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It was back in January 06 that he gave me the book to read and I rented the DVD movie with Dustin Hoffman in the part that I play, Teach. I wasn't crazy about the movie at all and thought that Hoffman really blew the part. I think I was right. The play takes place in a one room junk shop at Noon and Act two at 11PM. The Upholstery shop is perfect for this as it also carries antiques and Scott filled it with all kinds of junk. Teach a bully, Bob a reformed junky, Don the owner of the junk shop interact while Teach discovers that the other two have a coin heist planned and Teach wants to get in on the deal by getting Bob out of the deal. The play lulls the audience with light tension and humor until in the second act when it builds towards paranoid violence and exposing the pity and compassion of these characters, and perhaps of society as well. Scott compared the three characters to a dis-functional family with the Father (Teach) being abusive, the Mother (Don) being submissive and their son (Bob) as taking the brunt of the Fathers abuse sometimes. I think when you look at the play in these terms it works very well and it certainly helped to understand where Teach was coming from sometimes. Doing the play really hinged on the Teach character that I was reading for, it's a very large part but it wasn't the memorization so much as getting use to moving and acting. I've had dealings with characters like these ones in the play when I lived in the city and was going to art school and drove for a hustler who sold merchandize from the back of a van. Over the years I recited a lot of poetry and I've always enjoyed doing it with a dramatic flair, so I guess somewhat of the actor has always been in me. Ever since I created my art show, New Digs during the summer of 2001, and did my Art Performance piece New Digs, I've wanted to do other roles. I always thought they would have been of my own making however. The play runs for seven evenings from the first day of summer to the first day of July. As of this writing I have three performances left to do, and it appears to be a big hit. We had between 40 and 50 for each of the first four nights, and it looks like bigger audiences for the final three. It is amazing how the universe unfolds. This play literally changed my life. Because of it I left JEMS and I will never again be involved with groups of people. I found out how funny people really are, I think I wrote a blog around here somewhere about it all.
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Scott
Renderer who owns and operates the Upper Jay Upholstery, once worked as
an actor on Broadway and also in the movies. His credits are very
impressive, but he gave up that life around 12 years ago and bought the
old auction house store in Upper Jay and opened his present
business. Scott was inspired to get back into live theater and
choose the David Mamet play American Buffalo.