Scott Parkinson, Shakespeare Genius

I'm working on audition material.  For, like, the first time in a million years.  Which is scary as hell.  Which is part of why I'm doing it.  And I'm starting with a Shakespeare piece.  Because I'm crazy. (okay, not because I'm crazy but because after teaching Shakespeare as literature for the past couple of years, I'm dying to wrap my brain and body around it, and because every time I spend time with his text, in any capacity, I learn things that I can apply to my own writing).

Anyway.

It turns out Scott Parkinson, who was one of my favorite Chicago actors one of the best freakin' actors I've ever had the privilege to witness, lives in New York.  And does a little monologue coaching, when he's not running all over the United States acting for prominent directors from both sides of the Atlantic.  And his rates are totally, totally reasonable.

So I figured, well, if I'm serious about working on this piece, and if I want help, I'd be insane not to go to him.  So I went to his apartment today and spoke Shakespeare out loud for the first time in, like, forever (if you don't count reading to my class, which for the purposes of this discussion I won't, although the argument could be made that every class I teach is a "performance"...anyway.  clearly this is tangent day).

Jesus Christ.  Even just watching him say a couple of lines here and there to illustrate a point, I was reminded of how powerful a performer he is.  And talking to him ABOUT the text, working through my monologue, I was reminded just how smart he is.  I want to crawl inside his brain and live there.

Point Being:  if you are an actor and you are working on Shakespeare and you live anywhere near New York, I kinda think you'd be crazy not to make your way to Scott Parkinson for a session or two or ten. Email me if you want his contact information.  I'm not gonna include the list of notes from our session because, well, he says it better than me and it's his livelihood.  Sorry.