← Speeches & Workshops

Creating Character Feb. 25, 2012

Morning workshops

How I Did It: Becoming the Person I Portray/Interpret! 9:05-10:15 a.m. • Why? • Research and Script • Wardrobe and Props • Unique Considerations Presenters: Charlie Starling, volunteer – New Salem State Historic Site
Jeannie Alexander, owner, Books on The Square; interpreter Introduction: Phil Funkenbusch, Director – Theater and Shows Division, ALPLM

It Doesn’t Speak! I’m Its Interpreter! 10:25-11:35 a.m. How do you help people learn more about non-speaking and inanimate objects? • Animals, Insects and Other Things That Make Sounds • Plants and Trees and All Things Environmental • Swords, Furniture, Tools and More Panelists: Jackie Peeler, Assistant Director and Curator at Henson Robinson Zoo Betsy Irwin, Education Coordinator at Lincoln Memorial Gardens James Cornelius, Curator of the Lincoln Collection at Abraham Lincoln 
Presidential Library and Museum Moderator: Robert F. Crosby II, Project Director - Looking for Lincoln Heritage 
Coalition/Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area

11:45 a.m. Lunch and Speaker:

Afternoon workshops

Hints from the World of Acting 12:50-2 p.m. • To Script or Not To Script • Performance vs. Conversation • Emotions vs Facts • In and Out of Character Presenter: Ken Bradbury Introduction:

Interacting and Responding to the Visitor/Audience 2:10-3:20 p.m. • You - The Human Element • What I’m Supposed to Say • What They Want to Hear or Don’t • Improvisation • Homework Presenters: Tim Guinan, Manager at New Salem State Historic Site
Dr. Marcia Young, Director, David Davis Mansion State Historic Site
Kim Rosendahl, Springfield Area CVB Bureau Moderator: Karen Everingham, IHPA Historic Sites Division

3:30–4:30 p.m. Collaboration and Mutual Needs Facilitators: Fritz Klein, Sangamon County Heritage Group Judy Wagenblast, Lincoln Land Community College

• To Script or Not To Script • Performance vs. Conversation • Emotions vs Facts • In and Out of Character

A funny Lincoln story that has nothing to do with Lincoln. Often speak at a church in Niantic… went to visit the site of the Lincoln’s first Illinois homestead…Just a marker and a small park on the Sangamon river…went down steps…badger. Two years later…tried it again…this time avoiding the steps… walked in the woods…two Dobberman’s came charging at me with an owner far in the distance. That’s why I enjoy New Salem. It’s so safe.

Since an interpreter is basically a playwright, . let me give you great advice…..How I learned to write plays. Sit in the audience and die. Simply watching your audience will teach you more than anything I could ever tell you.

Dad & Mom took us to all 48 contiguous states…and we hit every historical sight we could find… from Gettysburg to Sutter’s Mill, from Vicksburg to Williamsburg.

My brother and I would keep score of the worst historical interpreters. ---An outstandingly bad Mark Twain on a Hannibal paddleboat…strutting, posing, trying to be funny without the slightest trace of humanity. He relied on Mark Twain’s looks by using Bob Hope’s delivery. ---The lamest Sitting Bull in the world in Wisconsin. What was he doing in Wisconsin? ---A totally laughable Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. It’s no wonder the Mormans have been so terribly persecuted. They’re terrible actors.

Some strange historical omissions… ----recently took an all day tour of the Mormon sights at Carthage and Nauvoo…not a single mention of why Joseph Smith had been killed. ----a George Custer re-enactor who kept talking about him being “ambushed” ----a Robert E. Lee at the Vicksburg Cemetery that was simply an apologist for the South. ----A Buffalo Bill in Colorado who was more interested in selling souvenirs than telling his story. ----A “Holy Land” tour in Arkansas that almost made me give up my Christianity. An ice cream stand right next to the cross of Calvary.

Interesting…in talking about it now, some 50 years later, we can’t remember any of the good ones. We remember Jefferson at Williamsburg but we don’t remember the interpreter. We remember Carl Sandburg in Galesburg but we can’t recall anything about the interpreter.. And we came to the conclusion that the bad interpreters drew attention to themselves…their performance….the really good ones left us with just one last memory…the historical character himself.

Unforgettable moments… …..an old trail rider who led us into the Grand Canyon. …..an Indian girl who took us through the Garden of the Gods in Colorado ….a little man doing a one-man Ulysses S. Grant show in Galena ….camping in Yellowstone…a man walked out of the woods in rags, did a bit of John Muir, the naturalist, and walked back into the darkness…wow. ….When I saw Fritz Klein do his Farewell to Springfield, it wasn’t merely his WORDS that stuck with me, but the MOOD…the atmosphere he created.

I won’t pretend to get into the details of interpreting…the difference between interpretation and acting…because frankly, I don’t know the difference.

What your audience will most remember…the mood, the atmosphere, the feeling you created. The essence of the man….the essential spirit of the woman.

I’ve done nine Lincoln plays…two of them musicals… Our method…often with a co-author: Do the research, make an outline, write dialogue that in most cases we know didn’t take place, run it by the historians to check the accuracy of the scene. I’ll be honest, I was not initially in favor of the “run it by the historians” step in the process. Dr. Crowe insisted…he was right. We learned a great deal. Bob always thought we should invite them to a rehearsal. I disagreed..send them the script. Too hard on the actors to change six weeks of rehearsal material. A few interesting cases where the historians have disagreed until we showed them our research…a conversation between Newton Bateman and Lincoln about Lincoln’s faith. A note about the actors: I’ve found that experienced actors really enjoy playing an actual historical character…doing the research is a luxury they don’t usually have.

Before I get specific about acting….a few interesting notes on producing historical drama..I’m sure you have your own stories. Running into the ancestors of those we portray… Mary Spears who may have been Lincoln’s midwife. Her daughter traveled up from Florida to see the show…. “Yes! Yes! You got her right!” And then those not-so-happy…relatives of the less savory characters of New Salem.

Creating your presentation as an interpreter is so much like writing historical drama. It is NOT the same as writing an historical textbook. In a textbook, everything must be treated with the exact weight it deserves. The first twenty years of a man or woman’s life must be dealt with, even if they did nothing of importance. In writing historical drama you dare not do this. You determine the gist of the character…his importance in relation to other important people…like Lincoln… You emphasize those character traits or incidents that best point out that relationship.

But today I won’t talk about historical research because I’m not qualified …instead…a few words about acting.

I’ve found it the most rewarding to tell the story of a famous person through the eyes of one who was not the focus of the story.

---Commissioned by the Quincy historical society to write play commemorating the Lincoln Douglas debate. From whose viewpoint? Lincoln or Douglas? Quincy is a hotbed of amateur Douglas historians.….It had just rained 4 inches in Quincy…mud everywhere…Chose a young boy who made some good money pulling people out of the mud. ---Wrote a play about Lincoln’s Almanac trial in Beardstown. Told it through the eyes of the custodian. ----Distant Thunder….Thomas Reep, a writer. ----Shadow of Giants in Jacksonville…by a Chicago Tribune correspondent who covered downstate.

Let me give you a short presentation, just so we’ll have a point of reference….from my play, “The Spirit of Lincoln”

William Berry….

Everything is factual, but none of the dialogue was actual.

You can be factual without being actual.

One of the things that I so much admire about this whole “Business of Lincoln” that exists in our area…the adherence to fact. The careful attention that’s paid to detail that simply does not exist in many historic venues….The very reason for this conference today. It makes me feel very good to be a small part of it.

The one thing I most wanted to get right: The mood. The relationship of the two men. …everything else …the incidents I chose, the words themselves…tools to get at the relationship.

In the case of Berry, I felt that their friendship was as important and their partnership, then I worked backwards to pick our details that support that thesis.

As a writer you must keep asking yourself, “What one thing do I want the listener to take away from the experience.” That these men were friends. That Lincoln had wonderful friendships because of the sort of man he was.

What else does the monologue show? ----In developing a character, never preach when you can tell a story. After all, that was Lincoln’s method. That was Christ’s method. William Berry said did very little exposition…he told stories. ----Get inside the character. I tried to. When I perform, my focus is on attitude, not lines. ----Berry was not a noble character. But it was because of his flawed character that we can see the nobility of Lincoln. ----So often actors and interpreters do the proper lines of the character they’re portraying, but they use all their own mannerisms. I tried to develop mannerisms…tics….gestures…that would help explain Berry. ---Admittedly I had to do a lot of guessing as to how to portray him. But that’s what acting is….making choices.

Perhaps my favorite bit of advice for actors: “A bad actor acts. A good actor, is.”

Finally……My advice to a beginning actor… We are all actors. You are one character to your spouse, another to your children, another to your employer, your spouse, your co-workers. In each case, you’re using a different part of you. That’s acting…discovering and choosing the various parts of you. Find what part you, you can bring to the character. George Clooney is a good actor. Merle Streep is a good actor. But they plays parts of George Clooney and Merle Streep.

Streep’s interview…I act for the other actors.

It is essential that not only get to know your character, but that you get to like him or her. The example I always use…even an actor playing Hitler must find some reason to understand him…maybe he painted houses well. An audience remembers your attitude, your personality, long after they’ve forgotten your words. Stop acting things out. This isn’t a melodrama or a mime show. If a gestures doesn’t feel right for you, don’t do it. The only sin you can commit in theatre is being dull.

QUESTIONS?

I was the butt… The butt of every story and joke in New Salem.. ..Yea…that good man Lincoln…that good young man had hisself quite a future in business then he got mixed up with …William Berry..the drunk. What the hell to do they know? Tell me what they hell do they know? I was a college man…for awhile… Illinois College in Jacksonville…How many of them could say that? And hell…hell, Lincoln had worked in a tavern before me and him teamed up. It’s not like I…..the place we bought..it’d been torn up by a bunch of rowdies. Me and Abraham, we took stock, figurin’ there was about $750 worth of inventory and we bought it all for 242 bucks…and a horse…a damn good horse. You ask me, it was a good deal. Then we commenced to buy up two more stores ….. two broke boys owned three stores! You call that dumb? 12 and half cents a pint..that was the price of whiskey. But hell…we wasn’t good businessmen… Abraham, he was always off readin’ and me…well, I was inspectin’ the inventory. We had a legal license! It said right there we could sell liquor to anybody we wanted as long as they wasn’t an Indian, a Negro, or a child. But then they interfered…them…aw..them hypocrites of New Salem. You see, they was all tied up together… abolitionists…women’s rights…temperance. It was all the same damned crowd. Do-gooders. Go to temperance meetings of a night then rush home to take a swig out of their own private barrel. Baptists, mainly. Mentor Graham, the school master…he joined the temperance society and his own church trustees kicked him out. My own Pa… John Berry a Presbyterian preacher and one of the loudest temperance men in the business… He’d draw a crowd of an evening and by nine o’clock he’d have ‘em lathered up to such a pitch that they’d be slobberin’ on the floor and cryin’ out to God Almighty “You gotta repent!” “Amen, preacher!” “The rum is a demon!” “God have mercy on us!” “Resist the devil and he will flee from you!” “Oh flee, Satan! Flee! Then they’d pick themselves up, go home and have a drink just to relieve the tension …….of the temperance meeting. And I was the butt…every story…every joke… and then the buzzards…the fellas who wrote about Lincoln took over and I became a drunk. (reading) “A wild fellow…a gambler.” “A fighter.” “Berry was idle and shiftless.” Hell. You want to know the truth…I think they’d of spoke more kindly if our store hadn’t petered out. That’s the way things go, ain’t it? You can pretty much do what you want as long as you’re a success…? As long as you make money? I don't know nothin’ about presidents and politics. Hell, I was dead by the time Lincoln made hisself known. I ran in…other circles. But Lincoln….my friend Abraham… he never said a word against me in his life. Not a word in his life. And if any man had, I suppose he had reason… My daddy…my own preacher-by-God-father stood at my grave and said, “He is now in hell.” That’s why…well… you can talk all you want about presidents…I’m just talkin’ about a man.. a damned good man. Abraham Lincoln…my friend.