Doug Paulson

GOLDEN BOY
by Clifford Odets
Directed by Mary Robinson
A PHTS 4th Year Company Production

December 10th at 8pm
December 11th at 2pm & 8pm
December 12th at 2pm
December 16th at 8pm
December 17th at 8pm
December 18th at 2pm & 8pm

Tickets $5 Students/Seniors, $10 Adults

The Robert Moss Theater
440 Lafayette Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10003

The Box Office to pick-up and pay for tickets is located next to the Robert Moss Theater on the 3rd Floor.

Come check out breedingground productions Spring Fever Festival and my current performance project:

Brass Ring
directed by Tomi Tsunoda
developed & performed by
The Apophenia
Wed/Thurs/Sat @ 8:30pm
Sundays @ 4pm
$15

The Apophenia is a new Soundpainting* performance ensemble that combines live music, choreography, text, video, and structured improvisation to create both narrative and non-narrative performance compositions. Members include Elsa Carette, Derya Derman, Julie Katz, Jes Levine*, Mark Lindberg, Morgan Murphey, Doug Paulson*, Tomi Tsunoda, and Fred Urfer. *appears courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association

Brass Ring is a collection of fragments from the last 30 years of our cultural conscience, composed into kaleidoscopic stories using both rehearsed material and live composition. Pulling from sources such as news stories, interviews, viral videos, public service announcements, children’s television programming, social experiments, and office handbooks, Brass Ring examines how goals are created, how those goals evolve as we grow older, and the consequences of achieving them.

*Soundpainting is the multi-disciplinary sign language used for live composition, created by New York composer Walter Thompson.  To date, Soundpainting comprises more than 800 gestures and is being used by hundreds of professional artists worldwide for the live composition of music, theater, dance, and visual art.

After how ever long its been of my insisting that I was done with social networking sites and would never EVER join another, I have fallen to the pressure of Facebook.  I will immediately post a message on my Myspace page to notify my friends there that I will be cancelling that account.  I cannot have more than one at a time.  Too many obligations that way.  Must consolidate.  And so, Myspace goes the way of Friendster, and Facebook has won.

Damn you Facebook.  Damn you to hell.

If you want to find me online, now you know where to look.  Most likely I’ve already asked you to be my friend, but in case I don’t know that you read this blog and I’ve overlooked you (entirely possible), and you want to say hello, please do.

In other news….ah crap, I joined Facebook.

I’m sitting in the Boise Airport waiting to board my flight to Sacramento. I left McCall around 1pm and drove down to Boise with my friend Matt, who was also an actor in the conference this year. We had a breif lunch at the Bistro before hitting the road, where I said my goodbyes to the staff who has fed me and gotten me drunk these past 14 days, and to whom I have grown very close.

It wasn’t, though, nearly as tearful (read: blubbering) as my goodbyes at the theater this morning after our final company meeting and load-out. I was just tired enough (and, yes, hung over from our company party the night before) to have absolutely no emotional walls up. I held it all together pretty well as people trickled out, one by one. However, when my time finally came to leave the theater and everyone who was still in town, the tears started to flow. I can be quite the cry baby.

Yesterday was a blast, and the perfect way to spend my final day off. I woke up late, threw some laundry into the washing machine, cleaned up the kitchen, sat on the deck in the sun and had food. At 2pm I attended the second to last conference reading and then headed over to the Bistro for a beer. I waited for Derek, one of the staff members there who I’ve become friends with, to end his shift so we could head out to the local golf course where we hit a few buckets of balls at the driving range. I don’t think I’d picked up a golf club in about 15 years. Surprisingly it went well. The balls went far away, and high up, and sometimes in a straight line. Go me.

After that he and I headed back to the theater for the final reading, and then back, yet again, to the Bistro for the closing party, where I proceeded to get really drunk and kiss people. I also managed to belt out a few standards at the piano. There are pictures. I’m not sure I want to post them. You understand.

I’m looking forward to my week in CA with the fam, but I’m really so sad to see this wonderful experience come to an end. In the past two weeks I worked on 4 new plays in staged readings, rehearsing two a week, most usually from 10am to 10pm. I made a slew of new friends and a ton of great contacts. It’s a bit weird sitting at the airport alone. This is the first moment of solitude I’ve had in the past 14 days. It’s funny, because I usually crave it. In this moment though, I miss them all. I miss the chaos and companionship. I miss the theater and the Bistro. I miss new pages and the conference bell.

In 20 minutes I’m going to miss Idaho too.

It’s about 40 minutes before my last call time of the conference. It’s been a great two weeks. I feel like I’ve fit six years into them. New friends, great plays, WAAAAY too much drinking, even a night of karaoke. That’s right, karaoke. Last night a group of about 20 of us ended up at one of the new bars in town and let it rip. I sang Total Eclipse of the Heart with my buddy Evan, and Stop in the Name of Love with one of our student playwrights, Mike. The picture below is of me and Mike. Amy was graciously our back-up singer/third supremem though she passed on the opportunity to use a microphone.

The other pictures are of the rest of the group, and though I know you may not know the folks involved, perhaps you can enjoy them anyway and get some sense of how many blow job shots I did off the bar with my hands behind my back. Yeah, I said it.

Who would’ve thought that a bunch of theater people would enjoy getting plastered and performing for each other?  Indeed.

Last night was the annual 7 Devils scotch tasting.  Mmmmm-mmmm!  Not like I haven’t tasted my fair share of scotches before, but the evening is organized by one of our company members who happens to be a representative for the Laphroaig distillery.  He also happens to be Scottish.  Lucky us.  The evening consists of a power point presentation that teaches us the process of scotch making and introduces us to the different regions in Scotland where the distilleries are.  We learn how the different methods effect the taste of different scotches and then we blind taste 6 different types and have to match them up with the correct brand.  Last year I nailed 4 out of 6 and won a bottle.  This year I just got drunk, guessed and came up with nothing.  Still, it’s a blast.  If you’re curious, the title of this post is the title of a drinking song we learned last night that we’d sing before the toast before each tasting.

Amazingly enough I was still able to get up this morning and head to the gym.  Its my day off today from rehearsals which are going really well this week, on the second mainstage play I’m a part of.  I’m also doing a student show that techs in about 40 minutes and goes up tomorrow night.  The mainstage goes up Fri night and then I have Sat off.  I leave Sunday evening and head to CA for a week and then vacation is over.  Back to the grind.  I’m still finding no problem in fully enjoying myself and my time out of the city.

Sorry for the lack of pictures included with this post.  I’m trying to be better about taking more, and when I do, I’ll pop ‘em right on up here.  I have to finish my chicken cesar salad right now and haul my ass to tech.  Then I’m off to watch the first reading of this week’s schedule.  I’ll let you know how it goes, and more about each play I’ve seen/done in the past two weeks (12 total), when I remember to do so.

Until then, keep an eye on your own troosers!  Cheers!

It’s Monday morning.  I came into town early because I haven’t had the time to sit down and write/post anything.  It’s so weird not having Internet access at home any time I want it.  Technology has spoiled me.  In any case, a few things to report from the field.

Sat night’s reading was a huge success.  We had a packed house and the audience loved the show.  It was funnier than we thought it would be, of course when you’re working on comedy, after the first few times through it you always forget it is funny.  We had a great time and got tons of really lovely compliments, which are always nice to hear.

For those of you who remember that I lost my driver license, fret not.  My passport is set to arrive via express mail this afternoon.  I had my roommate send it to the local bistro/bar where I hang out more than any other place in town.  Funny, no.  “Just send it to the bar.” That is after all, where I would need it, if they bothered to card me.  It’s been three years.  They know me now.

So yesterday was my only day off so far.  I had all day to do whatever I wanted.  A big group of us drove up the mountain a bit, to the hot springs.  Ahhhhhhh.  Let me tell you there is nothing like floating around in a hot hole in the ground pool of lithium rich mineral water seeping into your skin.  The place is crazy rustic (read: there are chickens and turkeys walking around!).  See pictures below.  Let me say it again … ahhhhhh.

After getting sufficiently goofy on spring water we drove back down the mountain to town and bought groceries for a little on the deck grilling party.  We had to stop though on the way to capture a picture of this beautiful waterfall off the side of the road.  It ran under the road and into the river on the other side, the same river that winds it’s way up the highway from Boise. The ladies in the picture are my two stage managers.  On the left is KJ who worked on the show with me last week, and on the right is Anjee, who I start work with today, in about 20 minutes, on my second show.  Anjee is also one of my housemates.

After hitting the grocery store on our way back to the house, KJ convinced us to stop along the lake so she could run off the end of a pier and jump in.  A tradition she started a few years back.  Keep in mind the temperature of the melted snow ice cap run off water filled lake is about, oh, 40 degrees at most.  After calling her crazy five times, she convinced me to join her.  Unfiortunately, my camera battery died right beforewe took off so I have to wait for Anjee to send me a copy.  I’ve never jumped out of water so quickly in my life!  And as soon as I did, Anjee said “If you want to make sure you have a good picture you should do it one mor time.  KJ was about to say no, and I was already running toward the edge again.  she soon joined me and we were back in. A terrible mistake.  I thoght I was going to die that water was so damn cold.

KJ and I had meant to get into a pretend argument right before hand so she could tell me to go jump in a lake (a favorite expression of my mother’s) and then I could tell her to go jump in a lake, and then we would both say “Okay!”  and jump.  We forgot.

The deck party was a huge success.  The six folks at the house each pulled out our iPods and shared new music with each other.  Incredibly fun and informative.  I have a list of things to go out and buy now.  To name a few: Adele, Southern Culture on the Skids, Swamp Dog, and many many more!!

So now it’s off tomy first read through of the new play.  I’ll try to keep you  all posted as much as possible this week.  If you’re still reading anyway.  Enjoy the pictures!

So the past couple of days have been nothing but rehearsals which are going very well. We do our staged reading on Saturday night and then I get my script for the next show Sunday. This morning I got to sleep in, go to the gym and hit my tech at 1:30pm. I’m now having an iced tea at the Bistro waiting for my 7pm call to read the student play I’m in tonight. Fascinating, I know. But honestly, this job rocks.

Somehow in the past few days here I’ve managed to lose my driver license. Don’t ask me how. I have no idea how it got out of my wallet. I was trying to buy a bottle of scotch for my evening after rehearsal yesterday, and when she carded me I figured it out. Gone. Other than the fact that I can no longer drive the company car around town and must now rely on rides from my roommates, I was flipping out over not possibly being able to get on a plane out of here when the conference is over. Thankfully my incredible roommate was home when I called this afternoon, went through a few boxes in my bedroom (which I began packing up for my move before I left town) found my passport and is sending it to the Bistro via FedEx tomorrow. So, I’ll be able to finish my vacation in CA after all. My stress level has dropped dramatically. I owe him big.

Anyhow, last night was the first time I was able to go out and get a little tipsy on wine with the other company members. The pictures tell the story. It was a blast.

I admit my daily writing habit has been a lot less consistent these past two days, but that was because most of my time was spent going through my backpack and suitcase over and over and over trying to find my damn license. Now since that’s on the way to being taken care of, I may find a bit more time to write in greater detail.

Hope all is well with you, my faithful readers. If you’re still out there…and reading. And hey, if you are, don’t be shy. I love to get comments.

Here’s what I woke up to this morning….(click the pics for a bigger image, then your back arrow to return to the blog)

I mean really?!?! In JUNE?!?

On some level it’s quite fun to see, ya know, since it isn’t in the filthy city, and we didn’t get so much snow this past winter…but still, c’mon.

I’ll post more about the goings on of days 3 and 4 in a bit. Check back tomorrow. Rest assured that rehearsals are going extremely well and I’m having a friggin’ BLAST!

Love and snowmen to you all.