THE CONVERSATIONALISTS

Posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009

by block club

THE CONVERSATIONALISTS

Kate LoConti & Joyce Carolyn

Edited by Ben Siegel
Illustrations by David Saracino

Actress Kate LoConti doesn’t just perform in a theater, she studies in one. She gravitates toward classical theater pieces, where she says the material offers more to discover and explore. Joyce Carolyn also acts on WNY stages, but it’s her work as a jazz singer that lets her express her own voice. What LoConti and Carolyn share is a desire to perform, a need to use their literal and figurative voices to evoke emotion, interpret language, and above all else, to be storytellers.

BCM Do you consider yourself an artist?

JOYCE Yes. I do. But it’s hard to explain to other people when you say that you’re an artist, an actress or a singer, and they say, “What do you really do?” I’m an artist!

BCM Do you think people think of a painter?

KATE I do, yeah I do. I mean I even think that, when I think of so-and-so as an artist, I think of them as a sculptor, a photographer, painter, whatever. Rarely would I ever say, when someone asks me who I am or what I do, “I’m an artist.” It’s funny, I wouldn’t though. I would say an actor, of course, but rarely would I go to the second term, an artist. Would you?

JOYCE Actress, singer, yeah. I don’t know why I wouldn’t say artist.

KATE When I teach I talk a lot about the different forms of art. How collaboration is very important in the different art forms, and in that respect I definitely would consider acting an art form or performing music an art form. I think you’re right, we do have a fixed notion of what we think “artist” means. I think “performer” is closer. But when you started directing had you already been acting?

JOYCE Yes.

KATE How do you feel one informs the other, now that you do both?

JOYCE I feel that having acted first was a benefit to directing. Now did you start acting beforehand or directing first?

KATE Definitely acting first. I only recently started directing, and I love it. I want to try to do it as much as I can.

JOYCE Okay.

KATE Because I do think that, like you say, it is a completely different benefit to sit and watch your work––

JOYCE ––your work, yeah. And to shape all of the characters, all of them, not just your own. As an artist.

BCM Is there a lot of similarity in performing in a theatrical work as another character, and performing with a band as a singer?

JOYCE Singing was the first thing that I did. After having acted, oh then you take those lyrics and really do something with them. I think. You’re acting out in vocals, what the songwriter has written. I think that it has helped, the fact that I was an actress (first).

KATE I always think of songs as monologues as well.

JOYCE Set to music, yes, yes, yes.

KATE Especially in musicals, or just any song really. I’m not a singer by any stretch of the imagination. I think that that’s one way I can really, kind of, really enter in the mind of a singer is to think of it that way.

JOYCE As a monologue, yeah.

BCM Do you write your own music?

JOYCE Oh, no. I’m just an interpreter.

BCM Is a song very clear-cut in what its intentions are, or can you add your own, sort of, figurative voice to it?

JOYCE To me, yes. There’s always room for interpretation, which is how (my) CD came about, especially the title, which is “You Can’t Make No Money Singing Jazz.” [Both laugh.]

Being classically trained, when I decided to go out and do this and I’d tell someone, “I’m a singer.” “Oh you’re a singer? What do you sing?” “Oh, I sing jazz.” “Oooooh…. You can’t make no money singing jazz.” [Laugh.]

I found that the other music, the rock and roll, and all that other kind of stuff, was just too easy. It’s just so restrictive, 1-3-5, 1-3-5. But jazz, you can explore and go anywhere and do all of this wonderful stuff. So that’s how that came about, people telling me that I can’t make any money singing jazz.

BCM Does your art support you?

JOYCE Oh no it doesn’t, unfortunately.

KATE Unfortunately, no.

JOYCE Very few people living in Buffalo are making a living off of their art. Though I feel that the actors and singers––well, more the actors than the singers––would get far more work in Buffalo than they would in New York City, where you can live there for 20 years and get one part. It might be a great part, but here you might be in a production two or three times in a season. But to make a career out of it here, I haven’t found anybody that is really doing it without something on the side.

KATE Even if it’s little.

JOYCE Now if you just live in Buffalo and you have an agent and you go other places to work, Buffalo’s a wonderful place to live. And that way could afford you to make a living at your craft.

BCM What kind of responsibility do you have to your audience? Do you need them to like you?

JOYCE Well I always hope that they do. Do I need that? [pause] Oh I’ve never thought about it. Have you, with acting?

KATE Of course I always want approval. But I think that oftentimes I’ve believed so strongly in what I was doing that I didn’t care.

JOYCE Uh huh. You just do your best, and if somebody likes it, they do.

KATE Because I have lots of different tastes for things, and so does everybody. And it varies from night to night. Some days I watch a movie or see a play, and if I saw it on a different day I probably would have hated it or liked it better or worse or whatever.

But I think that it’s important to have a relationship with the audience, even if it’s a negative one. As long as you’re affecting them in some way, I think that’s important. I think indifference is deadly.

JOYCE If I don’t like something––for instance I cannot stand the sound of a trumpet. But Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, I have to give them their props for being an expert at what they do. I just don’t like the sound of it.

KATE No, I agree. I feel that way as well, about sax. Also, because I’m not a musician. I’m just always awed by musicians anyway because I can’t do it. But yeah I think you have your favorites and your non-favorites.

JOYCE But you cannot say it wasn’t beautifully done in a performance. You might not like the piece, you might not like the character, but if it was done well…

KATE And often it’s the direction. You know, that comes along a little later, being able to discern, was it the acting or was it the directing? That’s an important thing for a performer to watch.

JOYCE And when you’re performing, you have to understand that if someone does not care for what you’re doing, it’s not because you’re not doing an excellent job, they just don’t like that particular piece, that particular style, or that particular character in a play. That’s very important when you’re auditioning for things and you don’t get the part, you can’t take it as, well I’m not a good actress. You were not what they were looking for for that part.

BCM Do you like your own work?

JOYCE You know, I seldom can listen to my own work. Isn’t that funny? Do you watch your own self on video?

KATE We rarely have video of what we do. Like, I don’t think I’ve seen myself on the stage. Pictures, but nothing in real time.

JOYCE Some of the theaters that I work for, they (record the show). They don’t sell it or anything but it’s for their archives. And then they show it at cast party night [both laugh]. Isn’t that funny, you wouldn’t (watch yourself) either?

KATE I’d rather not. I’m already critical of myself.

JOYCE I am so critical of myself! But like you said, if someone didn’t like your character you could easily say, “Oh I just didn’t like the character.” They liked Kate, they just didn’t like what Kate was playing. But if you’re singing a song, they could say, “I don’t like your voice.” And that’s yours.

BCM How do you remain honest to your material when you’ve performed the same part, or music, many times over?

JOYCE If you’re doing a long run, a really long run, you change it just to keep it fresh. Because the audience may have seen it one time but you’ve done it 20 times. Do you ever discover things about your character after a show opens?

KATE Oh yeah, absolutely. Because you’re rehearsing it the same amount of time that you’re performing it normally; a month of rehearsal, a month of performance, usually. And so you know by the time it opens, you’re only halfway done in your work on it.

Especially with Shakespeare, which is my absolute favorite to do. There is so much to discover in the language. Halfway through [a 4-week run] you feel you have your character down and then the whole world goes [makes explosion sound] and opens up because the language is so amazing. And then you get into all the cosmos of his language, and the mythological aspect of the language, and the political relationships. I mean it’s just amazing. There’s so much more to it.

Conversely, there are some plays by like the third week, there’s just nothing else there. You’re trying and trying to find it.

You’ll probably agree with this, or maybe not, but in the direction, or in the production itself, often times you’re not allowed to really experiment that much. It’s got to be kept, sort of, metered.

JOYCE Especially Shakespeare, yes. That’s like doing a classic piece, an aria. You don’t riff through it. The notes are there.

I do care for live theater, as you said, rather than TV. But TV has its advantages. When I was doing TV, you do it and if you don’t do it right, you do it over, you do it over and over and over. With the live stage you do it, and you hope you’ve got a next chance the next night to do it right.

The positive thing about the TV is you have to go back to the same intensity just every time. So that’s what makes that difficult. Wherever you left off, that’s where you have to come back to. But other than that, I prefer the live stage.

BCM I’ve heard this before, this idea that TV is a writer’s medium, film is a director’s medium and theater is an actor’s medium. When you’re on stage, it’s you and the audience, and there is almost nothing else that has as much push and pull as that relationship.

KATE I love that about performance so much, just using my body in different ways. It being a breathing art form, and it’s not like, cut and printed. It exists in that moment, in that room and in that time, and then it’s gone and it’s intangible. That’s the exact thing that I love so much about it: The relationship between audience and actor.

BCM How do you prepare for your time on stage?

JOYCE I don’t have time anymore. You just have to be ready. You just have to. If a gig is Friday night at 8 p.m. and you get home at 6, then what do you do? You have to be ready. But you have to get your craft to a level––I learned this from dance, [with Gemini Dance Company] with Steve Porter–– where even at your worst, you are here [reaches hand above head]. Even at your worst, you are better than average. You can’t fall below that level.

BCM How do you do that?

JOYCE Practice, practice, practice. Lessons. Study, study, study.

BCM There is such a history of the actor’s stagecraft, doing your own makeup and preparing for the stage.

KATE That used to be a big thing for me. Like, transforming a character in terms of costume and makeup and such. But now that I’ve gotten a little older that’s not as important to me.

A warm-up is the most important thing. I need a really long warm-up. Physical and vocal. And you know, certain days you can’t because of time and whatever, you know, you’ve got too much going on. It’s a different show when it’s not there.

JOYCE And backstage is so busy. Sometimes I find that I just need to sit by myself and get myself together. Because you’re coming from a place where you’re real busy, working all day, coming home, cooking dinner, and then go and perform, go to a place where you make it look so easy. And you have to smile. [Laughs.]

BCM The show must go on.

JOYCE A producer said that. You know, not an actor. Someone who put money up said that, that the show must go on.

BCM Is this your true passion in life?

JOYCE It’s something that I have to do in my life on a consistent basis. And it’s something that I could do all day. I could do it. And just think how much better I’d be. (laughs) I’d be fantastic!

KATE Teaching [theater at the University at Buffalo], I would love to always do. I definitely want to keep doing it and have a full-time position at some point. But acting, I need to do. I need to. I feel I can’t go very long without it. I jones for it.