The Comedy of Errors opens Friday November 5th and runs through Sunday November 28th at the Actors Forum Theatre in North Hollywood. For tickets visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/135148 or call 818 325-2055 for more information.
From Meet the Cast:
Who are you? Where are you from?
I'm Jamey Hecht, PhD, from the Greater New York Metropolitan Area. It's come to my attention that I am the most relatable, all-American, wanna-hava-beerwith, up-to-date Everyman in my entire apartment.
Why is classical theatre important to you?
Leeza nailed it: "Speaking and hearing Shakespeare's words is the theatrical equivalent of eating a five course gourmet meal after living on nothing but cereal for a year." Then there's this odd fact, that "the good stuff" in this art form is often far less expensive to produce, or to experience, than the culture we're all supposed to prefer. Since American post-industrial civilization is obviously collapsing, I believe local, live theater will grow in importance until it edges out the more fuel-intensive entertainments such as big-budget cinema and Nascar racing. Classical theater (especially Shakespeare and Greek Tragedy, from my perspective) connects people to the sources of their own minds, in the unconscious where art is born; it also connects them to their neighbors (not electrons on a screen), and to the past. We may be needing much more of that, and soon.
How did you get involved with the Porters?
I didn't mean to suggest that our electrons are better. All electrons are interchangeable. I have to stop talking about electrons now. I'm going to repeat Leeza's answer for this one, too: "like many others before me, I kept stalking [Charles Pasternak] until I broke him and he invited me to get involved." I'm primarily a writer, and yet the Porters, who have each made all the commitments and sacrifices that the acting vocation requires, gave me a chance to perform with them as a sort of fellow traveler from another tribe. I feel very grateful for that, and for all the fun I've had with them.
Who is your favorite actor/performer?
Paul Scofield, Dame Judi Dench, Robert Downey Jr., Emma Thompson, Ingrid Bergman, Katherine Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, Sir Ian McKellen, Nicol Williamson, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Pennington, Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Max Von Sydow, Jude Law, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, James Joseph O'Neil, Teresa Stratas, Catherine Naglestad, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Spacey, Holly Hunter, Russel Crowe.
Favorite performance?
Recent, local, live, non-Porters theater that wowed me: John Farmanesh-Bocca of Not A Man Apart Theater Co. in "Perseus Redux"; Jack Stehlin of Circus Theatricals as Petrucchio in "Taming of the Shrew"; Dan Sykes of Fresh Baked Theater as Mickey in "Sorry, We're Closed"; Amy Sanders as Hermia in Midsummer at the Stella Adler; Dan Kucan as Coriolanus with the LA Area Veteran's Artists Alliance (LAAVAA); Jean Gilpin as Maria in Twelfth Night, at Plummer Park with Classical Theater Lab; Vincent Cardinale's Iago at the MET Theater; Luke Wright as Malvolio in Twelfth Night at Zombie Joe's Underground Theater; and Deborah Strang as Margaret in Richard III at A Noise Within.
What's your personal mission as an artist?
"So... I've broken down my goals into these incremental steps: first, I wanna be the All-Being, Master of Time, Space, and Dimension. Then, I wanna go to Europe." --Steve Martin
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