Spotlight: Joe Lorenz

Immediately after school, junior Joe Lorenz drives with his mom to rehearsal. Arriving at The Studio Theatre, one of the premier acting companies and conservatories in downtown D.C., Lorenz rushes into the dressing room.

Lorenz puts on his dirty burlap shirt, waxes his hair to messy perfection, tucks his jeans into his leathery Russian shoes and finally travels across backstage into the greenroom where he waits for his call.

Lorenz has acted in Anton Chekhov's Ivanov, a play about a man whose love for a younger woman shakes his moral foundations that finished playing at the Studio mid-December. Lorenz's commitment is so complete that he had to have three unexcused absences to attend rehearsals. "It's a job. I go in every evening and do it," says Lorenz. His previous acting experience includes a few Blair plays (The Rivals and The Metamorphosis) and more performances with the local Lumina Studio Troupe (Romeo and Juliet and The Winter's Tale).

Prior to landing his role as a servant in Ivanov, Lorenz and his dad were checking out acting classes. "My dad was looking for a class for me to take for acting, and he stumbled upon The Studio Theatre," Lorenz remembers. He enrolled in several of the Studio's acting conservatory classes, finishing with a culminating performance.

Normally, only parents and friends come to the culminating performance, but Lorenz caught sight of someone else. "I noticed this lady sitting at the back of the theatre," Lorenz explains. "At the end, I didn't think much of it, and as we were saying our goodbyes, the lady brushed past me and said 'Very well done, young man.'" That woman was Joy Zinoman, the founding artistic director of The Studio Theatre, who Lorenz would later work with in Ivanov.

In the summer of 2004, Lorenz attended more acting classes. His first class, principles of realism for young adults, proved to be very interesting. "It's all about realistic acting, finding stimuli in your environment and learning how to react to them," Lorenz says. As his classes ended, Zinoman approached and asked him to audition for her upcoming performance of Ivanov. She wanted Lorenz as a last minute add-in for her show; usually an adult plays the servant role. "At that point, it wasn't certain whether I was in the show, they were just interested," Lorenz clarifies.

After an audition and discussion of commitments, Lorenz agreed to the part of the servant. Ivanov's rehearsal began October, and Zinoman required Lorenz to memorize some lines she faxed in. "I was anticipating some big kind of drill to determine what kind of role I'd have in the show," Lorenz remembers. "But in reality, it was all low key." Lorenz also expected the adult actors to shun him. "I was really nervous; I thought, 'These are some really big hotshots here.'" To Lorenz's surprise, the actors treated him completely differently than what he expected. "I was very surprised by how they treated me so nicely; it's very strange learning that these actors are people, not just characters."

The rehearsals proved to be very different from what Lorenz experiences at school and acting clubs. "The actors at Studio learn their lines as fast as possible, unlike at school, where learning the lines is the biggest difficulty," says Lorenz. "They were also very forgiving about my schedule," Lorenz continues. "One time, I was an hour and a half late, and all they said was 'Oh, you bad boy,' and that was it."

There is a lot of time between Lorenz's stage appearances in Ivanov, so he spends some time backstage. "I have a lot of time in the wings to get distracted," Lorenz says. "Sometimes I do the crossword or sometimes I focus and actually think about my character: 'What is he like?' or 'Does he have parents?'"

There is not much time for Lorenz to sit and think. Before he realizes it, his call to perform has come, and he rushes out of the back of the playhouse and into the hot light of the stage.