http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=564481
Arnie Burton: (Quick) Change Is Good!
“First Person” by Arnie Burton
Broadway.com
About the author:
A lifetime of acting at theater companies across the country, in plays both classic (The Merchant of Venice) and up-to-date (I Am My Own Wife, Mere Mortals), prepared Arnie Burton for one of the most unusual challenges of his career: juggling multiple roles-including lightning-fast quick changes-and slapstick stunts as part of the four-person cast of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway production of The 39 Steps. This entertaining, super-clever stage adaptation of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller just transferred to the Cort Theatre, allowing Burton (as the blandly named Man #2) and Cliff Saunders (as Man #1) to work their magic alongside leading man Charles Edwards (as hero Richard Hannay) and Jennifer Ferrin (as three mysterious women he encounters after being pulled into a spy plot). Having witnessed Burton’s amazing transformations, we just had to ask: How do you do it? And what inspires your playful sense of comedy?
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I confess: I love a good quick change. Maybe it’s the running offstage into the dark where waiting hands are ready to rip off your clothes and slap new ones on. Maybe it’s the rush against time: five seconds to change from the Spy to Mrs. McGarrigle…go! Maybe it’s just the pure theatricality of it. The magic of a quick change can only happen live.
This is one of the many reasons why performing in Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps on Broadway is such a joy (the other reasons being my amazing fellow actors, Charles Edwards, Jennifer Ferrin and my other half, Cliff Saunders). One of the comments I hear most from people after seeing the show is, “It looks like you are having so much fun up there.” We are, not only onstage but offstage as well. I wish we could sell tickets to backstage during a performance. . .
To read the rest of the article, please click on the following link: http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=564481
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