The Shared Experience

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

By Matthew Irwin

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Jamie Reilly arrived in Jackson Hole in 2002, a refugee from the “cradle-to-grave track” in Boston, where he was the first employee at a new software company. He had visited his cousin, here, while traveling around the country, and when he had committed to trying a different way of life, Western Wyoming had just stuck out.

At the time, he had done very little acting. Though friends had regularly told him it was something he should pursue, work had always gotten in the way.

Then, he moved to Jackson, taking a job at the Murie Ranch. Within a few months he was performing with local theater companies, and he picked up a new hobby in Irish music, which quickly led to additional performances in area pubs and cafés.
This summer, Reilly played Cal Carrington in Petticoat Rules: The Jackson Hole Revue, had his directorial debut at Jackson Hole High School and he kept diners inadvertently tapping their fingers and toes at morning sets of Irish music at the intimate Shades Café. Last spring, Reilly also starred in the short film Killpecker: Origins, by locals David Swift and Charlie Craighead, which won an honorary mention in the 2009 Wyoming Short Film Contest. Reilly would like you to watch the film at www.killpecker.com.

Though he continues to earn a living as a freelance project manager, Reilly has decided to take the leap toward a performance career, by moving to L.A., the City of Angels. While he enjoys the creative process of television and film, he prefers the experience shared with audience and cast members on the stage.

On top of Snow King last week, Reilly looked over the town of Jackson and saw how different his life would be – in his mind, the streets of Jackson juxtaposed against “the timeless image of L.A. as an infinite grid.”

However, a string of farewell engagements has pushed back his departure date three times, already, and every so often he feels a stir in his belly, a panic in his heart.

“I’m lucky not to be forced to make this transition,” he said. “A lot of change is going on for people right now, and I’m really fortunate to take the time to connect with people who I’ve met on this journey here.”

Reilly will perform his last Celtic session (for now – he does own property in town, after all) with Slip and the Jigs at The Silver Dollar Bar, 7 p.m., Thursday.

Jackson Hole Weekly: Last summer, you played Cal Carrington in Petticoat Rules: The Jackson Hole Revue. Did your time as ranch manager on the Murie Ranch inform that role?

Jamie Reilly: (Laughs) You know, what really brought me to Jackson Hole was an ad for Ranch Manager at the Murie Ranch. I saw the ad and I thought that if someone ever told me that they lived on an historic ranch in Grand Teton National Park, I would say, “That is so cool, I wish I could do that.”

I think living in Moose gave me such a connection to the history of this valley. Mardy Murie was my neighbor for the last year of her life. Petticoat Rules is about the type of people who live here and come here and the Muries are some of those characters influencing conservation at the time, and I was able to really see that and connect with that.

JHW: When you moved here did you know you would be acting?

JR: Yes. On my visit here, I saw a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the old Pink Garter. So I knew that there was the opportunity here. 

JHW: But you didn’t have much previous experience.

JR: This analogy came up one of the first few months I was here: coming to Jackson is like flipping over the toy box. You got all these toys in the toy box but which ones do you really want to play with? And I came out here certainly with an interest in the outdoors, photography was in my mind, acting certainly. And I started getting into a little music, improv. Jackson is the sort of place you can explore what toys you want to play with.

JHW: Sounds like theater has kept you in Jackson.

JR: Within a couple months of moving here, I’d done a project with Performing Arts Company of Jackson Hole, which is now Off Square, got involved with a show with JCT, set up an improv group and Riot Act had started in January of ’03. We opened Riot Act’s first show, To Gillian on her 37st Birthday, started rehearsal for Into the Woods with JCT, Out of Thin Air was performing in front of an audience for the first time, and Todd Hjelt, Mike Maltz, Bob Berky and I started working on The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged. I’m doing all these things, and I’m thinking, “How have I arrived here?” I was just so ecstatic.

JHW: At what point did you know that theater would be important to your life?

JR: The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged is undoubtedly the most important show I’ve been involved with – really transformative. Working with that team really encouraged me to grow. Bob’s tutelage as a comic actor – to work so intensely as part of that process was a gift. Bob is a 20-year physical comedian, Obie Award-winning – he just knows the mechanics of comedy.

It really helped me set fully into being an actor. We ran that show, I bet, 40 times. A short engagement that spring, once a week that summer, and again the next summer.

JHW: Do you feel additional pressure to perform well enough here so that audience members look at theater not as small-town, but as viable and professional?

JR: As performers you want it to be good so that it will stand up to that level. And I don’t know a whole lot of theater outside of Jackson, but this community brings together some amazing talent. Bob Berky, Don Kushner, the staff of Off Square now.

JHW: The Rocky Horror Show really packed them in, but that’s not always the case. Why don’t locals attend theater?

JR: I think part of it is the economy. The very presence of the Center has changed things – supporting that building and the opportunities that it does create requires things of a certain scale: audience sizes, production sizes. And that’s a challenge I think we’re still trying to figure out.

We’re fortunate in that on any given night we ask, “What am I going to do tonight? Well, there’s a free lecture, there’s music here. I’d love to go, but I just went to something last night.” There’s only so much that people can do – because it is the same small community that’s being entertained over and over. We’re competing with the outdoors.

But where theater can differentiate itself – and Rocky Horror is a good example of this – is risk. Macey Mott had been wanting to do Rocky Horror for years, and she made it happen. Having that energy and vision to bring that production to life draws people in. The show itself celebrates risk.

Improv has gone through several iterations. Out of Thin Air had a great four-year run – we did 30 shows over that time, but it ran its course. Now, the Laff Staph has picked up again. And the appeal of improv is risk. People want to see it, and they want to be a part of it. That’s the special sauce that a live performance can have is how are you challenging yourself and your audience.

JHW: Let’s shift gears for a minute. Did you already have your bodhran (an Irish drum) when you moved to Jackson?

JR: It was gift from my parents on the first birthday I celebrated in Jackson. I was living and working at the Murie Ranch, so I had a lot of time on my hands, a lot of downtime in a cabin. I listened to a lot of Chieftan CDs, and I would just listen, try to pick up some beats and learn how to play. 

JHW: Then, you visited Ireland last winter, and got to play with Matt Malloy, The Chieftan’s flute player.

JR: Yeah, well that was just random. I was traveling, visiting my brother in Spain, and Mark Tuttle was taking a sabbatical in Ireland, so I went up to visit him, and actually Matt Malloy is a friend of my mother’s best friend. And I had emailed her, “Do you know if he’s in town?” cause I knew he had a pub up in West Port. And I hadn’t heard back, so we were just like, “Let’s go.”

We drove up from Galway, found the pub, found out there was a session that night, went home to get our instruments and went back to the pub, not knowing if he was there or not, and we walked in and I was like, “I think that’s him.” And Mark’s like, “It’s not. It’s not.” He was having a beer with another guy, and at a certain time, they put down their beers and picked up these cases. I was like, “That’s Matt Malloy, and that’s his flute.”

We sort of grabbed our instruments and were like, “Would you mind if we sit in,” and he said, “Sure.” It was great. They had three flutes and an accordion. Mark had the fiddle, and I had the bodhran. The set was for everyone, so after every song, Matt would say, “Any singers, any dancers, any storytellers?” He kind of opened it up to the crowd, and Mark actually got it going. There was this awkwardness about it – it’s Matt Malloy, it’s Matt Malloy – and Mark was like, “I have one. This is a song my mom used to sing to me when I was a kid,” and he just belted out this children’s song – and that’s just what a session is.

JHW: On weekend mornings the last couple years, Shades Café takes on the feel of an Irish pub, with your Celtic trio seated among the guests. It’s cozy, especially during the winter when you move inside. How did those sessions get started?

JR: There was another guy here, Pete Muldoon, and he was interested in Irish music, so we would do some open mics at the Shady Lady, and he moved away.

He said, “You have to call this guy Mark Tuttle.” And then I kind of tapped into it. Dave and Kathy McCann joined. And Mark had actually taken out an ad for a guitar player – that brought Tom Marshall in. Patty Marshall (no relation), long-time upright bass player started to play fiddle. We used to go to 43 North, and just sit in the back and play, and they’d give us some food. That was maybe four years ago.

The core group was Slip and the Jigs and we were playing at The Wort. We did a season there, session style, just around a table. Then, Dave and Kathy lived in Alpine, and Patty lived over the hill – it wasn’t as easy for them to make it up two-three times a week, so Mark approached Lisa Miller at Shades about playing there, and we stared playing there, the three of us - Mark, Tom and I – and we became the Black Thorn Trio. We had several names – the Red Sweater Trio – but the most common was Black Thorn Trio.  That was the winter ’07-’08.

JHW: You recently debuted your directorial at Jackson Hole High School. How did it feel looking at the stage rather than from it?

JR: I loved directing. The challenge for me was communicating things that come to me intuitively as an actor – what I was seeing in a given scene and what I wanted to see in that scene and how this all worked in the overall context of the play. Sometimes, I was better at it than others, but over time, we developed a common vocabulary that allowed us to start really working together on a vision for the play.

JHW: How’d you choose Tom Stoppard’s On the Razzle?

JR: Evie Lewis offered me the position when Todd finalized his move late in the summer. She gave me a number of scripts as ideas ... Night of the Living Dead, Nevermore (A Piece on Poe), Camino Real... and On The Razzle.  After reading some, On the Razzle was just such a superior script and very fun. Plus, Evie had seen it in Ashland, Ore. and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and had read it in class with the kids in the spring. In short, I could see she was keen on it, and I liked it best out of the one’s I’d read, so done deal.

JHW: How’s the theater program at JHHS?

JR: Evie Lewis is just doing a fantastic job. She chooses to continually challenge her students with smart theater opportunities. I ultimately chose the play, but I could sense it was what she wanted for her program. And the level of talent and “acting chops” of the students made it very fun to work with Stoppard’s subtlety and language. That doesn’t happen overnight – that’s a product of the kind of program she’s created.

JHW: Last question: What are you going to do in L.A.?

JR: I’m going to flip over the toy box again. JHW

Photo by Derek Diluzio
Jamie Reilly


PERMALINK:
The Shared Experience | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

Leave a Comment