegiances \u2013 but it all comes back to the personal. \u201cHow loyal is this person to me, and how do I know?\u201d becomes a key question for every character I can think of, especially the ones who get it wrong.<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>: How would you compare Unrehearsed to conventional theater?
\nMIKE<\/b>:\u00a0I\u2019d quibble and say that it\u2019s still conventional theatre \u2013 just with a different set of conventions. And those conventions are a huge part of the fun: playing the Unrehearsed game, following the Unrehearsed rules, and accepting the results. I don\u2019t know WHY this speech switches from \u201cthou\u201d to \u201cyou\u201d in a single sentence, but I don\u2019t have to know why; I just need to follow that coded instruction in an observable way that the audience can follow. Maybe my scene partner and I will find a purpose for it, or maybe we\u2019ll stay confused, but the audience doesn\u2019t need our comprehension, only our acting.<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>: Has Unrehearsed influence your teaching techniques at all?
\nMIKE<\/strong>:\u00a0Yes \u2013 Unrehearsed has really hammered in the importance of observing what\u2019s actually happening in the room,<\/i> focusing on students rather than on curriculum. That\u2019s been an immensely useful lesson in teaching performance (stage combat in particular; I think those two disciplines reinforce each other nicely), and anything else: all my prework says I need to be across the stage from the speaker, but she\u2019s got a crown and she just said \u201cwe,\u201d so I guess I\u2019m over by her now. OK, now what? My plan said today\u2019s class was going to start choreography, but half the class is still cutting incorrectly? Choreo gets pushed back a bit, and technique gets more time. What\u2019s next? Unrehearsed trains you to acknowledge where you ARE, not where your notes said you\u2019d be.<\/p>\n

Q<\/strong>: What’s your favorite Unrehearsed role to date?
\nMIKE<\/b>:\u00a0Malvolio is the only role I\u2019ve done twice, and it was a blast both times. Of course, there was something like 8 years between iterations, so\u2026<\/p>\n

Mike as Gremio in Taming of the Shrew (2011)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Q<\/strong>:\u00a0What else is\u00a0coming up soon?
\nMIKE<\/b>: Chicagoans should know about two stage combat opportunities in January: the Winter Wonderland Workshop and its associated Intensives (www.macenfp.org\/#events<\/a>), and Destruction in Decatur, a downstate two-week workshop that offers skills tests (http:\/\/destructionindecatur.webs.com\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

===== \"klb\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike\u00a0is an Unrehearsed veteran of ten\u00a0years who has performed in such plays as\u00a0Antony & Cleopatra,\u00a0All’s Well that Ends Well,\u00a0Hamlet, and\u00a0Merry Wives of Windsor. You can…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performers","category-productions","wpcat-5-id","wpcat-3-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2895,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions\/2895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.unrehearsedchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}