Documenting the Play - Modern Love

The long-anticipated Modern Love, Anthony Mora's newest play, is scheduled to open September 19, 2008 at the Sidewalk Studio Theatre in Burbank. It features Aubrie Wienholt, Rico Simonini, Ann Convery, Bree Walker, Richard Rossi and Zane Helberg. The play is being produced by Kurt Swanson and is co-directed by Anthony Mora and Chelsea Sutton. Modern Love is not just another play, it is also a film documentary of the process of making the play that offers a window into the world of small theatres in Los Angeles. From auditions to rehearsals, producers to directors to actors, from the stage to day jobs as cardiologists and real estate agents, Modern Love is about the film industry that makes this city run, and more importantly, it's about the hard work and harder realities behind the glamour and the dreams.

Bang! A Love Story, which Mora adapted from his novel for the theatre premiered at the Sidewalk in 2006. Seal Media has since optioned the film rights. Watching Bang! shift from novel to play to film, interested Mora in capturing and filming a part of the process, that of transforming a story from the page to the stage. His fascination with the alchemical magic of seeing a shadow of a character in the head while reading, to meeting the character, incarnated and fixed on the stage, inspired the story of Modern Love. Mora says of the genesis of the project, "I wanted to impact a big producer-his job is always to manipulate, but when he meets Susan [the incarnation of the lead in his movie], she must play the role in his eyes." The power of this magic affecting one so steeped in the industry and so jaded makes for a particularly compelling story.

Interestingly enough, Mora himself was caught in a somewhat similar situation as he developed the plot of Modern Love. Rather than present the finished script to an auditioned cast, he has been conducting readings with various actors to workshop the script for several months, using their feedback and actions to alter the script. The play is a character-driven piece in the truest sense of the phrase. Most notably, Jillian, a lead role, a twenty-something Hollywood superstar used to getting everything because of her looks and youth, began life on the page as a thirty-something, savvy, deliberate manipulator. When Wienholt asked Mora to let her read the part, he was amazed at how much more compelling the character became when played as a superstar in her early twenties trying to have the savvy and deliberate nature of the older Jillian.

Because of all the work that went into the pre-rehearsal stage of the project, rehearsals have focused primarily on readings and blocking. Though a simple process on paper, this too has provided its own set of challenges and changes. Some roles have been recast as actors leave for personal reasons, and scheduling time for rehearsals can be a challenge as everyone must have a day job in the world of small theatre. When it comes to blocking, setting the movement of the scenes, small theatres off their own special challenge-the intimacy of the space and the size of the stage magnifies what would normally be a small movement on a larger stage. The audience starts asking "Why?" with every step an actor takes. Mora has been working with his actors specifically on this challenge of separating action from movement, creating action with minimal movement.

With all his attention to detail and process, Mora's Modern Love and the documentary of Modern Love promise to be a fascinating, insightful window into the entertainment capital of the world.

- By Amanda Peterson

PHOTOS BY BETH BEACHAM-BOYD

Visit: http://www.sidewalkstudiotheatre.com

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