Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Spotlight On...Alex Draper

Name: Alex Draper

Hometown(s): Middlebury, VT; Charlottesville, VA

Education:
BA, Middlebury; MFA, Yale

Select Credits: A Map of Virtue (13P); Lovesong of the Electric Bear, Scenes From an Execution, among many others (PTP/NYC); Terrorism (New Group/Play Company); Get What You Need (Atlantic Theater); Rose’s Dilemia (Manhattan Theatre Club); "The Good Wife", "Law and Order", "Law and Order: Criminal Intent", "Law and Order: SVU"

Why theater?: Because I love it, because it connects me to some larger tribe, and because I feel that now more than ever people are yearning to get together and see live human beings telling and acting out stories.

Tell us about A Map of Virtue:
A Map of Virtue is a beautiful little surprise of a play that seduces you down a path you feel you may recognize, then sends you careening off into places you never imagined going.

What is it like being a part of A Map of Virtue?:
It is thrilling.  The play is tricky, but Ken and Erin had a very specific sense of what the play needed, and we worked hard to find the right acting "vocabulary" with which to communicate that. Now that we have audiences, all those choices feel very right, and it is a pleasure to perform.

What kind of theater speaks to you? What or who inspires you as an artist?: As you know from the work we did together with PTP/NYC, (http://www.potomactheatreproject.org/) I love theatre that has a social and/or political drive behind it, and expects a considerable investment from both audience and performer. I am also currently kind of obsessed with formality and minimalism, both in language and performance, so Map of Virtue, despite it's deceptive hint at realism, landed right in that wheelhouse.

Any roles you’re dying to play?: So many, but two that pop up might be Vanya and Yosemite Sam (you know, beard parts).

What’s your favorite showtune?:
I don't have one, but my three sisters were obsessed with Annie and listened to the album non-stop, so any one of those songs could pour out of me at any time.

If you could work with anyone you’ve yet to work with, who would it be?: Julie Taymore

Who would play you in a movie about yourself and what would it be called?: Danny DeVito and George Clooney would co-star, as me, in "Hey You, what the f#@k you doing sitting on the hood of my car!"

What show have you recommended to your friends?: Project Y's Love Sick, Keen's Painting Churches, and Rude Mec's Method Gun

What’s the best advice you can give someone trying to make it in theater?: Start or join a company whose work you love.

What’s up next?: I've just been asked to participate in a residency at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center to develop a work based on Texhing Hsieh's Cage Piece, and beyond that' we'll see…