Updates

August 2009

I got accepted to Case Western/ Cleveland Playhouse MFA Acting Program. I start in two weeks! It is a three year training program. The third year we are cast in the Season at The Cleveland Playhouse. Check it out! They take a class of 8 every two years so this is quite the opportunity to work on my craft and be a part of an ensemble environment which I love! Due to the small size of the class and a generous endowment, each class is given a full tuition scholarship to study acting for the three years. I am continually amazed that I am going to get my MFA and not be in debt afterwards. What a gift!

I am sad to leave Chicago. The theater community here is quite unique. I have made such great friends in the community and am grateful for the productions I was able to work on the last three years. The caliber of work being done in storefronts all the way up to the big houses is astounding. I am continually excited and humbled by the work being done by theatre artists in Chicago. It is also incredible that there is such a supportive theater-going scene in Chicago that allows the work to happen.

May 2009

The Typographer's Dream was well received. Audiences connected with the characters' need to find fulfillment in their professions and the frustration when that need is hard to come by. Matt Schwader, who directed it, was so smart about how to move the play at the speed it required and how to bring out the personality of these characters to make everything that was said have an emotional truth that was deeper than just talking about our jobs. We at 5th Floor had a great time producting it and better yet paid all artists involved and made a small profit (aka paid ourselves). This continues my unimaginable streak of producing profitable theater (6 out of 6 shows I've co-produced since college have turned a small profit).

Here's what some critics had to say about our production:

"Adam Bock’s 70-minute puzzle play delivers a ton of unprocessed truth in the format of a panel program by a typographer, a geographer and a stenographer. Matt Schwader’s emotionally orchestrated staging keeps it intriguing. It’s topical too: How many people are miserably married to their jobs, rationalizing servitude because every alternative looks worse? Schwader’s deft trio richly explore that ambivalence but they also honor the ethic of workmanship that can [turn] drudgery into a calling." - Lawrence Bommer, Chicago Free Press

"4 stars! The concept compels...Bock lucidly highlights both the humdrum impersonality of these occupations and their close connection with (and ability to reshape) these characters’ deepest dispositions....5th floor superlatively avoids [cutesy territory]." - Christopher Shea, Time Out Chicago

"If Studs Terkel had studied playwriting with Paula Vogel, he might have come up with something like Adam Bock's beguiling one-act about a trio of quirky professionals who love the process of working but are troubled by the consequences....given how seldom occupations are discussed in American plays, just seeing one featuring people who are intelligent and fervent about what they do all day feels satisfying." - Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader

"The Typographer’s Dream is a bargain ($15 per ticket) and it is a well directed, swiftly paced work with razor sharp comedy nicely played by the cast. Our relationship to our work is expertly examined with loads of humor." - Tom Williams, chicagocritic.com

Winter 2009

5th Floor productions is going to produce another show in April 2009. We just acquired the rights to The Typographer's Dream by Adam Bock. It is going to be the Chicago Premiere of this play, which is great! So we are gearing up for that, assembling our production team and raising money. More info will be on www.5fp.org soon.

Took some great classes this Fall. A Shakespeare monologue class with Susan Hart. She is so passionate and excited to teach actors how to unlock the text by looking at the First Folio as a guide. Really helpful and amazing. The other class was Arguing from the Heart with James Bohnen of Remy Bumppo. He has a huge heart, and is very generous. That was a scene study class working on Classical and Modern playwrights. I worked on a scene from The Importance of Being Earnest and Uncle Vanya.

Spring 2008

Tallgrass Gothic continues to shape up. 5th Floor Productions is the name of our company and we are so excited about producing this play. We have a new director on board, Jimmy McDermott who is now heading up our Chicago premiere. We are a few weeks out and are busy gathering, building and rehearsing. Can't wait to see how it all comes together! Go to www.5fp.org for more info about the show and the company we have assembled on stage and off.  We open May 14 and run thru June 3 (Sun-Thurs) curtain at 7:30pm at City Lit Theater's space on 1020 W. Bryn Mawr.

I just performed in Stonehenge, a new play written and directed by Stephen Cone as part of Collaboraction's Studio Series. The ensemble building and collaborative improv based process was scary and rewarding. It was well received, running for one weekend only to sold out audiences.

Winter 2008

I am in a new play by Philip Dawkins called Perfect. It runs at the side project for all of February. Stephen Cone is direcing this great ensemble and I am excited to be a part of this play's premiere. All of the info can be found at www.thesideproject.net

We have cast Tallgrass Gothic and we are excited to have them onboard and ready to go this spring. Matt Hawkins will be directing this Chicago premiere.

October 2007

A View from the Bridge is going well. We run until Nov 11. We have been getting some nice reviews check them out at: Reviews for A View from the Bridge

Full speed ahead for Tallgrass Gothic, the play that Sarah, Andrew and I are producing in May 2008 at City Lit's space. It will be the Chicago premiere of this play and we couldn't be more excited about it.

September 2007

In rehearsals for A View from the Bridge at Actors Workshop Theatre. We open Oct 12. Very exciting! See links page for their site!

I am also going to be part of a producing team with Sarah Kinsey and Andrew Jessop who were both Apprentices at Actors Theatre of Louisville (all three of us were apprentices but in different seasons!); we'll be producing a full length (TBA) play in May 2008 here in Chicago.

Summer 2007

I love Chicago so far! I got to co-produce and act in some hilarious ten minute plays in February at Act One Studios. Also got to see a ten minute play I wrote, performed (and they laughed yeah!). I performed in bring may flowers with The House Theatre of Chicago and Tense Forms that was an annual performance integrating live music, dance and mixed media and theater in celebration of spring. I was just cast in A View from the Bridge at Actors Workshop Theatre that will open this October. I have always loved that play so I am so happy to be doing this production with them.

October 2006

I am moving to Chicago! I have been doing research on all the theater companies and I am excited about all the work being done out there. I saw a great production of Hamlet at Chicago Shakespeare where my friend Matt Schwader was a good Guildenstern. I also saw a production of Three Sisters that Strawdog produced, my friend Joel Gross was in it and played some rousing accordian! It all made me impatient to get to Chicago and get working. Windy City here I come...

May 2006:

The apprenticeship at Actors Theatre of Louisville came to an end. It was a crazy nine months of working extremely hard and fast and not having much time to process the whirlwind. The people at ATL and the apprentices themselves were amazing. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to spend every waking moment with. I am honored to have worked at a theater that has such a legacy and has left such a mark on the American Theatre.

First off, a good quote:

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."
-Jack Kerouac

March 2006: The 30th Anniversary Humana Festival is underway and I am really busy. I am on running crew for two mainstage shows and our show, Neon Mirage, opened this weekend and was very well received and I had a lot of fun doing it! I was rehearsal assistant on Six Years by Sharr White, which is a lovely play that has the makings of an American classic. It is theater all the time!

Also, Days had its screening in NYC and it went really well. I have high hopes for that film! More submissions to festivals are in the works. A new site is up at www.daysthemovie.com check it out.

November 2005: It has been a whirlwind at Actors Theatre! I have already written and performed in an ensemble show with Greg Allen of the Neofuturists. We had an amazing workshop with Antonio Sacre, who is a solo performer. Out of that came the seed for the solo piece I wrote about my grandfather and his poetry and my battle to learn Spanish. Right now I am in rehearsal for A Christmas Carol. It is a fun, huge ensemble show that is going up right after Thanksgiving. The apprentices are awesome and I am learning new things everyday. Living and breathing theater.

On the film front: Days will be screened in NYC in December and is still being submitted to film festivals.

May 2005: Great news! I have been offered one of the acting apprenticeships at Actors Theater of Louisville, so I will be going off to Kentucky in August for nine months. I am so excited!

"Days" the feature film I shot in December is being submitted to film festivals and has been accepted for the Kansas City Film Festival so far.

January 2005: What a year 2004 was! Busy, busy. I was in a production or filming something back to back in 2004. Highlights include: lugging suitcases throughout Manhattan as a member of the Suitcase Players (see links page). I got to work with fun actors and the unstoppable Kathleen Grace. I also got to play Laura in The Glass Menagerie and Emily in Our Town but in high speed 15 minute versions.

Dina and I as the Strange Sister Theatre Co. managed to produce "All in the Timing" in Central Park and Washington Square Park in May which was a challenge (ah street performances) but a success.

Just recently we produced the dark comedy "The House of Yes." Dysfunctional families are always a good time. Check out the pics on the gallery page. We're currently reading scripts for our spring production.

Mateo filmed "Days" (wrote, acted, directed, produced) his first feature length, It was a great process to do a feature length film and I cannot wait to see the footage. Check out www.bycandlelight.org for more info.

Quotes to start 2005 off the right way:

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -Vincent VanGogh

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible. It is yours. -Ayn Rand