Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
My Acting Bucket List: Jessica John Gercke
The Craig Noel Award-winner has an affinity for deep, complex characters
Jessica John Gercke
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices that seem outside the box.
Craig Noel Award-winning actor: Jessica John Gercke
Jessica John Gercke as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday at Moonlight, 2013
1.) Blanche Dubois, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. “This role is my obsession, as I’m sure it is for many other actors. I’m smitten by the way Williams makes every one of his leading ladies complex, broken, devastated, and brave. The absolute fragility of this wreck of a character connects me to that awful, vulnerable place most of us have seen looming on the horizon one time or another. I love how she keeps trying. Even when the battle is lost, she gets up, brushes herself off, and doesn’t look back.”
2.) Marianne, Constellations, by Nick Payne. “My favorite character in my favorite new play. When I read it, I may have gasped out loud, trying to figure out how I’d ever get to do it one day. It’s written from multiple perspectives, allowing the actor to do the scenes a variety of ways in a short period of time. Marianne is brilliant and brash in one scene, feminine and scared in another, suffering brain cancer in another, deaf in another, etc. I also connect with her two most intense loves: for her mother, who she has lost; and for a not always perfect but truly wonderful man — the only other character in the show.”
3.) Miss Julie, Miss Julie, by August Strindberg. “One of those showcase-roles I’ve wanted to do forever. It must be one of the sexiest female roles ever written, but it’s tragic too. The show is difficult because, although the two characters are so cruel and selfish with one another, it is so necessary to see how lonely and isolated they feel and how desperately they claw their way towards a life that makes them feel most alive — a life denied them by social strictures and norms.”
Jessica John Gercke as Celimene in School for Lies at North Coast Rep, 2014
4.) Marquise de Merteuil, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, translated by Christopher Hampton. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to play her, right? She’s so awful and strong and manipulative and fun and terrible and ultimately completely destroyed by her own doing! It’s an absolutely fascinating study of the ultimate bully, who is so miserable because she knows no other way to make herself feel better than to see others miserable too. To explore a character like that would be terrifying and thrilling.”
5.) Martha, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee. “Another character part that explores the darker, more devastating sides of a heart and a marriage. I’ve seen various productions and, whether perfect or not, I’ve always come away LOVING the play. George and Martha are so funny and painful and the games they play are bizarrely real in the life of a marriage. Their final game comes completely undone but its existence is this sad little clue that real love once resided between them.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
My Acting Bucket List: Jessica John Gercke
The Craig Noel Award-winner has an affinity for deep, complex characters
My Acting Bucket List: Jessica John Gercke
The Craig Noel Award-winner has an affinity for deep, complex characters
Jessica John Gercke
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers — even choices that seem outside the box.
Craig Noel Award-winning actor: Jessica John Gercke
Jessica John Gercke as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday at Moonlight, 2013
1.) Blanche Dubois, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. “This role is my obsession, as I’m sure it is for many other actors. I’m smitten by the way Williams makes every one of his leading ladies complex, broken, devastated, and brave. The absolute fragility of this wreck of a character connects me to that awful, vulnerable place most of us have seen looming on the horizon one time or another. I love how she keeps trying. Even when the battle is lost, she gets up, brushes herself off, and doesn’t look back.”
2.) Marianne, Constellations, by Nick Payne. “My favorite character in my favorite new play. When I read it, I may have gasped out loud, trying to figure out how I’d ever get to do it one day. It’s written from multiple perspectives, allowing the actor to do the scenes a variety of ways in a short period of time. Marianne is brilliant and brash in one scene, feminine and scared in another, suffering brain cancer in another, deaf in another, etc. I also connect with her two most intense loves: for her mother, who she has lost; and for a not always perfect but truly wonderful man — the only other character in the show.”
3.) Miss Julie, Miss Julie, by August Strindberg. “One of those showcase-roles I’ve wanted to do forever. It must be one of the sexiest female roles ever written, but it’s tragic too. The show is difficult because, although the two characters are so cruel and selfish with one another, it is so necessary to see how lonely and isolated they feel and how desperately they claw their way towards a life that makes them feel most alive — a life denied them by social strictures and norms.”
Jessica John Gercke as Celimene in School for Lies at North Coast Rep, 2014
4.) Marquise de Merteuil, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, translated by Christopher Hampton. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to play her, right? She’s so awful and strong and manipulative and fun and terrible and ultimately completely destroyed by her own doing! It’s an absolutely fascinating study of the ultimate bully, who is so miserable because she knows no other way to make herself feel better than to see others miserable too. To explore a character like that would be terrifying and thrilling.”
5.) Martha, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee. “Another character part that explores the darker, more devastating sides of a heart and a marriage. I’ve seen various productions and, whether perfect or not, I’ve always come away LOVING the play. George and Martha are so funny and painful and the games they play are bizarrely real in the life of a marriage. Their final game comes completely undone but its existence is this sad little clue that real love once resided between them.”
Comments