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Did you watch the All Star Game last weekend?
If you did, you probably saw JE'ers Matt Jones and Nican Robinson guarding the NBA All Star in the latest Sprint commercial.
Congrats guys!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
News on Stephen Stanton!
In the next week Stephen will probably break the million visitor mark to his website since he launched his site in 2002.
You will also hear Stephen's voice on Clone Wars as the voice of "Tarkin". Here's what James Arnold Taylor had to say about the completion of the episode:
"Well now that the episode is outta the bag, I must tell you all to check out the amazing Stephen Stanton who is the voice of Tarkin! Stephen has been on the show as many other characters, but I'm sure most of his attention will be from Tarkin. Please check out his website and his many spot on voices! www.stephenstanton.com
Be sure to check out his website and keep in touch by "liking" him on Facebook!
Check out this clip of "Tarkin" http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/02/17/star-wars-clone-wars-grand-moff-tarkin-exclusive-video/
Congrats Stephen!
You will also hear Stephen's voice on Clone Wars as the voice of "Tarkin". Here's what James Arnold Taylor had to say about the completion of the episode:
"Well now that the episode is outta the bag, I must tell you all to check out the amazing Stephen Stanton who is the voice of Tarkin! Stephen has been on the show as many other characters, but I'm sure most of his attention will be from Tarkin. Please check out his website and his many spot on voices! www.stephenstanton.com
Be sure to check out his website and keep in touch by "liking" him on Facebook!
Check out this clip of "Tarkin" http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/02/17/star-wars-clone-wars-grand-moff-tarkin-exclusive-video/
Congrats Stephen!
Monday, February 14, 2011
"What We're Up Against" Review in SF Chronicle
What We're Up Against: Comedy. By Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Loretta Greco. Through March 6. Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, S.F. One hour, 50 minutes. $20-$60. (415) 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org.
Forget the glass ceiling. The walls and even the drafting tables are made of glass at the misogynistic architectural firm in Theresa Rebeck's "What We're Up Against." But the doorless offices of Skip Mercier's slick set symbolize an old boy's ethic that runs deeper than sexism. At this office, the most important product is jockeying for position.
That can be a potent theatrical gambit, particularly as expressed in the clipped, obscenity-laden and comically semi-articulate forays in Rebeck's more Mamet-ian dialogue. It's also something of a limitation in the entertaining, at times provocative but unfulfilling Magic Theatre world premiere that opened Wednesday.
Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, given the high level of anticipation generated by a new play by Rebeck, whose "Mauritius" electrified Magic audiences two years ago. "What" is a full-length play based on an eight-minute scene she wrote many years ago. Despite some terrific dialogue, well-honed performances and the expertly orchestrated stagings of Artistic Director Loretta Greco, it still seems limited by its origins.
That one-act, now the opening scene, bristles with promise. It's a crisp, pregnant gripe-fest between Warren David Keith's slightly sodden, outraged Stu, the firm's manager, and Rod Gnapp's focused Ben, who's heading up their biggest commission, a lucrative shopping mall expansion.
Stu is livid about the "perfidy" of the new woman, Eliza, who deceived him into praising one of her designs by passing it off as a male colleague's work. Ben, who has no use for women in the office, is too keen an opportunist not to realize that Eliza may have solved the problem that's holding up the whole project.
Rebeck expands those first ideas enticingly in her first act. Her Eliza is as obnoxious as she is sympathetic, depicted by Sarah Nealis as a seething bundle of furious frustration and extreme youthful arrogance. We already know that her rants about sexism are justified. Her colleagues quickly establish that her faith in her superiority is no less accurate.
Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker), the one other woman at the firm, is a go-along-to-get-along placeholder of no discernable merit. Weber (an insidiously eager James Wagner), the "golden boy" new hire who gets favorable treatment, is defined in bright monologues of art-speak babble as smoke screens for his lack of ideas.
Everyone but Eliza is obsessed with office politics and getting credit. Only Ben, who emerges as Eliza's equally prickly complement, seems as concerned with the actual work - or even to understand what's involved. When his explosive temper finally erupts, Gnapp's brilliantly modulated performance turns the blistering rant into a showstopper.
Where "What" is most enticing is not so much in its depiction of sexism - which is a given - as in Rebeck's sharp portraits of the ways people key off a word to manipulate or betray their workmates. Much of this dialogue shares the keen ear of classic David Mamet (even to the use of his con man's "tell"), but Rebeck doesn't succeed as well in making her workplace emblematic of larger social forces.
She seems to want to depict a corporate culture that stifles all creativity. But as well as "What" riffs off that first scene, it doesn't add much to it.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/10/DD9F1HK1NS.DTL#ixzz1DydMm3Ue
Forget the glass ceiling. The walls and even the drafting tables are made of glass at the misogynistic architectural firm in Theresa Rebeck's "What We're Up Against." But the doorless offices of Skip Mercier's slick set symbolize an old boy's ethic that runs deeper than sexism. At this office, the most important product is jockeying for position.
That can be a potent theatrical gambit, particularly as expressed in the clipped, obscenity-laden and comically semi-articulate forays in Rebeck's more Mamet-ian dialogue. It's also something of a limitation in the entertaining, at times provocative but unfulfilling Magic Theatre world premiere that opened Wednesday.
Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, given the high level of anticipation generated by a new play by Rebeck, whose "Mauritius" electrified Magic audiences two years ago. "What" is a full-length play based on an eight-minute scene she wrote many years ago. Despite some terrific dialogue, well-honed performances and the expertly orchestrated stagings of Artistic Director Loretta Greco, it still seems limited by its origins.
That one-act, now the opening scene, bristles with promise. It's a crisp, pregnant gripe-fest between Warren David Keith's slightly sodden, outraged Stu, the firm's manager, and Rod Gnapp's focused Ben, who's heading up their biggest commission, a lucrative shopping mall expansion.
Stu is livid about the "perfidy" of the new woman, Eliza, who deceived him into praising one of her designs by passing it off as a male colleague's work. Ben, who has no use for women in the office, is too keen an opportunist not to realize that Eliza may have solved the problem that's holding up the whole project.
Rebeck expands those first ideas enticingly in her first act. Her Eliza is as obnoxious as she is sympathetic, depicted by Sarah Nealis as a seething bundle of furious frustration and extreme youthful arrogance. We already know that her rants about sexism are justified. Her colleagues quickly establish that her faith in her superiority is no less accurate.
Janice (Pamela Gaye Walker), the one other woman at the firm, is a go-along-to-get-along placeholder of no discernable merit. Weber (an insidiously eager James Wagner), the "golden boy" new hire who gets favorable treatment, is defined in bright monologues of art-speak babble as smoke screens for his lack of ideas.
Everyone but Eliza is obsessed with office politics and getting credit. Only Ben, who emerges as Eliza's equally prickly complement, seems as concerned with the actual work - or even to understand what's involved. When his explosive temper finally erupts, Gnapp's brilliantly modulated performance turns the blistering rant into a showstopper.
Where "What" is most enticing is not so much in its depiction of sexism - which is a given - as in Rebeck's sharp portraits of the ways people key off a word to manipulate or betray their workmates. Much of this dialogue shares the keen ear of classic David Mamet (even to the use of his con man's "tell"), but Rebeck doesn't succeed as well in making her workplace emblematic of larger social forces.
She seems to want to depict a corporate culture that stifles all creativity. But as well as "What" riffs off that first scene, it doesn't add much to it.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/10/DD9F1HK1NS.DTL#ixzz1DydMm3Ue
Monday, February 7, 2011
Wonderful Write Up on Craig Marker and His Career in Bay Area Theatre
On the soccer field at Dublin High School, Craig Marker experienced a defining moment. A teammate casually mentioned auditioning for "Antigone" (which he mispronounced), and Marker suddenly knew he should audition too.
His only previous experience in the theater was as part of the backstage crew, but when he was cast as a chorus member in the Greek tragedy, he had what he calls "one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had."
Now 30, Marker is a success story in the world of Bay Area theater. Fresh from the acting program at California State University Hayward (now Cal State East Bay), he nabbed his first professional gig at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company and has worked steadily since. He's covered all points on the local compass, from Berkeley Repertory Theatre to American Conservatory Theater to San Jose Repertory Theatre.
The boyishly handsome Marker spent much of last year at Marin Theatre Company. In the spring, he appeared in "Equivocation" and in the fall in "9 Circles," both written by Bill Cain.
During the audition for "Equivocation," Cain remembers Marker doing a monologue from "Twelfth Night" and asking the actor to take it again, only this time to make it about "outrageous, over-the-top ecstasy."
"He started with ecstasy and soared up from there," Cain says. "And as he got to the end, still building, he jumped off the stage, ran shouting through the auditorium and ran out of the theater. In ecstasy."
The audition for "9 Circles" was quite different. Marker was asked to do a cold reading for the part of a troubled 18-year-old soldier just back from Iraq.
"He played hard and fast," Cain says. "He hammered his way through the twists and turns of the 20-minute scene. By the time he got to the key moment, Craig was sitting on the floor of the theater, sobbing out the truth behind the toughness. Agony and ecstasy. What more could you want from an actor?"
Marker is back at Marin Theatre Company in Chekhov's "The Seagull." He's playing Trigorin, a famous writer wrestling with success, and the actor remembers clearly the first time he felt successful. He and his wife, Jeanette, were in their first apartment and had just spent what was for them an extraordinary amount of money for a couch.
"You know what? This couch is mine," Marker recalls declaring proudly. "I'm making enough money to be here right now. If I can follow my passion and pay my bills on time, that's success to me."
Marker cites two inspirations while in college: Professors Ric Prindle and the late Edgardo de la Cruz.
Prindle isn't at all surprised that Marker has made such a mark on local stages. "He's an exceptional person not only in terms of acting but also in terms of personality," the retired professor says. "He's got a great reputation as someone wonderful to work with, and it doesn't hurt that he's strikingly handsome."
After "The Seagull," Marker's dance card is full. Next up is "Wirehead" at SF Playhouse, followed by "Love in American Times," the new Philip Kan Gotanda play, at San Jose Repertory Theatre. This summer he'll be back with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival touring parks in "Cymbeline."
When young actors make a splash in the Bay Area, they tend to shove off for New York or Los Angeles in a hurry. Marker, his wife, and Ava, their 3-year-old daughter, are happy to stay in Hayward.
"People tell me I should go to New York or L.A.," Marker says. "But I also had people tell me I shouldn't get married. I don't like listening to people who don't listen to me. I'm my dad's son. I'm Norwegian stubborn. I always wanted to have a family, so I've made the choice to stay here. The fear for me, to be honest, is that if we uproot and move, I'd be starting over. I'm successful here. I'd rather crawl up in my cubby hole and be comfy here."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/02/DDUA1HFAIG.DTL#ixzz1DJj0HW3O
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