#seanfaye

Please introduce yourself! Who are you playing in Two Noble Kinsmen?

I'm Sean Faye.  I've been working with the Porters since 2011 and now serve on their Board.  I'll be your humble Jailer.

Please give us a brief summary of the play from your character's point of view.

From my point of view I have a pleasant, lower-upper-middle class life going as I operate my prison.  It's become a family business and the early stages are in place for me to bequeath it to my daughter and her wooer, a man that I respect and trust to keep things moving.  Then these handsome and dynamic members of the royal family are sentenced to my facility and my daughter loses her ever-loving mind for one of them and even lets him go free.  From there it's a journey to understand the mind of a young woman and to filter out what seems like bad advice from a local doctor.  So, you know...parenthood.

Tell us a bit about your history with Shakespeare and the Porters.

I admire Shakespeare's grasp of human frailty as he sets his characters up to have the rug pulled out from them.  I'll often curse and lament his language as I struggle to memorize it, but it's a lot of fun to play around with once I can put the script down.

I met my wife, Kate Faye, through the Porters and consider them to be some of my dearest friends.

Please introduce yourself! Where do you hail from? Who are you playing in Shrew?

Hello!  My name is Sean Faye.  I grew up in Philadelphia, but I have lived in Los Angeles for the last 13 years.  I will be your ever so humble Katherine the Shrew.

Give us a quick summary of the play from your character's point of view!

In order for my father to marry off my younger sister, I must be married off first.  The suitors that have pursued me are only interested in their dowry (or my younger sister) and have no interest in me as a person.  I'm treated as a thing, and not even a thing of any value.  Rather than quietly accept this fate, I lash out and scare the living hell out of anyone that approaches me and quickly earn a nasty reputation.  All of this changes when Petruchio comes to town.  His intent is to wed wealthily, but we realize that we are kindred spirits, although it will take the duration of the show to reach a rapprochement.

Tell us a bit about your history with Shakespeare.

I am a Producer and Resident Artist with the Porters of Hellsgate and have worked with them steadily for the last 8 years.  Prior to that my experience with Shakespeare was nil, so every production has proved to be a huge learning opportunity.

This production of Shrew is gender-reversed. How do you feel about it?

Being a part of a gender-reversed production of Shrew is a thrill for several reasons.  First, it's amazing to be in the company of so many talented women who have substantial roles that they can sink their teeth into and make their own by defying convention.  A lot of Porters shows include a few gender-reversed roles, but this one exceeds all the others.  Along those lines, it's very interesting, as a man, to be so greatly outnumbered by women in a cast.  That rarely happens.  We retain the attributes of our given sex (even though we keep the pronouns from the original text) in an imagined world where women have laid claim to supremacy and men are the underclass. And with that comes the crux of why this show is being produced in this manner - to demonstrate that the way power is dictated between the sexes isn't about gender specifically, but about those individuals that claim to have dominion over everyone else.  It's not right when either sex wields this influence over the other, and the only way to true happiness is when everyone has an equal say.  Sadly, this too rarely happens.

What's your favorite quote (or two) from the play?

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

I should have that tattooed on my forehead.