We’re huge in Japan

One of my earliest memories is of being on stage with a set-eating goat.

My mother, who is a full-time actor, got me cast with her in a production of Teahouse of the August Moon. I was barely five years old, but I think that: 1. she needed to save some money on babysitters and 2. the director needed a goat-wrangler, and why not a little kid? Thanks to that experience, however, being on stage is one of my favorite places to be. (I also really enjoy Caribbean food, but that’s another story.)

I was lucky to grow up in Winston-Salem, NC, home to one of the country’s only state-funded art schools, the North Carolina School of the Arts. My brother and I enjoyed an above-average art education, and took acting and music and visual art classes aplenty. We grew up, almost literally, on stage with our mother. She was our agent, our teacher, and our cast mate. It was a great relationship to have with your mom.

But I also fell in love with music at an early age. When most kids were handed recorders during music class in fifth grade, their lessons stopped promptly at summer vacation. But I wanted to get good at the little plastic recorder, and then the clarinet, woodwinds in general, and then pretty much any instrument you handed me. I ended up at NCSA for classical clarinet, but after a few years I realized that devoting my life to one musical instrument wasn’t going to be enough. I wasn’t cut out to be in the woodwinds section of an Orchestra. I needed to find ways to combine my loves of music and theatre, and be on stage more.

So I started a rock and roll band, wore lots of eyeliner, danced around, made some music videos. It was a fantastic time, but not quite where I wanted to be in my goals.

I moved to Chicago because I wanted to find a place where the collaboration between actors, writers, musicians, and other talented folk was a common ordinary occurrence and not a special occasion. I had stories to tell, and Chicago just seemed more excited about collaboration and storytelling. One of the first things I saw in Chicago was a production that featured puppets, live actors, and original music written by an old rocker friend Kevin O’Donnell, who had become a company member at the House. I knew that this was the place to be.

For an example of this collaborative spirit, look to Strawdog’s upcoming production of Good Soul of Szechuan. You’re going to see an extremely talented actor that will be playing the electric bass guitar(Michaela Petro) for the first time, and others that have been composing beautiful incidental music for this show. Actors will be singing complicated melodies and will have to produce elaborate rhythms on instruments that they’ve never touched before. There are a handful of cast members that haven’t played their old band and orchestra instruments for years, but are dragging them out for this performance, and seeming to have a blast doing so.

Sometimes I feel a little insecure about calling myself an “actor” when I compare myself to my cast mates, who are trained and experienced and have decent head shots. But one of the best things about this Strawdog experience, and the Chicago theatre scene in general, is how we are all inspired by this work together. I become a better actor by watching this cast speak Brecht. And I in turn I have promised lessons to my cast mates in tin whistle, harmonica, and mandolin. Who knows? We might start a rock band! Rent some time in a studio, put these songs on wax, get big in Japan! Then write a big Broadway musical about it!!

Tin Whistle

The goal in blurring the lines between traditional actor and customary side-line musician in the Good Soul of Szechuan is to find the very best way to tell Brecht’s story. The story we’re telling is a classic; it’s like the one that your Uncle Bob tells every single year at Thanksgiving. He tells it by standing up and gesturing wildly and adopting funny accents and mannerisms. He might sing part of a song or two. Everyone loves this story and looks forward to hearing it every year. And it’s a collaborative effort, too: everyone at the dinner table chips in, quickly assuming the roles that he’s created for us: the priest, the rabbi, the horse. Uncle Bob might not have the best Jersey accent, and can’t really hold a tune, but that kind of makes the storytelling all the more beautiful.

For this reason, being a part of Strawdog for this telling of Good Soul feels like I’m another step closer to my personal goal. I’m on a stage, with a purpose: as an actor, a musician, and definitely a storyteller. I love that, like me, the entire cast grows more and more confident in these roles every single day.

At this point, our director Shade Murray has not introduced a goat into the cast. I would not put it past him. But if he does, I’ll be ready.

Matthew Bivins

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