Audition Lesson #1 Applied
Orange As a Neutral
I look at this photo of Ethel kicking it with the troupe on the back lot several times a day. I have a favorite dancer in this group. They are all wonderful and fabulous and have schooled me on tip-to-toe color awesomeness.
But, it’s my girl in purple that gave me a fresh new lesson, not a reminder. Lego has decided that humans are yellow. So, the woman in yellow on the left is creamy, wonderful and the usual. and, I only have to look in the mirror to see a pink person, red if I am toasty.
But purple!?! in purple tights? As her semi-skin tone? Yes. So good. The lesson here is that skin color in the shade is as important to consider as skin color in the light.
I think we can assign every color of the rainbow to a person plausibly. We can make a balanced palette as well as we could with “neutrals”. That was lesson #24 from that awesome audition I saw 20 years ago. An actor in orange can both blend and pop, if orange is that actor’s neutral.
An Audition as a Work of Art
4 out of 5 of the most moving theater pieces I have seen were clear, beautiful, soaring examples of team effort. Good theater tends to require good teamwork. But this week, the piece I am looking at is a loner: a 1-minute 1-man show.
What is Sammy Davis Jr’s rainbow neutral?
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