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Outspokenideas |
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Bruce Pachtman Biography |
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It all began again with a class I took from Charlie Varon. I know it's a little quick for a step backward in time, but I'm going to do it anyway. So,
let's pause here for a moment and disgress some twenty years, to the time
when I was living in New York City, just out of college.
I'd reached a level of success performing with a comedy group
called the Comedy Clinic and then with another group called the Punch Line
Players. I also played a leading role in a movie written and directed by
Chris Columbus. That's significant because that's what got me noticed by the
Creative Artists Agency and that's why I came west. Los Angeles to be exact.
Funny place LA. First you're welcomed, given a few quick moments to prove
yourself and then you're either in (at least till your next test) or your
out. I was out. |
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That wasn't such a bad thing for me. You see, from the time I was a teenager,
I'd enoyed working with kids. As soon as I became disheartened with the
harshness and vagaries of show bizness in LA, I was drawn to interacting with
young people again. I went back to college for my teaching credential and
became a pre-school and kindergarten teacher.
I figured if I wasn't going to be a performer there was no point in remaining
in LA. So after a six-year stay, I jetted off to SF. A town I liked right away.
But, even though I was doing something I enjoyed enormously, there was still a
basic element missing from my life. Couldn't really figure out what it was.
Just knew something wasn't right. OK, now fast-forward a half dozen years.
A friend invited me to see Charlie Varon perform a solo piece at San
Francisco's Marsh Theater. Called "Rush Limbaugh in Night School" the play |
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was a huge success - particularly with me. I saw it over and over again.
Ten times, in fact. I harbored ambitions of doing what Charlie did from
the moment I saw that show.
What's more, I found out that Charlie was teaching a class in
performance/writing and I enrolled. In the span of ten weeks, I created a
15-minute piece about my days playing drums in the circus. That was a scary
experience. (Performing again, I mean, not the circus. Well, the circus was
scary, too, but that's another story.)
At Charlie's urging, I began working with David Ford, Charlie's collaborator.
At the time, I was struggling to breathe life into a once promising piece
about my days volunteering with Russian émigrés. Concurrently, a dynamic
romance had been evolving in my offstage life and, at its conclusion, I
thought I might be able to fuse aspects of my time with this interesting
woman and incidents from my days with the Russians.
I imporvised some scenes about the romance in class and that day, David
convinced me to drop the Russian émigrés and start working on a play about
my relationship with this complicated woman. Those improvisations became the
basis for "don't make me look too psychotic."
This video is a very fine taping of my performance. I think you'll enjoy it. And possibly relate to the story. |
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