Ned Donovan - Ithaca ‘12

Hey everyone,

Since my encounter with the vampires (see The Hunted: Expulsion) I have been unbelievably busy.  We’ve begun mask work in movement class with Norm Johnson and we’re building our own masks this week.  This is an incredible experience, but very time consuming and frustrating.  My mask is almost done, I’m on to the painting stage, and hopefully it turns out well.  Other classes are going well, this is the first time in my college career where all my classes seem to be working in synergy, and things are moving a little easier than they have in the past.

We’ve begun rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, and while we’re still in the table read stage, the cast just seems amazing.  I can’t wait to get going.  Everyone seems to work well together (the cast is full of the people I spend my time with anyways) and the reading is hilarious.  It’s very easy to see everyone in their roles, and working with Greg is great.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am cast as the Messenger (and I’m understudying the Friar), but I was given the extra role of Lord in Act 5, and I will be Fight Choreographing for the show.

Hey everyone,

So if you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with the musical “Passing Strange”.  My story with Passing Strange is kind of fun, because I didn’t want to see it when I first read about it in the NY Times that February, and then when I went to the city in March, my friend Debra Evans informed me that if she was going to help me find cheap tickets, I was required to see Passing Strange.  I begrudgingly agreed.  Man, was I wrong.  I was on the edge of my seat, laughing uproariously, crying, rocking out, enjoying myself fully, just the way theatre was meant to be.  I saw many shows that week, including Sunday in the Park with George, In The Heights, A Catered Affair, and more; and Passing Strange easily took the cake for the best thing I saw that season.  I came home, saddened that no CD of the show

existed yet, and told everyone to go see it if they were in New York.  Not many people listened.

Fast forward a few months and we’re in June of 2008, the CD rendition of Passing Strange is totally a letdown in comparison with the beauty of the show, many songs are overlooked, and the interludes which made the show so great aren’t in there.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to drop a quick note and let you know an exciting update in my life.  All the BFAs were put into a hat and names were drawn at random, and I’m singing for Patti Lupone in a master class on Wednesday, December 9th.  It’s going to be an amazing experience, and I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about my work.  I will post again later about how it was.

Love to everyone as we enter the holiday season!

~Ned Donovan

Well hey there everyone,

Long time no post on my end, and I’m sorry about that…it’s been a busy month.  I want to start this post off in a shameless plug for a show I am involved in.  Fenix Theatre Co. in Portland has been producing Shakespeare in the park this summer, and after a very successful run of Taming of the Shrew at the beginning of the summer, they are about to open A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I am a co-fight director for the project alongside the absolutely amazing Sally Wood (this woman had a C-section about 2 weeks prior to the first rehearsal, and she’s out there teaching things and kicking ass and taking names).  It’s directed by Peter Brown who directed The History Boys for Madhorse Theatre Company, and having watched it, it’s gonna be awesome.  A couple shoutouts to the cast as well, Seth Rigoletti (my drama teacher at Waynflete) is playing Demetrius, and Vano Kimmel (graduated from Waynflete with me, is now an Acting major at Clairmont) is playing a fairy in the fairy ensemble.  I’ve loved working on the show, and I can’t wait to see it, and you all should too.  It opens wendesday, and runs wednesday through saturday starting at 6 o’clock and runs for two weeks.

Last week my mother, Nicole, and I went up to the Maine State Music Theatre to see the preview night of their new show “Crazy For You”.  As always, I loved what I saw at MSMT.  Now the first thing that will get said to me by anyone who was also there was that the Technical aspects were a mess.  Yes, this is true, but there were a lot of them, and preview is not opening, it’s essentially dress rehearsal people pay to come see.  The tech issues happened, the show moved on, from what I hear from other people who have seen the show since, they have worked out most if not all of the kinks, and I still enjoyed myself despite them.

Tony Yazbeck is a god.  That’s really all there is to it, he takes the show, makes it his own, and truly shines on this stage.  As Bobby Child/imitation Bela Zangler is hilarious, fun, and boy can the guy dance!  His real-life fiancée Jessica Lee Goldyn plays the romantic lead Polly Baker.  Together they take the show under their wing and guide it through a night of singing, dancing, hilarity, and Gershwin music!  Oh did I mention that they were Al and Val respectively in the broadway revival of A Chorus Line?