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Friday, November 23, 2012

Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps « Aisle Say Twin Cities

Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps « Aisle Say Twin Cities:

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Posted on November 10, 2012 by 

Scott Turner Schofield in “Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps.”
As the opening to the MORPHOLOGIES Queer Performance FestivalScott Turner Schofield‘s Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps is a perfect balance of art and storytelling. The three companies organizing MORPHOLOGIES - Pangea World Theater, 20% Theatre Company, and RARE Productions – have spent the last two years putting together the festival, which aims to celebrate and raise awareness of queer, transgender, and gender non-conforming issues. Schofield’s deeply personal, unexpectedly funny account of his transition to maleness sets just the right tone for what is sure to be an entertaining and thought-provoking collection of performers.
Becoming a Man is a unique format for a one-person show: part acrobatic performance art, part storytelling, Schofield combines the best aspects of the two different styles. As he climbs and twists up some hanging fabric, the more abstract medium allows him to delve into the more introspective sides of his transition, while the choose-your-own-adventure storytelling component – although a pretty overused gimmick in solo shows – gives him the opportunity to connect personally with his audience. This keeps the performance different every night and fresh for Schofield, who performs each story, whether a funny two-line quip or a more shameful admission of wrongdoing, with unflinching honesty and charm.
Viewers expecting to hear how Schofield knew he was a man will be disappointed; instead, he takes his gender identity as the starting point. This choice allows him to shift away from the usual transgender narrative (confusion, angst, seeking acceptance from friends and family, etc) and focus instead on the more tangible realities of the transitioning process. His stories are about all the minutia of day-to-day gender presentation – the importance of the angle of a hat or the choice of what size fake penis to buy – and the occasionally painful mechanics of living in a male body – for instance, the ritual of testosterone injections and the associated increased risk of heart disease.
All of these theatrical choices amount to a performance centered on Schofield as a human being, not simply as a member of a queer community. Though specific to the experience of a trans man, his stories also provide a mirror for cis-gendered* people to consider how many aspects of their own gender they might take for granted or perform, unthinking, on a daily basis. For Schofield, the transition is never-ending: not only is he committed to a bi-weekly testosterone shot for the rest of his life, but he seems to be discovering new sides to his maleness every day. His experience of constantly becoming a man, as well as his energetic and humorous approach to the ironies and contradictions of gender, allows him to present identity as a multi-faceted and continually evolving collage, rather than a story with a neat moral or conclusion.
If Becoming a Man is representative of the rest of the MORPHOLOGIES festival, the rest of the week will be essential viewing – not simply as an exploration of gender issues, but as an eloquent look at human identity and relationships that encourages us to embrace difference with compassion and humor. (Schofield’s performance is for two nights only, but more information about the entire festival line-up, including free workshops and panel discussions, is available here.)
*cis-gendered = the opposite of trans; a biological male who identifies as male, or a biological female who identifies as female.
Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps by Scott Turner Schofield. November 9-10 at the Ritz Theatre, 345 13th Avenue Northeast, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Part of the MORPHOLOGIES Festival, November 9-19, 2012. More information about the festival at http://www.tctwentypercent.org/morphologies.html; information at Schofield at http://www.undergroundtransit.com/Performance/Pages/Becoming_a_Man_in_127_EASY_Steps.html.

Monday, August 20, 2012

La Faculté





  • They are between 17 and 20 years old, they run into each other, talk to each other, lie to each other, ignore each other, defy each other, take drugs and make love. They have their territories: the housing projects or the subdivisions, the football field, the faculty. Codes function, prohibitions are contained in the unspoken, until the day when deadly tragedy disturbs the state of things, making conflicts explode, turning upside-down the fragile balance of their micro-society. A racist murder? A sex crime? A tragedy, in any case, like one that is heard in ancient Greece, that crosses siblings, that sets common law against family law. Under Christophe Honoré's pen, these characters from daily life become the heroes of a clash that goes beyond them and forces them to admit what cannot be admitted. It is this theatre of today, always linked to that of origins, that Éric Vigner stages with the actors of the Académie, these young actors who have come from near and far, worthy representatives of the “world's youth”. A laboratory theatre in which Christophe Honoré's “mixed words”, both poetic and concrete, never drawing back before crudeness, give an account of the complexity of amorous desires, the fear of differences, the violence of a troubled society threatening to fall to pieces. It is with these extremely alive bodies haunted by strong words that Éric Vigner occupies the theatre's stage. For a striking portrait stripped of all artifice that is as much drama as pamphlet.

  • Distribution
    direction, scenography and costumes Éric Vigner
    artistic collaboration Jutta Johanna Weiss
    lighting Kelig Le Bars
    dramaturgy Sabine Quiriconi
    make up and hair Soizic Sidoit
    assistant to the direction Morgan Dowsett
    assistant to the scenography Nicolas Guéniau
    assistant to the costumes Sophie Hoarau

    with the actors of the Académie Vlad Chirita, Lahcen Elmazouzi, Eye Haidara, Hyunjoo Lee, Tommy Milliot, Nico Rogner, Isaïe Sultan
    and Scott Turner Schofield, Jutta Johanna Weiss
    Production
    production CDDB-Theater of Lorient, National Drama Center of Brittany
    coproduction National Dramatic Center Orléans/Loiret/Centre, La Comédie de Reims National Dramatic Centre
    with the artistic participation of the Jeune Théâtre national




Thursday, August 16, 2012

Actor Resumé

EYES: blue     HAIR: blonde     HEIGHT: 5'11"     WEIGHT 145
Representation: email Gaskins Management

Film, TV, and Industrial

Written up in Entertainment Weekly

Des Mots de Minuit
Talkshow Guest
France 2
Aired 10/10/10

The Conveyor Belt of Love
Primary Contestant
ABC
Aired 01/04/10

Portrait of Turner
Principal
Director: Irene Gustafson
Independent Feature

With George Lucas 
Mysterious Rituals
Principal Subject
Director: Deborah Blum
The History Channel

Teller Training Industrial
Teller-in-Training
Bank of America

Commercial appearances available upon request


Theatre

La Faculté
with Isaïe Sultan

La Faculté
by Christophe Honoré
Stéphane
World Premiere at Festival d'Avignon 2012
Currently touring
Director: Eric Vigner


Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps
Original Solo Performance
Currently touring
Director: Steve Bailey

Becoming a Man in
127 EASY Steps
Debutante Balls
Original Solo Performance
Currently touring
Director: Steve Bailey


Wizzer Pizzer
by Amy Wheeler
World Premiere at 7 Stages
Director: Melissa Foulger


Underground Transit
Original Solo Performance


As You Like It
Wizzer Pizzer
with Topher Payne

Le Beau
Director: Janice Akers


Voice Over

Necessary Luxuries
various characters
by Topher Payne

Self-Organizing Men
self
Des Mots de Minuit

Edited by Jay Sennet


Training

Film Acting Alliance Theatre Acting Program
Stage Acting DAH Teatar International School; Emory University Theatre Program
Voice Bucky Motter; Elisa Lloyd
Movement Celeste Miller; SITI Company Summer Intensive; Out of Hand Theatre Company
Aerial Acrobatics Nicole Mermans; Cathy Sutherland
Clowning Kenny Raskin; Kelan Scher

Strange Rituals
Special Skills

Moves eyebrows independently; French (intermediate fluency), Spanish (fluid speech); Deep South and Texas accents, Southern and Yorkshire British accents; Aerial acrobatics on tissu; Rhythm guitar; Horseback riding (Western); Juggling 3 balls; Drag.

Writer Resumé

Books
Two Truths and a Lie: A Memoir written and performed. Homofactus Press. Ypsilanti, 2008.
Finalist for 2008 Lambda Literary Awards in Drama and Transgender categories -
2009 American Library Association Rainbow List -

Plays
"The Spitting Game" with Lauren Feldman, Sigrid Gilmer, Dan LeFranc, Nicholas Surbey and Steve Yockey. Full length. Workshopped at Theatre Emory Brave New Works 2009.

"School's Out" with Mark Blankenship. Full length. Workshopped at Theatre Emory Brave New Works 2005.

"Turn Me On" with Sheri Mann Stewart. Full length. Workshopped at Theatre Emory Brave New Works 2004.

“Underground Transit” in National Transgender Theater Festival Reader, New York: Renegade, 2003. 

Excerpt from “Underground Transit” in [Becoming] Young ideas on gender, identity, and sexuality. Diane Anderson-Minshall and Gina Devries, Eds. Exlibris Corporation, July, 2004.

Essays
"The Wrong Body" Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. S. Bear Bergman and Kate Bornstein, Eds. Seal Press. New York, 2010.
2011 Lambda Literary Awards for Transgender Nonfiction and LGBT Anthology -

“Are We There Yet? On Being and Becoming a Transgender Performance Artist” Self Organizing Men. Jay Sennet, 
Ed. Homofactus Press. Ypsilanti, 2006.

"Coming of Age—Still Performance / Manifesto" Women & Performance: a Journal of Feminist Theory, #28. New York University, New York 2004.

Articles
“Top 10 Queer Music Moments” list contributor, Out Magazine, July issue, 2008.

“Letter to the Editor” Out Magazine, April issue, 2008.

“When I First Knew” Out Magazine, March issue, 2008.

“I am the Pride Sucker.” Atlanta Creative Loafing, June 20, 2003.


Copy
Didn't It Feel Kinder by Amy Ray (Daemon Records, 2008). Promotional copy for publicity and sales.