Joel Stanley Huff

Sir Toby Belch:

Hailing from Utah, Joel has worked regionally at Pioneer Theatre Company in their production of Cyrano De Bergerac. While residing in Salt Lake City, Joel was a company member of Salt Lake Shakespeare where he played Guildenstern in Hamlet, Adam in The Compleat wrks of wllm shakspre (abridged), and Snug the Joiner in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a member of Chicago’s Organic Theater Company where he was in the original Organic productions of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, Mark Twain’s $30,000 Bequest and Secret Agent. This year in Chicago he was in two productions at TimeLine Theatre: Paradise Lost and Tesla’s Letters. He was honored in Chicago by receiving a non-equity Jeff Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Suporting Role in Telsa’s Letters. He is a certified Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors. He holds a BFA from the University of Utah, an MFA from Northern Illinois University, and he has also studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Moscow, Russia.

Big Fuckin’ Whoop! I am also getting married in two weeks. So I only had time to send you my bio and these couple of lines. I love this play. I love Sir Toby. I hate Malvolio! So let’s get it on! (I might learn to like him or feel remorse by the end of the play) We can talk about that. Suck my Babcock.Much LoveJoel
Friday, June 13, 2008 4:42:00 PM

verse guidelines addendum

Hi there: a few quick additions to the verse guidelines. The ideas about emphasizing the word before commas, semi-colons and parentheses and those after end-stops or colons have a large exception: pronouns. As you know, unless pronouns serve some sort of comparative role they should rarely, if ever, get emphasis. These guidelines came from the Globe, even though they are a modification of some of their ideas, though. When Mark Rylance directed they changed all mid-line punctuation to commas, no matter what they were and only kept the original punctuation at the line endings. It seems to me, though, that the before and after emphasis ideas are helpful. I will hardly, if ever, mention these guidelines while we rehearse. Our intentions and objectives and the environment where they occur will be the focus. I just say these as a way to help us avoid pausing whenever we can and still make the story clear. Thanks, Hugh

Olivia's household

Hi there: in response to Amanda's question about Toby and Malvolio and, for that matter, Maria and Feste, here is how I see it. Toby is called both your uncle and cousin. I have been thinking of Toby as a wonderful mix of a caring person and a person who has lived off of others for his whole life, as we see from his relationship with his friend, Andrew. I know Joel has thoughts on this but it seems to me that he might be Olivia's dad's youngest brother who has some feelings of responsibility for his brother's estate and the well-being of his daughter which are overshadowed, perhaps, by his recognition of a good opportunity to have a lovely place to stay and someone to provide him with a good part of his needs. Olivia doesn't have much good to say about him, especially at the end. She does ask Feste to take care of him. It seems like she feels some responsibility toward him, as she would to an uncle. In my research, any relative other than a parent or sibling might have been called your cousin.

As for Malvolio, whatever his employment by Olivia's father was is up for question. Since we haven't decided to age Whit to play him it seems like he might be remaining on after his employer's death due to how he feels about Olivia. She definitely values his skills and wants him looked after.

As for Maria, it seems interesting to me to have her on a level closer to that of Olivia. Maybe she's more of an assistant than a maid. Studying the production history of the play some have made a big deal over the fact that Toby steps way down in social class to marry her but that doesn't seem to be a huge thing in our version. Malvolio is an assistant, but he seems to run the joint more than does Maria. It will be fun to find out exactly what this relationship is, actually.

Feste, in our version, was not really employed by Olivia's father, is a fool would have been in the original. It seems that Olivia's father certainly supported him, as would a patron for an artist. He does have rights to enter the house without being bidden to do so much of his standing when father lived remains. He does not live there, though. He lives by a church, he says, at least. It does seem, too, that Toby genuinely cares for him and does not use him for anything but his lovely voice.

In our production, though the story does revolve around Viola, the household of Olivia and how they relate to one another is crucial, since these relationships make up much of the play. Even the choice to not see Orsino's house and his necessity to find someone to help him and his reliance on Valentine for information speaks to the relative fluid nature of his life compared to the more solid aspects of Olivia's, even though she has gone through horrible loss.