STUART RUDIN - A Group of Actors – It wasn’t exactly an ensemble. It was a way of working... I’ve been trying to say what I know about art, or at least the art of acting. I keep losing the way when I start tracking my feelings. For one thing, I'm forever cancelling out the last thing I write about acting/directing. My process put simply is this: Just always stop and go, asking questions along the way like children with their first illustrated fairy tale. It takes stamina to go slow and easy, and then get brutal, tearing at what is obtuse, whether in the piece or in our minds. Sooner or later, weeks, maybe months, things get simpler. Questions get answered easier, defined briefly or in great detail. If someone comes into the room while everyone is seeking roots, they need to join in, no critical eyes. For a good long while all flounder, wander, drift without purpose. Basically plot comes last. Here’s how we blundered into a style while working on Nick Lindsay’s first play, “Gettin' a Lil' Somethin,” that takes place in a gas station on a New Year’s Eve that changes everybody’s life: ...we were rushing to get ready for the opening and I was pushing pushing to get lines, move it along – do this do that and the actors got sick of me and we postponed – decided to work a few more weeks and that’s when we found our style of getting into a piece – Rehearsal one after the postponement was Red and Mikey on New Year’s Eve sitting around the gas station waiting for twelve O’clock, talking about nothing in particular – it was just another New Year’s Eve – not the one Nick wrote – there was a space heater, and a small patch of rug – they were joined after awhile by Mark and then those three brought in the New Year the same way they started waiting for it sitting around the station – talking now and then about this and that – sisters...after about an hour and a half we let the rehearsal go – read some pages of the play – and called it – for the night. Another time, ...we sat in a circle took off our shoes and touched toes. Then talked about experiences coming to and fro in the area – what the feelings were, the sights, like Broadway’s sleaze – or anything we felt about going and coming to get where we were. We hung a piece of plastic glass along one side of the stage for a window and after a number of exits and entrances decided we needed the actual door – I found in a dumpster bin in the street and brought upstairs. It was solid and the building super stuck it to the wall with bracing along the wall side – sturdy enough so we could swing it open and shut it – and treat it like the door it was. That gave us our space – that and empty coke crates – and empty oil cans, a desk and two chairs – and a filing cabinet – Melora painted the gas station name Backwards on the plastic – and Red started marking up a calendar on the wall – But the best moment, ... happened right on my birthday December 16, 1987 (I was 46) I was telling everybody how to open and shut the non-existent door so I could believe it – I sent Mikey in and out till Greg snapped and Billy and all of them told me they weren’t having any fun anymore – and I shut up – and turned it over to Sarah Pearl who was director assistant – taking notes and being around Billy – and then everyone did it their way – and all that had been floating around and never alighting anywhere suddenly in every move, moment came kerplunk on our stage. After the run, I said that was the best birthday present they could have given me to take it away from me – fire me as director – that’s when I saw plays don’t need a director – they need a group of actors – and I was just one – soon the door got found and put and all substance we opened. Nick built us a bong, Mark taped his boots with duct tape one night during his talking to Red, Melora put on something hot sultry pink, Mikey started feeling hurt by Red’s teasing – Melora started putting the make on everyone, and Allison Wright as Melora’s Mom hit on Red...
Stuart Rudin has appeared in many significant featured character roles in film and TV such as Silence of the Lambs, The Professional, Private Parts, What About Bob, Law and Order, All My Children, The Sopranos and Blue Bloods. In theater over the years he has worked with New York Shakespeare Festival, Second Stage, Circle Repertory Theater Lab, the Ensemble Studio Theater, La Mama, Here, H. B. Playwrights Foundation, toured nationally and internationally, and worked in films in France, Germany, and Poland. Regionally he worked at Arkansas Repertory Theater, San Jose Repertory Theater, Guthrie Experimental Theater, and the Grand Comedy Festival of Qual-A-Wa-Loo, Eureka, California. He was a founding member of the Riverside Shakespeare Company, and in the company’s first two years was Friar Laurence, Jaquese, Bottom, and Claudius. He is a co-producer/director of Tribeca Lab.