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beakmanfans-blog · 8 years ago

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Eliza fills us with a "State of Wonder", about Homelessness.

Tomorrow February 3, will be Eliza Jane Schneider birthday. Here is a interview she gave several days ago about her new stage play called "Displaced", that benefited the homeless. She talks about Beakman's World, homeless people, and about her vocal/accent coaching. There is even a song of her's about homelessness called "Underground".

This is a screen capture of a webpage, for the podcast/radio show "State of Wonder", which interviewed Eliza Jane Schneider a few days ago, for the Oregon Public Broadcasting {OPG} radio station. In the interview she talks about her role of Beakman's World, her traveling the world collecting recordings of accents, her on the television show "South Park", and her new one-women show called "Displaced" a performance about the lives of homeless people. The audio recording of the interview was posted on the "State of Wonder", official webpage. Sadly it does not appear to be available for download from their site. But shortened 10 minute version can be downloaded from iTunes, under the title OPB's State of Wonder, January 20/21, 2017. The iTunes version has the rest of a news program, but the entire Eliza interview is not heard. For this review we give times fore the Eliza only version, as found on their website. It is 25 minutes, and 46 seconds in length, and also released on January 20, 2017, while the broadcast news version in the shorter 9 minute section was released on the same day, but as their January 21 podcast.

From 'South Park' To Hong Kong, The Many Voices Of Eliza Jane Schneider * http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/south-park-actor-eliza-jane-schneider/

#ElizaJaneSchneider #AaronScott #StateOfWonder #OPB #OregonPublicBroadcasting #Displaced #BeakmansWorld #SouthPark #FindingNemo #KingOfTheHill #AssassinsCreed #VoiceTraining #Accent #Dialect #Coaching #Homeless #OneWomenPlay #FertileGroundFestivalOfNewWorks #ElizaJaneAndTheBarnyardGypsies #Underground #SuzukiMethod #DavidAlanStern #BlueGirl #RolandSP808 #MaryKayBergman #KeiraKnightley #PiratesOfTheCaribbean #GarageBand

The interview/podcast segment begins with the host listing various performances at the "Fertile Ground Festival of New Works", and that Eliza's new show is one of the shows being presented there. He then plays clips of the voices she preformed in the television show "South Park". He then lists other places her voice can be found, such as in the "Finding Nemo" film, "King of the Hill" {season 6, episode 6, "I'm with Cupid" TV series, and voice {Rebecca Crane} in "Assassin's Creed" videotapes. He then talks about her studying and teaching dialects, touring as a musician, and performing her one-women shows.

Eliza is then herd at 1:18, the Aaron Scott, then tells about Eliza's family, and her growing up on a Chippewa, native American reservation, that her dad was a German Drama teacher, and her mom was a Jewish attorney for the reservation. He then asks her when she got interested in dialects. She explains that her dad would naturally use various dialects, for different occasions, such as when she was supposed to be cleaning her room. She then explains that she has been a Suzuki method {method of learning by listening}, violin player, since the age of seven. Saying "my brain just started applying that to languages, everything sound, so anything that I hear, I like to pretty much mimic."

At 2:16, She is asked about how she started collecting those dialects, she says "I was on Beakman's World" she then describes the show, and that "My whole life I wanted to be on TV, and I got on TV. And there I was in this box, working for a man, who worked for a man, who worked for a man, and all of them telling me what to wear, and how to act for millions of children, that I couldn't see. And it was a total lack of connection, and I just wanted something real." She then talks about how the only training most actors got was a guide by actor "David Alan Stern", and that she wanted to "go and collect all the dialects of spoken English, of the entire world, and starting in America" {United States}, then saying "I figured it would take me about a month, and I've been doing it for 25 years." She then says on her first journey across the USA she went 17,000 miles. She then says that she was required to go back to L.A. {Los Angeles}, for a vocal looping job.

Next at 3:42 Eliza talks about how "there is no mainstream", and that "everybody thinks they are weird {strange}". She then says her first play on the subject of her journey recording voices was called "I'm Not Weird: American Perspectives" {1995}. She then talks about a boy from Mississippi that talked about putting his arm around a girl at a movie. Eliza does a imitation of his voice while she tells the story. She then talks about how each person has their own 'thing' that makes them feel different then the next person.

At 5:08, the host then talks about how she recorded many voices through her travels, and then it talks about her award winning show "Freedom of Speech". Then there are samples from her earlier play featuring her re-creations of the people she meet.

Then at 5:30 Aaron asks her how she got the part{s} of South Park. Eliza then explains that she was at the time doing a "science fiction, rock opera, about the return of a goddess" {Blue Girl, about a goddess from the 16th dimension}. She also explains that she used a musical instrument called a Roland SP-808, and that is what she used to help record and play back the voices she did for South Park, until she could perform the voices similar to, how they were preformed by the earlier actress Mary Kay Bergman that had died. She then talks about how a person that lived in her apartment, had asked her to call her agent, and tell them, that Eliza could do the vocals of the characters. She then talks about how she then developed a technique for doing voice matching, using the instrument. She then performs her version of the a imitation of Keira Knightley from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" video game. Eliza then performs voices from "South Park", explaining how she recorded voice of the accent/character she was trying to learn, and then put recordings of herself in between the recorded sections, show she could hear where they sounded different. She then compares this to trying to match the sound of someone playing violin, and trying to reproduce what they preformed. She then talks about how the voice of the Mayor in South Park {the character Mary McDaniels}, was difficult for her, until she heard a Irish accent, and applied it to the character. Eliza tells about the shows co-creator Matt Stone saying "Oh, we'll just cast someone else." And Eliza said "No, give me time, hahaha, and it worked".

At 9:28 Eliza is asked about her new one-women show called "Displaced". She talks about how the homeless people were the first people she would meet when she went to new places, and she says "the moment you look somebody in the eye, who normally gets ignored, you've made a friend." She then talks about how some people walking past have trained themselves, and their children, not to see the homeless people. "That is so dehumanizing, and that is the thing I find that is the most burdensome to the people who do live on the street. Is the fact that they aren't being seen."

Next at 10:20 the host then explains that the play is about conversations between Eliza and the homeless people. He tells about how Eliza, uses their words, and their accents. He describes it as her way "to try and reflect their voices into the theater." He then plays clips from her new show. The first sample is from a women that from the ages of 11-20 lived under a bridge. The women wanted to be a actress, and Eliza meet her in the Philippines {Philippine Islands}. Next there is a clip from a person she meet in Hong Kong, he talks about how it is being homeless, and that he had been to 17 different countries. She then says how he didn't get looked at by people in San Diego, while in Brazil people would talk to him.

At 13:18 Eliza is asked about her performing the show during the Inauguration of a new U.S. president.She talks about how people feel hopeless, and she compares that to her second play, "Sounds of Silence" {Sounds of Silence: A Documentary Puppet Musical Farce}, from 2007. She then talks about the 2004 election, and that she would go to local restaurants, and try to find people that hadn't voted yet, and get them to the voting locations. She says that they had to wait in line for 6 hours, in the rain, because there were only 2 voting booths. She then talks about "this march" {Women's March on Washington/Women's March 2017}, and that people are feeling helpless. She wanted people to come to the show after the march, and her husband was providing soup for the visitors, and they could learn about homeless people. She then explains that Portland had 4 people died from exposure to the cold weather. She then explains that "the play asks 'what can I do?' And that's were I'm included" She then tells how the idea of the play is that she is at a mall, and her child has learned not to look at the homeless, and "he's learning not to see people who are suffering and it scares... scares me". She then says "What can we do, how can we fix a problem that seems unfixable? And at the end of the play we come to a lot of really good conclusions." She then mentions how people can donate to local charity events, with cloths other things.

At 16:02 Eliza is asked if any of the homeless of Portland had been interviewed in the play, or where part of it. She says that there are some, but there are lots of different recordings, that change from performance to performance, and some of the people featured are international.

At 16:42 Aaron asks about her vocal teaching, and he wants her to teach him something. She then mentions software like "GarageBand", can be used to replace the instrument that learned this technique with. Aaron then selects the British accent, but Eliza says there are so many accents, so she chooses a Liverpool accent. She then plays a audio clip from a guy from Liverpool, and then she and Aaron try to match their voices to the recording. As she ends the lesson, Aaron sadly slips out of the accent, because he didn't hear it before he gave his final performance, and he had preconceptions of how it should be said.

At 20:30 Eliza is asked to describe how her music, and recorded voices are mixed together for her new show. Eliza then talks about how she has a feeling of "intense humility and gratitude, when someone opens up to me on a train, or on a street corner, and tells me their life story, and I've recorded it." She then explains that many of the songs she's written over the years have been about the subject "what is home". Eliza then talks about her song "Dear Mom", that she used to sing to a friend that had been abused by their mother and step mother, she calls the girl her "Nigerian precious".

Next at 21:42 Eliza introduces her song about homelessness called "Underground", saying "this is kind of the theme song for the play". She recorded this song with her band Eliza Jane & The Barnyard Gypsies, for her 2007 "Gypsy Grass" album, {a combination of the words Gypsy music, and Bluegrass music}.

The interview returns at 25:18, and the host tells how Eliza partnered with charities to encourage people to bring cloths, blankets, and grocery store certificates to the shows. He then thanks her. The podcast segment ends with Eliza saying "Thank you, so much for having me. I had a great time."

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