Hello Beautiful People,
Brian Dykstra is an actor, a poet, and a playwright. His most recent credits include: Rothko (Red), Walter (The Price), Trigorin (Seagull), Elyot (Private Lives), Claudius (Hamlet), Heisenberg (Copenhagen), Eddie Carbon (View from the Bridge). Currently, Brian is playing Brian O’Regan in the Tony Award Nominated play, Lucky Guy. Brian is a born teacher, an eloquent speaker, and has quite the comedic delivery. For me, the best actors and writers are the ones who never stop learning, reading, and growing. They are the eternal student. Brian is one of those people, and I’m thrilled to introduce him to you all.
TWT: Did you always want to be a performer and work in the entertainment industry?
BD: Well, it’s something that I’ve always done. I kept thinking in my educational career, I would think about what I wanted to do in terms of a career later. I was remember signing up for drama in high school. When I went to college, I discovered that seventy percent of incoming students don’t declare a major, so I figured I’d declare theater arts until I figured out something else to do. Five years later I was in grad school. It never felt like a conscious decision. My mother was pretty vocal that her parents weren’t supportive of her artistic ambitions, (she was a singer and a writer and my grandparents felt like it was a waste of time.) I remember talking about what that was like for her, and always felt like I had her blessing and support about being an actor.
TWT: Of all the roles you’ve played, is there one in particular that is most memorable?
BD: I’ve had the most fun doing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. The fact that they’re both Shakespeare is immaterial. Those two parts in those productions felt like…play. I also had the pleasure of playing Rothko in Red; different type of role, but I would do it again if I had the opportunity.
TWT: Do you have a dream role? If so, what is it?
BD I’ve always wanted to play Iago in Othello.
TWT: Just for fun, what sound do you hate?
BD: The sound of a dentist drill inside my head.
TWT: Just for fun, that sound do you love?
BD: The sound of the ocean, even on the days when the waves aren’t breaking.
TWT: Just for fun, what books are permanently on your bookshelf?
BD: I never keep books, I read them and give them away. I put my name in it, and ask the person who I pass it onto to put his or her name in it and give it away. If I want to read them again, I’ll go buy a copy. Naturally, we have many plays around the house. They stay.
TWT: Lucky Guy is Nora Ephron’s last unpublished play. That in itself is monumental, let alone the cast members that you have, and the fact that it’s your Broadway debut. What does it feel like to be part of such a huge production?
BD: I didn’t know Nora, but everyone who talks about her in the cast, everyone who did know her, has a real sincere affection for her. A lot of this play is based off of interviews she did with actual people, and she left those interviews in the hands of George C. Wolf. They workshopped the play together, and for the last six months they got together once a week to work on the script; George was given permission to make changes that would be needed should problems arise. Nora left us a really wonderful working script, and if there were changes, they were cosmetic and they were done with her blessing. Everyone is doing this play is truly doing it out a labor of love for the story, for the craft, and for those who knew her, they’re doing it for Nora.
TWT: What advice would you give to high school students who wish to pursue a career in theater and the arts?
BD: There’s a sensitivity that’s required to survive as an actor, there is a toughness that’s required to survive in the business. Know thyself, so you can identify if you have both. Don’t loose your sensitivity as you acquire your thick skin, and try to do everything you can to keep your sensitivity from killing you when you feel rejected. You’re not being rejected; they’re just casting someone else. And, if you can be happy doing something else, go do it.
TWT: In today’s economy, arts programs are being cut. What reasons would you give to a politician for preserving the arts?
BD: The political reality is heartbreaking. Society is judged by the art we leave the next generation, and we are failing. The Dark Ages are the Dark Ages because all that theocracy swallowed all that art. And now we’re in a time where being fiscally responsible is an excuse for allowing fear to stop what ends up being funded by the NEA. What gets funded by the NEA is easy to pick on, because it’s cutting edge, and so people say I don’t want my tax dollars going to that, but to use that umbrella to cut art in high schools is so painfully shortsighted. Kids do better in everything when they are offered arts. That’s what I would say to politicians, but I do not have faith that they would listen. There are too many politicians that think that art is the enemy of religious thought – and it is actually a threat, because it is the artists who stand up and say hey, this might be antiquated, this might be evolution, and this might need to change. There are a lot of people out there who are afraid of that.
TWT: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
BD: George Ise taught English in high school. His creative assignments were things like, why should you listen to us? Why should you sit in rows and not run around screaming? Why listen to authority? He was fabulous. When I was an undergrad, Betsy Hamilton and Mathias Rietz in they taught me to think of myself as an actor rather than a student. You’ll be a student for the rest of your life, but at some point you have to say I’m an actor and live with that responsibility. When I did my graduate work at Rutgers, Bill Esper and Maggie Flanigan taught me the Meisner technique, and they did it patiently and they did it step by step. And with the learning that I had in my undergrad, there was a melding that just made sense to me.
Thank you, Brian!
Live, Love, Learn,
Megan &