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Janice Orlandi & Nicol Zanzarella in “Romeo and
Juliet.” |
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JANICE ORLANDI A faculty member at the Actors Movement
Studio for over a decade, she also teaches at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Ms. Orlandi has also taught and introduced the Williamson Technique at Rutgers
University, Williamstown Theatre Festival Theatre Program, The Landenberg Center
for Culture in Nijmegen, Fonty’s Drama School in Eindhoven, Lehman College
Theatre School and the NY State Summer School for the Arts. She was the Choreographer
and Movement Consultant for Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival & Princeton
Repertory Shakespeare in the Square’s “Taming of the Shrew,” “Twelfth
Night,” and “As You Like It”; Expanded Arts Shakespeare Festival;
and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream at UArts and Mason Gross. Founder
of the Echo Repertory Company, she produced and adapted “The Lost Art of
Letters,” and “The Triangle Factory Fire Project.” Her directing
includes Chekhov’s “The Brute,” “Uncle Vanya’s
Dream,” and she has also performed Off-Broadway in “Farther West,” “Fen,” and
at The Hangar Theater, Elmwood Playhouse, The Mirror Repertory, Williamstown
Theatre Festival, CSC Conservatory, and Circle Rep Directors Lab. Actors Movement
Studio, 212-841-0806, actorsmovementstudio.com
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Janice Orlandi
How
did you first join Loyd Williamson’s classes?
It was an unusual turn
of events at the time I had just begun studying acting. I was working as product
designer in the cosmetic industry and was going through an agonizing time in
my life helping a family member that was diagnosed with AIDS. In order to cope
with my anger and heartbreak through this experience of helping a loved one survive
the pain and cruelty of this devastating disease, I was forced to visit deeper,
more vulnerable places inside myself, and that was what brought me to acting.
I entered this art form through an unexpected doorway, I was given a great gift
through this life altering experience when I discovered that I had a deep desire
to be an actress. This discovery was like being on a rocketship to a new world
and I wanted to learn as much as I could about this amazing and creative new
world. At that time a friend told me about Loyd Williamson’s work with
actors. I was very curious so I went to watch him teach a class. It was a powerful
and cathartic journey. He so inspired me, perhaps due to the emotional place
that I was in my life, I cried though the whole class, I felt I had found a piece
of my soul that was missing and I left there knowing that I had to teach his
work someday. I became absorbed in and devoted to the Williamson Technique; it
brought me closer to Loyd Williamson as a mentor and to my current work as a
teacher and director of Actors Movement Studio, teaching and preserving the legacy
of the Williamson Technique.
What so
excites you about the Williamson Technique?
What amazes me about this technique is how it transforms the actor’s
total instrument. There is a shift in the body, an awareness and physical consciousness
that occurs, this shift awakens in them permission to both receive and express
their experience. The actor expands their capacity to receive experience and
sensation. This awakens their vulnerability, allowing them to live truthfully
in the moment; it’s a place of extreme wakefulness, freedom and vulnerability.
The collective or “ensemble” interaction is also very exciting for
me as a teacher. It never ceases to amaze me or astonish me when a group of actors
are willing to create an imaginary world together. I was a Sculpture major in
college and this is living, moving and breathing sculpture. It’s an entire
aesthetic experience for me as a teacher. I feel privileged to witness the events
as they unfold. When actors are connected in this way a quantum leap occurs,
a shift into a place of human contact, experience, and behavior (gesture and
sound) that transforms their interaction into an esthetic event. Who wouldn’t
want to do this for the rest of their life?
You recently played The Nurse in a
production of “Romeo and Juliet” for
the Princeton Rep Company’s Shakespeare Festival. What was that experience
like?
I actually fought it like the ‘dickens’! I thought “I can’t
take this role. “No, I can’t do this!” I hadn’t been
on stage for the longest time.) When I began to study the text and look at this
role in depth, I realized the Nurse has a huge arc and I was terrified. I didn’t
know if I could pull it off in the two and a half weeks rehearsal time. I immediately
started a daily vocal regime. I kept plowing the text to find out more about
the specifics and wants of this character. I worked to find my personal connection
to the nurse her playful and wacky sense of humor and her deep, eternal love
for Juliet. The hardest scene for me was crafting the moments that lead up to
finding Juliet dead. It was a moment that I had to trust and give over to fully;
ultimately I had to trust Shakespeare’s words, my instinct and my heart.
Something that I learned while studying with Robert X. Modica, (a passionate
acting teacher who had a great impact on my life and process as an actress); “listen
and trust your heart,” and that was what helped me to live moments fully.
I didn’t stop working on this role until the last performance. This is
what I love about acting it never stops the discovery process never ends. At
one rehearsal, I discovered that the Nurse needed a ‘hanky,’ because
she had ‘hot-flashes,’ and I followed my instinct. It came to me
like a gift from my imagination that I accepted and went with. I kept exploring
and discovering more clues about who she was and where she lived in me and the
union between myself and the nurse continued to evolve.
Can you describe what role ‘relaxation’ plays in the work you
do.
We don’t use the word, ‘relaxation;’ it can imply an inactive
state. We use the words “release” and “contact.” We work
with the five senses and vital systems, muscular, skeletal and respiratory. We
explore though a series of progressive exercises how our body can release muscular
constrictions and skeletal holding in order to expand sensory contact, experience
and expression. An actor can be full of experience and behavior, but it may not
be clear behavior, it may be blocked or unexpressed experience. Muscular “release” allows
for much greater freedom of breath, more sensation, fuller physical and vocal
expression. It’s a matter of “letting go”, not being “relaxed” but
being “released” in order to actively receive, connect and respond
fully to experience. Unexpressed or unprocessed sensation causes tension and
physical or vocal constriction. Mr. Williamson says: ”Experiential life
and physical life, acting impulses and physical impulses are all part of this
single relationship. Sensory contact, experience, and behavior are all parts
of one event occurring in one indivisible place, the actor’s body.”
Another
fascinating aspect of The Williamson Technique is the Salon work.
This
exercise was brilliantly conceived, it calls upon the magical and inventive side
of the actor the students love this exercise and the whole experience of recreating
a historical character. The most outstanding value of a Period Style class is
that it produces actors that move and live within the style of a period with
total truthfulness, vocal freedom, physical grace and ease. Actors learn to create
an expansive character free from the limits of their everyday physical and vocal
habits. We teach three styles, Elizabethan (1586), Baroque (1670) Edwardian (1894).
The actor is immersed in the period through their historical research while learning
the physical elements of the style. This exercise takes the student deeply into
the world of the play by creating a character from the period in which a playwright
sets the play. Students experience both the inner and outer elements of a specific
period in which their characters lived. The
inner life elements of the character, are developed through the specific
crafting of their personal history, point of view, relationships and objectives
etc. and the outer life elements of the character, in their social mannerisms,
gestures, deportment, the costumes, the dances, the social etiquette, customs,
the language, and all that outwardly informs the student’s treatment of
environmental elements such as the set and props, etc. This culminates in a fully
costumed, improvisational Period “Style Salon” event, A Restoration
Ball in the court of Charles II for example. Because the students bring
to life, real people that were actually connected to one another historically,
their meeting, and the Salon itself could theoretically re-write history.
What
makes the upcoming summer intensive so invaluable for acting students?
The
Summer Institute for physical theater training was created to bring together
a diverse variety of physical techniques under one umbrella, a shot of intensive
physical training in a short period of time. Working thirty five hours a week,
it’s like a full time job in physical training for actors. This is a concentrated
month of learning designed for those who do not have the time for longer periods
of study. For those who want an overview of physical technique or a course of
independent study for University and College students who want to study outside
their own curriculum amidst the cultural life of the city. The program consist
of core curriculum in: Williamson Physical Technique and Period Style character,
Fitzmaurice Vocal Technique, Michael Chekhov Technique and a number of workshop
intensives in: Mask, Mime, Viewpoints, Laban & Character and an overview
of Period Styles. All the methods learned are also applied to the student’s
process of developing and creating an advanced period style character. Culminating
(in the last week of the program) into a period “Style Salon,” an
ensemble performance and period style character presentation. The student will
take away with them an abundance of tools and methods, for the daily care and
growth of their physical instrument. As well as a process for developing both
inner and outer elements of a unique, complex and fully realized advanced character.
Actors today need to keep renewing themselves, what with all that’s
going on in the world today. How do you do it?
At one time before I got into acting,
I was making a six figure salary in the cosmetic and design industry. You could
say I had a very easy life, but I realized I wasn’t really doing well as a person. I’ve been in ‘that’ world,
and I chose to take this path because of my passion for the theater and learning.
It keeps me awake as a human being. “The purpose of life is to live” Henry
Miller said, “and to live is to be aware, supremely aware” It’s
a matter of having my soul continually awakened. My burning desire to learn makes
this world tolerable and enjoyable, it saves me from being swallowed by the pain
humanity inflicts upon itself and others. Teaching is a supreme act of generosity
and through it I have discovered the beauty of passing on the tradition of knowledge.
It is a great gift we can give to ourselves and share with others. I think knowing
we have the capacity for endless self-discovery and growth is important for us
to remember as artists. • |
