Sydney first joined us as Conrade in Much Ado About Nothing, then frighted us full as Snug’s Lion. Now she’s ready to shake Scotland’s foundations on MacBeth.
Q: How did you first come with work with Unrehearsed Shakespeare?
SYDNEY: I first came to work with Unrehearsed Shakespeare through their workshopping events. I had done shows previously with a few of their founders/ensemble members (Jared McDaris, Zack Meyer, Jessie Mutz, Emma Couling, Brian Elliot…) and was invited to check it out. It was the workshop right before their performance of Much Ado About Nothing, and after the workshop was over I received an email to join them for their second performance, which I was delighted to accept.
Q: Has Unrehearsed had any influence on how you approach more conventional productions?
SYDNEY: Unrehearsed has given me a lot of tools to use to prepare for a role. The technique has really allowed me to explore the text and explore the physicallization of the text in ways that I hadn’t thought of before, and it’s been really rewarding using those tools in the monologs that I use for auditions and for the more conventional approach of other shows -it’s been really great to remind myself about really digging into the text and telling that story that the character has to share. I am also a really big fan of theater that acknowledges and plays with the audience.
Q: We don’t do many tragedies in Chicago. Has your preparation for MacBeth differed from your previous shows?
SYDNEY: Preparation for MacBeth hasn’t been a whole lot different than the Preparation of the comedies that I’ve been involved in. Going to the text and analyzing it wasn’t any different. It’s a serious show, sure, but there are also plenty of funny bits wrapped up into it. Shakespeare still wanted the audience to have a good time, while being enraptured in MacBeth and Lady M’s world of misfortune and cruelty and ambition respectively. It all goes back to the text for me when I prep.
Q: You’ve performed exclusively in Chicago bars. How do the intimate spaces influence your work? How much prep goes into your crossing and physicality?
SYDNEY: I love performing in a public bar space for these shows. It forces a kind of creativity and improvisation and discovery at every turn – so many factors are weighed to try and prep for it, but in the end as a cast we get to sit back and watch the audience flow into the space that we’ve made to perform a show for them in. The intimate spaces are wonderful. You might be in someone’s lap at some point in time, and depending on the person they’ll love or hate it. The space allows a sense of freedom for me as an actress and solidifies for me the invitation for the audience to join in as much as they would like to. For this role in particular I focused a lot on crossing to the person that I was speaking to and on the physicality of the characters that I was playing. The three roles I played were very different and I wanted to be sure that I had a different character in my body for each of them.
Q: Favorite role?
SYDNEY: Snug the Joiner! I loved how much he could react to the world of the play around him and got himself into funny situations that he wasn’t sure how to react to!
Three characters? What three characters? Come see MacBeth and find out!
November 19
Justin’s
3358 N Southport Ave
7:30 pm
Suggested Donation of $5
