We’ll be watching Moore…
Adrianne Moore’s journey to the theater department at Utah State University was a long one.
Geographically speaking, that is.
Moore was born in New Zealand and has worked in England and Australia.
Moore is going on her fourth year as a professor of voice and acting in the department.
After getting her master’s of fine arts at the University of Florida, Moore did not want to stay in Florida anymore. She felt her move to Logan was right because it was a nice place to live and found a wonderful job at USU. She said it was an ideal combination of teaching and directing and “there is a high caliber of students.”
Logan had its uncertainties, though.
“I wasn’t sure about the snow, coming from Florida. Logan summers are never hot enough,” Moore said. “But I have learned how to ski since living here.”
However, skiing will be put on hold for a while as Moore takes on directing her fourth play at USU, “Anton in Showbusiness,” which starts at the end of September.
“Anton in Showbusiness” is a contemporary American play about a play within a play. It takes a look behind the scenes in the industry and the stereotypes involved. Some of the stereotypes include a star’s transition to becoming a big star and a Texan as she makes her big break in New York.
“It is incredibly funny and students like doing it,” Moore said. “It gives students a chance to do a play like what’s being done in the real world.
“It also has some wonderful parts for women,” Moore said.
A few of the women play multiple characters. For example, one plays a female character playing a male costume designer, a neurotic costume designer and a cowboy.
“The play raises the question, is theater culturally important?” Moore said. “Are people going to be talking about it later and wanting more?”
Students can answer that for themselves at the show Sept. 25 through 27 and Oct. 1 through 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Caine Lyric Theatre on Center Street. The play is free to those with a student ID.
Moore is not only the director of the play, she is also the voice coach. Voice coaching is teaching students new dialects. A dialect is a way of speaking which is connected to a surrounding area. For example, Utahns often leave out the “t” when saying the word “mountain.”
Moore says she isn’t interested in getting rid of someone’s dialect, which people often find very personal, but to teach actors tools that they can use at a moment’s notice. Moore said her coaching can drive her own children nuts because she’ll practice when reading them a book or having to watch a specific film.
“If I’m working on something about Scotland, I’ll be watching Braveheart,” Moore said.
Moore said her favorite thing about her job is working with her students because they are at an interesting and significant stage in life. Moore loves the interaction with her students from teaching to coaching. She feels her students get a good liberal arts education and solid training. And, she said many of the theater students go on to work in theater, film or graduate school.
“Why would I be teaching if I didn’t love teaching?” Moore said.
Moore couldn’t think of one notable achievement because in theater there is never just one single achievement, she said. There is never just one person working on a show; there are the actors and the stage or costume designers who make the show, she said.
Moore said she likes to hear when her students are working professionally in New York or anywhere else. But she says it’s not about hearing of their star status.
“It’s more of them actually having work than making it big,” Moore said.
She chose theater when she was very young. As a child, she saw many plays because her parents were involved in theater. She said when Moore got to college she wanted to act. However, she found she got bored with rehearsals and wasn’t doing well as an actor, either. So she began directing.
“I found I was interested more in the whole, than just my role,” Moore said.
Aside from directing and teaching at USU, Moore will be directing the play “Hold Please” for the Salt Lake Acting Co. at the end of January.
-acbailey@cc.usu.edu
Adrianne moore, assistant professor in the arts and theater department, takes a break on one of the props used in the upcoming production of “Anton in Show Business.” Moore teaches acting, spoken voice, and directs campus based productions.