Ep #5: Geoffrey Wade (National Tours, Regional Theatre, The BFG) on People vs. Characters and Doing Your Job

Absolutely do small theatre projects because you’ll meet people and make connections, but make sure you know why you’re doing it. — Geoffrey Wade

I’m thrilled to welcome Geoffrey (@geoffreywade) to the show: a wonderful actor, director, teacher, photographer, and acting coach.

In addition to being a student of Geoffrey’s at The Antaeus Company, we’ve also worked together onstage in Mother Courage and Her Children and Tonight at 8:30 with Antaeus. I was also fortunate to catch him in the recent national tour of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

He has performed on Broadway and off-, and continues to work extensively in regional theater, most recently at South Coast Rep in Amadeus, and a long association with Vermont’s Weston Playhouse where last year he played Cervantes/Quixote in Man of La Mancha.

He works in episodic television (NCIS, Mad Men, Mentalist, Numb3rs, ER, four Law & Orders), in radio and on tour with LA Theatre Works. Films include City Hall, The Divide, Tres, and Steven Spielberg’s The BFG. He recently directed critically acclaimed productions of A Walk in the Woods and The Crucible. He trained at The Central School of Speech and Drama in London after Amherst College.

Geoffrey has been teaching at the Antaeus Academy since 2003, and guest moderated at schools and classes across the country including USC, UCI, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Please enjoy my chat with Geoffrey Wade!

Total running time: 1:23:52

• Stream by clicking here.
• Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as/save link as”.

Want to hear more from another actor about dreams and the magic of theatre? Check out my talk with Gigi Bermingham, an actor and singer who shares one of the most RAW interviews we’ve had!

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QUESTION OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let us know in the comments.

Scroll below for links and show notes…

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Show Notes

Geoffrey Wade around the web

Twitter | Instagram | His Photography | Film/TV | Broadway | Off-Broadway | LinkedIn | Theatre

Highlights

• How he lived in Italy as a teenager
• Growing up with a politically and socially involved mom
• How actors had this sense of magic
• Playing Don Quixote in college and then 40 years later
• How playing Elwood P. Dowd in college changed how he approached acting
• The humane process of auditioning
• Being an usher at the National Theatre in London
• How taking care of the audience is a high compliment as an actor
• His experience of working a national tour
• What being a professional means
• The mandatory item for the cast of Curious Incident before every show
• Geoffrey’s script notes for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
• Working on Steven Spielberg’s The BFG
• Advice for actors: where to start, what to do, and why

Selected People and Items Mentioned

• American Field Service (AFS)
• The Huntington in Pasadena
• Harvey with Jimmy Stewart
• Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant
• Man of La Mancha musical
• Gig Young
• Amherst College Theatre
• Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
• Alec McCowan in Equus
• Jenny Agutter
• National Theatre at The Old Vic
• LA Ovation Awards
• Ushering at Steppenwolf Theatre
• Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
• Crazy for You
• The Road Theatre
• Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Steve Stettler
• Tim Fort
• Malcolm Ewen
• Weston Playhouse
• Anthony Hopkins
• The BFG film by Steven Spielberg
• Garrett Popcorn

Geoffrey’s monologue from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

[accordion clicktoclose=”true”][accordion-item title=”click to view/close the monologue” id=player state=closed] THE PLAYER: We’re actors…. We pledged our identities, secure in the conventions of our trade, that someone would be watching. And then, gradually, no one was. We were caught, high and dry. It was not until the murderer’s long soliloquy that we were able to look around; frozen as we were in profile, our eyes searched you out, first confidently, then hesitantly, then desperately as each patch of turf, each log, each exposed corner in every direction proved uninhabited, and all the while the murderous King addressed the horizon with his dreary interminable guilt…. Out heads began to move, wary as lizards, the corpse of unsullied Rosalinda peeped through his fingers, and the King faltered. Even then, habit and a stubborn trust that our audience spied upon us from behind the nearest bush, forced our bodies to blunder on long after they had emptied of meaning, until like runaway carts they dragged to a halt. No one came forward. No one shouted at us. The silence was unbreakable, it imposed itself on us; it was obscene. We took off our crowns and swords and cloths of gold and moved silent on the road to Elsinore.

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Production Photos from Geoffrey’s collection

Copy and share: bit.ly/waj-wade

Photo credit: Weston Playhouse (Man of La Mancha, book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion, and music by Mitch Leigh)