The two-time Emmy Award-winner — and current CalArts faculty — Ron Cephas Jones speaks in-depth about his process as an actor. Jones shares his love of jazz, rhythm and language, and talks of nights at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, of the connections between Duke Ellington, William Shakespeare, August Wilson, and more.
Ron Cephas Jones reveals his rigorous process of script analysis and answers questions that speak to an actor’s life and practice. As he address questions from the CalArts community — both pre- and mid-pandemic — Ron offers insight into the self-care, self-determination, and commitment of an artist whose accolades have never deterred him from continuing to seek, learn, and grow.
Ron Cephas Jones (00:00):
It's no reproach to humans when I say this but to set forth the friendly purpose of my gifts. In the beginning they could see but seeing was useless to them. And hearing, they heard nothing. Like dreams with shifting shapes, their long lives ran their course in meaningless confusion. They had no knowledge of brick houses built to face the sun, they knew no carpentry. They dwelled beneath the ground like swarming ants in dismal caves. They could not tell with certainty the approach of winter or flowery spring or summer with its fruits. Their every act was without purpose until I showed them the rising and the setting of the stars.
Marissa Chibas (00:45):
[Music] Welcome to CalArts Center for New Performance, where we follow the artist. That was Ron Cephas Jones performing the role of Prometheus, in Prometheus Bound, directed by Travis Preston, and produced by CalArts Center for New Performance, in association with Trans Arts. Our new podcast is a place where visionary artists lead us into creative dialogue and discuss generous acts of worldmaking. I'm your host, Marissa Chibas, speaking to you from our home at California Institute of the Arts, where for almost five decades a community of artists has come together to break ground and break bread while pushing the limits of artistic practices. Today, we invite you to an inspiring encounter with Ron Cephas Jones taken from two campus conversations, one recorded in Winter 2019 and a follow up recorded in Fall 2020. The two time Emmy Award Winning actor, and current Cal Arts faculty who made Emmy history with his daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones, as the first father-daughter pair to win Emmys in the same year. Ron speaks in depth about his process as an actor as he addresses questions from the CalArts Community, both pre and during a pandemic. Ron offers insight into the self-care, self-determination and commitment of an artist whose accolades have never deterred him from continuing to seek, to learn and to grow.
Travis Preston (02:19):
Welcome. [Audience applauds and cheers] I'd like to say first and foremost that we've been trying to get Ronny to come back to CalArts for a while. He had some career interruptions that got in the way. [Audience laughs] And I couldn't be more honored to introduce someone who is one of the truly great actors in America. It was an extraordinary experience to have directed him here, it was truly an extraordinary thing for the Center for New Performance. I want to say, briefly, you know that he's been seen on television recently, Mr. Robot, Luke Cage, and This Is Us. You got an Emmy for that?
Ron Cephas Jones (03:21):
I did. [Audience laughs and cheers]
Travis Preston (03:31):
I do want to mention that Ron was a long time member of the LAByrinth Theater Company... You still a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company.
Ron Cephas Jones (03:39):
Yeah, life long.
Travis Preston (03:42):
And his credits on and off Broadway are recognized throughout the world. I will read this... because I didn't know actually a lot of this, Ron. He was in Between Riverside and Crazy, Of Mice and Men on Broadway. The title role of Richard III at The Public Theater, New York Shakespeare Festival. The Bridge Project, The Tempest, that was an extraordinary experience.
Ron Cephas Jones (04:04):
Incredible.
Travis Preston (04:06):
Ajax at the A.R.T., American Repertory Theater. Our Lady of 121st Street. And his performance at LAByrinth Theater Company, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, which was unforgettable, was lauded, also performed in London and his performance of August Wilson's Two Trains Running. He received an Obie Award in 2007 for Sustained Excellence. He did star in the CalArts Center for New Performance production of Prometheus Bound which received its world premiere at the Getty Villa. Actually, in order to engage, really, the first conversation which was how you relate to the classical work. I'm interested what challenges it presented for you. What challenge, generally it presents, and Prometheus in particular, as a case in point?
Ron Cephas Jones (05:03):
Well, like I said earlier, I think that this production for me was probably the most challenging that I ever done in my career. I mean, some of the things that were ahead of us were almost insurmountable, dealing with this 24 foot metal, steel, iron structure, when we first saw it in the other rehearsal space.
Travis Preston (05:26):
Yeah, in the MOD.
Ron Cephas Jones (05:27):
And then we walked into the room, of... What's the name of that room?
Travis Preston (05:32):
The MOD.
Ron Cephas Jones (05:32):
So, most of you know what the high ceiling is... there was just this 24 foot structure and Travis was like, "And you're going to be on the top of it." [Audience laughs] And it was like, "Okay." So we're at the table and were thinking about this and so right from that point on, it presented almost a challenge... How am I going to do that? How am I going to stay up there? All these other structural challenges for one. But to bring it back to the table, then it was the homework, the book work, that needed to be done. Joel Agee did the interpretation, and if you read Prometheus Bound, it's read like a long ongoing epic poem. So for an actor, the first thing, your mentality is well, where is the thought process, where does one thought begin and where does one thought end? No periods, no semi colons, no commas, it's just words.
Ron Cephas Jones (06:36):
And you so, it was like, "Okay, if I'm going to take the audience on this journey with the story, I have to figure out what the story is, what am I doing, what am I saying and why am I saying it? And where is the thought?" It's just journey this, and journey that and railing at the gods for putting him in this position of giving fire to humanity and it was so... texturally, it's like you couldn't get a grab on it. So first thing we did was we went into the text and sort of rewrote it, or restructured the text, so that we could find out how to put periods in and figure out when one thought started and where that thought ended and where the next thought began so that you could visually start to understand how you were going to take the audience on this journey. So that was the second challenge, and once we did that, Amanda...
Travis Preston (07:39):
Was the stage manager.
Ron Cephas Jones (07:40):
Right. I did some work on the script, I handed it her and I said if you could rewrite it this way, it would help me to make the text linear so that I would have paragraphs now, and each paragraph had its own individual thought. So I like to work with beats, or sort of more Meisner action-oriented... What am I doing and why, and a lot of the feelings will come after I figure out what I'm doing. Once I know what I'm doing and I do it, then I'll feel... it's like not trying to feel before the milk is spilt, wait till the milk gets spilled and then you react to the milk spilling, as opposed to "okay, I'm trying to get myself ready for when the milk spills, how am I going to feel? Okay now, spill the milk" and then "oh, I'm feeling." It's more like okay, just relax and not think about it, and then let the milk spill and then you go "oh shit." And so that's an instinctual reaction to the action. So what am I doing and why am I doing it, first of all. So these are the things that I had to go home and sort of map out.
Ron Cephas Jones (08:51):
Bring it back to rehearsal, talk with the director about it, and then figure out how the story start to go, talk to him about the story, read it to him, just trying to figure out, okay, that makes sense, now its starting to make sense. We start here, you're railing at Zeus, you're pissed off at him, you gave fire to humanity, and every day this crow comes, it eats your liver, and then you die and then you wake up the next day and the crow comes back again, eats your livers. So this is what Zeus does to Prometheus, he puts him on this rock called Caucasus. And in the mean time he's pissed, and he's angry, and he's frustrated because this is what he did because of his love for humanity. Now we have this position that he puts me in, which is a crucifix position, so now I find out now okay, now I can relate to Jesus. This is where Jesus was at, he was crucified for loving man. So I have another connection there, so that was the process.
Ron Cephas Jones (09:59):
And that was sort of like... I don't want to beat a dead horse, but these were some of the challenges that we worked with, in the script wise. And then making it work on top of the wheel, once I got to figure out how to get on the wheel, I had to feel safe, how much movement did I have, obviously my arms are connected, so I only have really my voice and a bit of my torso and I could lean a little bit but I'm attached to my waist so that I didn't fall, we all had clips. My arms are here, so all I have really is just this. I had my head, I could do my head like this, but it was more about... it was constraining. But that was also a part of what the position he was in, it was constraining, and it was frustrating, and then some nights it was too cold, and so it was like... oh wait, we had warming pads and warming pads on the back and the costume and making adjustments for the chilly evenings. But then it was also the elements, you could feel the breeze coming out of the ocean when you're on top in the Getty Villa, you can almost see the ocean from there.
Ron Cephas Jones (11:17):
And so that was the other thing, it was like taking in all those elements that were real. You could feel the dew on my face on certain evenings when it would get a little rainy or cloudy or foggy. So those were some of the challenges. [Audience laughs] That's why I say it was probably one of the most challenging things I had ever done.
Travis Preston (11:49):
It's interesting, I neglected to mention that Ron was on the faculty here, that was actually the first thing that we did together. He taught BFA2 Acting. And while we were discussing a solo show that was based on jazz and we saw each other, we were together at Ronnie Scott's in London, and I actually am very interested about what role jazz plays in your thinking about the acting process because I know its deep.
Ron Cephas Jones (12:32):
Well, it's about rhythm and tonality. I've been a jazz aficionado most of my life, I love the music. I actually went to college to study jazz, I wanted to be a jazz musician but for whatever reason, that didn't work out, I didn't study hard enough. But I got into a play in college, a friend of mine asked me to do a play, it was called Purlie Victorious, and they ran out of dancers. And I was taking a dance class, for some reason, an elective, and they asked me if I would fill in to be a dancer. And anyway, I met this girl actually, [Audience laughs] who was one of the reasons I actually agreed to do it. I fancied her very much, she ended up becoming my first wife, we're still very best friends till today. But to make a long story short, I got hit with the bug, the theater bug, that light hit me and I was done, I was thinking this is it, man, the adrenaline that I felt when I first was on stage the following year. The theater department asked me if I would do a lead role in this new musical that were developing, it was called Cinderella Ever After, I'll never forget it. And I played the role of the Prince, and I changed my major from music to theater and become a theater actor.
Ron Cephas Jones (14:12):
But to answer your question, I'd found rhythm in August Wilson. And I started to understand that rhythm, melody and tone, how to work with my voice when I started to learn that people say, "Well, you have a beautiful baritone voice." And I also got into poetry, reading poetry in the poetry slams in New York, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. My daughter's here today, she used to hang with me when she was a little girl. Her mother used to rail at me for keeping her out so late. But I would take her with me to this spot in New York in the East Village called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and it was you read poetry and write poetry and do poetry slams and stuff and I started to understand how language is so melodic and beautiful and how I could use my voice and tonality.
Ron Cephas Jones (15:11):
And then when I started to read August Wilson, it's a prerequisite, you have to understand rhythm in order to do August Wilson. All the great directors will tell you, from Ruben Santiago-Hudson, to Kenny Leon, they'll tell you that one of the main things about August Wilson is rhythm, there's a jazz and blues melody that flows through the way he writes, and when you tap in to that, it makes August Wilson's words... that's why the words sound so beautiful, because you can tap into a rhythm. Your own rhythm, whatever your rhythm is, especially if you dance, any time you dance or you're on the one, which goes back to James Brown, Funkadelic, it's like that on the one. It's like that pocket thing we dance to, we feel the beat. And that's all woven through August Wilson. There's a bluesy kind of feel that goes through the music of the language and that's how I started to use language, also in Shakespeare.
Ron Cephas Jones (16:17):
And there's an idea of Eurocentric and then there's also an Afrocentric way of looking at language. And if you read certain books by Molefi Asante, or Chinua Achebe, you start to understand that you can see language through an Afrocentric prism, eyeglass, and you can find things that you wouldn't normally find if you'd looked at them just through a Eurocentric prism. Through an Afrocentric prism, I can use my own jazz rhythmic voice to incorporate it into a Eurocentric language. There's a great album called Such Sweet Thunder, by Duke Ellington. And if you get that track and listen to it, Duke Ellington which was one of our great American composers went to Stratford-upon-Avon to witness Shakespeare. He saw about four plays, and then he went home and wrote compositions based on certain scenes from Shakespeare. And every now and then, someone will try to pull actors together to interpret that with Duke Ellington's music. It's been done many times. But you'll start to understand what I'm talking about.
Ron Cephas Jones (17:43):
So jazz, language. Especially the fact that I love jazz, I love the rhythm of it, but maybe you could find it in the music that you like also. It's just a matter of understanding and try to make connection between the music that you like and language. And then listening to the music and reading over it, almost like... it's basically like rap also. It's the same idea, if you listen to a lot of J Dilla production, what you're going to hear is how he pulled out of jazz, and when I listen to J... and I just recently got hip to J Dilla. [Audience laughs] And the reason why is because when I listen to his music, I could hear the jazz melodies that he pulled out, I said, "Man, that's Lee Morgan! That's Duke Ellington, that ain't J Dilla! Fuck you, man. [Audience laughs] J Dilla, fuck, that's Duke Ellington, mother fuck, you know what I'm saying?" You know what I mean? I could hear it, I'm just like, "There ain't no way." And then I would read something and I'd find out it was Lee Morgan, it was Clifford Brown. Especially hard bop, he used a lot of hard bop stuff, in J Dilla's music. Many of the great rap producers do that. Especially Questlove and The Roots, right? And you hear all that jazzy stuff in there underneath the beat. So jazz, language.
Ron Cephas Jones (19:18):
And so I recently did The Tempest, and played Prospero, and they set it on a Caribbean island. Ty Jones and the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and Carl Cofield, is... brilliant mind, these two cats, just beautiful brilliant minds. And I used that Afrocentric prism and found just recently, from doing that production, found all these wonderful things in that play that I had never saw done before. And I was like, dare I try to break the language up and do something different? Dare I take the risk of people saying you're not in iambic pentameter, dare I? Should I? Should I take that risk? I can hear it, I can feel it, and when I do it I know that people are understanding it, they hear it, they feel it.
Ron Cephas Jones (20:28):
And so it was a dilemma, because sometimes you'll find things in your plays and you'll go, "This doesn't sound right, but it feels right. Can I explore this, can I try it? It makes sense to me. I mean if I take that comma and put it over here instead there it has a different meaning, can I try that?" And hopefully you'll get an exploratory place where you have a director where you can say, "Fuck yeah, try it. Let's try it, let's see man, maybe you can do that." And hopefully you have the opportunity to do that here while you're here before you get criticism and reviews and places where people say that you can't. Because there is no "can't" in what we do. And you have to take those opportunities to explore. I think it's what's set me apart in a lot of my productions and things that I do, I take the risk. But I had to learn that, I had to grow into it because we get so boxed in and caught up in what we're supposed to do.
Ron Cephas Jones (21:45):
So language, jazz. And language, it came natural for me, because I just loved jazz so much and I loved to read poetry. And I found it in James Baldwin's writing, Nikki Giovanni, and many of the Afrocentric poets and writers. But as well as Dylan Thomas, there's a beautiful rhythm to Dylan Thomas's work and even Tom Waits music and it's there, it's in the music, whatever music that you love, so there's something to think about.
Ron Cephas Jones (22:27):
And how you use your voice, how you hear my voice, how it's being used, it's one of the characteristics of William, from This Is Us. People say, "Man, his voice, I love the way your voice sounds." There's a reason, because of that. I mean, I know that I have a natural baritone but I was very cognizant of how William's rhythms, when he talked to the two little girls in the show, or when he talks to Beth, and gives her those lectures, and people would say, "Oh man, your voice sounds so nice." Well, there was a reason for that, I was very conscious of the tone of William, giving him an elderly, angelic wisdom, like a grandfather. Many of us may have grandfathers or aunts or uncles that are older than us, and they have that soothing quality where it's a quiet soothness that I remember. I've had uncles and grandfathers, and even men on the street that I knew when I was growing up, had that quality where you just felt comfortable around them, and they always had a wise word or something loving or caring to say to you, and if you have memories of that, you can use those in your work. Music and language.
Travis Preston (23:43):
I think that I'm actually so pleased that you addressed how you work on Shakespeare, because the truth is in the speaking. This idea that you look up the word, you understand the word, of course it's important, but how does it get into your body? I think we were reading Richard III in Jonny Rubin's apartment one day, that's a friend of ours in New York, also at LAByrinth. And I remember how startling it was when you engaged the text. And how inevitable, and at the same time, how surprising. And I think that those of you... many of you are working on Shakespeare now, how you bring that into your body is really important. And to hear what Ronny is saying about that surrender to the rhythm, that surrender to the impulse. Because it is a hallmark of his work for sure. For sure. Actually I think it's not too soon to ask for some questions, Ron.
Ron Cephas Jones (25:07):
Sure.
Travis Preston (25:09):
Any... There are a few questions. Sir.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
What are some the ways that you made those first steps into, not only blending those two actions into the same fire, putting that fuel together, but ultimately, when you talk about rhythm and incorporate it with poetry [inaudible] anybody, how do you take all these influences and think and say, "I want to put that rhythm here, or I want to try and get that tone."
Ron Cephas Jones (25:36):
The first steps for me was in the poetry part of it, like learning how poetry meets music, poetry meets a melody. And those are the things that you can explore. It's like any kind of music, you can read language over top of it and see how it fits, sometimes certain language fits, some language other doesn't fit. I think rap, the advent of rap and the history of rap taught me a lot about that also. Not just with the poetry that I would listen to like The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, even Nikki Giovanni, their albums and things where I would listen to and start to understand how language and music go together like hand in hand.
Ron Cephas Jones (26:28):
And so it's all through different... the history of rap music, from Rakim, all the way up to... I was just telling my daughter the other day how I just found out about Mac Miller and also this cat name Anderson .Paak. And if you watched that Tiny Desk series and when he's playing the drum, "nigga got me hot." [Ron sings] [Audience laughs] And it's like I'm constantly learning about... I'm just learning about these cats, man. And I make reference to my daughter a lot of times and I'll say, Jasmine, did you... and she's like, "Yeah, course Dad, you doing just like..." I was like, "I'm so fascinated by it, I'm hooked on it right now," and then I start rabbit holing into this music, led me to this music and I'm constantly learning.
Ron Cephas Jones (27:21):
But, to answer your question directly, for me it started with mixing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and mixing language and see how all the ways these other poets would mix music with language. There was a gentleman, God rest his soul, named Sekou Sundiata and he had this... I mean if you ever talk about a man love, just everybody, the harshest of men, you just fall in love with his voice, he had this voice that would touch your soul, man. Every time he would speak or read something. And many of us used to try to emulate him, just like you would try to emulate Biggie or Tupac. Our thing was trying to emulate Sekou Sundiata. If you look him up, Google him, YouTube, this man, he had this way, just it makes me cry even thinking about it.
Ron Cephas Jones (28:21):
And that's what started my whole idea of music and language. And from that point on, it was a life long journey for me that continue till today. And I think about my one man show and things I want to do with poetry and music, my ideas are flooding this, so many ideas that I want to still learn. And also, to answer your question, I'm still learning. You know what I mean? So I think its an ongoing process, your love of music and your love of theater will... you'll find the answers. And you probably already have a lot of them now, you just have to put it into action and find your way from there.
Alex (29:07):
I'll take it. I'm [Alex], I'm an MFA2 actor. My question is, what are some of the obstacles that you've been faced in long productions? Like coming back, every night, having to get back to the role, what are some of the obstacles you've come across and how have you figured out how to manage with them?
Ron Cephas Jones (29:30):
It's true what they say about preparation. As you get along, you have to rest, and you have to eat good and you have to take care of your instrument. That's number one. And as corny as it sounds when you speak about longevity, you have to always remember to do that, you got to eat good, and you got to get rest, because you can blow out your voice and that's your main instrument and your body can get tired from doing a long production. Prometheus Bound was very difficult to do, it was strenuous.
Ron Cephas Jones (30:08):
The other thing is that, never abandon your script. Just because you learned the lines doesn't mean you have to put the script away. That's just the beginning. You could be in the third week of production, and you'll come to the theater, if your script is in front of you, you'll read it, just somethings going to hit you. You're just going to go, "Fuck, it's like three weeks, I didn't see that? How could I not have seen that, how could I have missed that?" Because never abandon your script, ever. Ever. Ever. On the train, on the bus, in the car, make sure its like your bible. Because I promise you, man, the third week when you read that script, you're going to find something and you're going to be pissed off. [Audience laughs] So longevity is being able to have that script and find new things each night that you can bring to the theater and being excited about every night.
Ron Cephas Jones (31:07):
That's why, a lot of times, I learn lines late at night and then go to bed, and then the first thing I wake up, I look at the script, those are some miraculous moments. If you put the script under your pillow, and then you got to sleep, and then soon as you wake up and you cut the light and you take and you go, you be surprised how much shit you retain, right? [Audience laughs] And so I do that all the time, I still do it. I put the script under my pillow, and I sleep with it, I shower with it, [Audience laughs] I eat breakfast with it, I eat dinner with it, I carry it on the train. It's like I'm obsessive about it because I want to get it into my subconscious, and get it into my body, to such a point where I can go on that stage and have an out of body experience.
Ron Cephas Jones (31:59):
So longevity, take care of your health, never abandon your script, and always seek to find something new, even if it's a word from "that" to "thaaat." Will take you somewhere. The third night that "that" becomes "thaaaat." [Audience laughs] And you go, "Fuck, man, that shit felt good." And then the other actor come back and say "Man, the way you said that word tonight, [audience laughs] it made me want to do this, and then I did that and then he did that." So longevity. Longevity. Always stay excited about what you're doing, man, because you just never know. That's the beauty of creativity, that's the beauty of art. Nothing remains stale, everything is fresh, like a fresh picked flower, every day.
Ron Cephas Jones (32:57):
Film gets stale, because it's cut, do it again, cut, do it again, cut, do it again. Took me a long time to adjust that. And I'm just recently doing that. Do you know what I mean? After 30 years of doing theater I got a big break in television and I fortunately got a wonderful role in a hit show, so I find myself going from not paying my rent to be being able to pay for insurance. [Audience laughs] That's what it amounted to for me, really, literally. I could pay my insurance. But I had to learn how to make those adjustments from stage to camera to film, which is another subject too. Hi.
Rishi (33:44):
Hello, I'm Rishi, I'm a [inaudible ] actor.
Ron Cephas Jones (33:47):
Hello, Rishi.
Rishi (33:48):
You mentioned before how you have that kind of Meisner thing of letting the actions carry you and not trying to feel a certain way [inaudible]. I was wondering what your relationship to actions are, because it kind of... and how that maybe has changed over your career. Is it kind of a plastic, oh this is a command, this is this. Does it turn into a metaphorical, this is [inaudible]. I don't know what that means, but it's [inaudible].
Ron Cephas Jones (34:16):
I'll tell you specifically. It first started when I worked with Philip Seymour Hoffman, God rest his soul. I did these two plays that Travis mentioned, Our Lady of 121st Street and Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train and he was the director of both plays so I kind of used him as this springboard... he became sort of like this masterclass for me. And I spent a lot of hours in the room with him, alone, talking about acting and trying to figure out what this character was doing. There were a lot of things in that play I didn't think that could be done, but he gave me the confidence that you can do them and you can also do them well. But that's where it first started, it was with the two questions that he said to always ask. First of all, what am I doing and why am I doing it, and then how am I going to do it. Those are the basic three things that can get you right to your action. It's not about what I'm feeling, for me. And I'm only speaking for me, because this is not to say that other things don't work and you have to explore all of it. But this is what works for me. And you'll find that for you, whatever works for you, that's it. So you don't have to get caught into one thing.
Ron Cephas Jones (35:30):
But to answer your question, that's where it started. Then I worked with a director, Max Stafford-Clark, who worked with another director, who was the artistic director of the NYU graduate program, named Mark Wing-Davey, who also worked on this thing called 'actioning'. Specific actioning. Now I'll tell you, I did a play called The Overwhelming about Rwanda, and their situation by J.T. Rogers. Max Stafford-Clark, who was an older English director developed this technique three weeks into rehearsal, before the next week... we were still at the table, circling every word. The audition that I auditioned for him was a hour and ten minutes and none of it was about memorization. You sat at the table with him, and he went over with you what he wanted you to do in the script, then you would have to read it back to him at the table while he was listening to you to see if you got it. Actioning, every word he would circle, what is the noun, what is the verb, what is the adv--... it was like being in a grammar class. And that's how meticulously that kind of work does, every word...
Ron Cephas Jones (36:51):
And so now, I got into this habit of circling my words and circling my sentences and then circling my paragraphs. What words, what is the action word, what is the action word that lifts the sentence off the page, what is the sentence that lifts the paragraph off the page, then what is the paragraph that lifts the monologue off the page, then what is the monologue that lifts the scene off the page, then what is the scene that lifts the play off the page? Act one, act two, scene three, scene five. It's that meticulous and that's what I learned about actioning. Now I don't do all of that all the time, but I do somewhere between the beginning and the middle of that, I'm kind of in the middle.
Ron Cephas Jones (37:38):
But my script, it looks like a science project when I'm done with it. I use... if there's a horse word, I draw a horse. I use a lot of visuals. If there's the word sun, I make a sun. So I got all kinds of hieroglyphics in my script, [audience laughs] you know what I mean? And I can see these hieroglyphics in my head, which guides me, takes me on a journey visually. I use all this hieroglyphic information. I draw a mountain, and a volcano, and all kind of little things on my script, that I close my eyes and I can see the volcano and I can create stories, just like we used to do when we were children. And you draw and you color. I use colored markers, and I use yellow, and orange and green. So my script, it looks colorful. And when I draw back and look and I was like, "Look at how beautiful that looks. It looks like a piece of art."
Ron Cephas Jones (38:37):
But to answer your question, I started from Philip Seymour Hoffman, and then I learned from Max Stafford-Clark, and then I've done readings with Mark Wing-Davey with that same... and Steppenwolf in Chicago, they call it [tesseracts 00:38:54]. If you look up the word "tesseracts," it's the same for the philosophy. It's about action which goes back to Meisner, which goes back to "what am I doing, why am I doing it, and then how am I going to do it?" That's where it starts for me.
Travis Preston (39:15):
Ronny, thank you so much.
Ron Cephas Jones (39:17):
This has been a pleasure, thank you guys.
Travis Preston (39:18):
Thank you. [Audience applauds and cheers]
Marissa Chibas (39:38):
[Music] In Fall of 2020, Ron rejoined the campus community to answer more questions and to speak to an actor's life and practice during a pandemic.
Travis Preston (39:58):
Ronny, let me open it up to questions.
interviewer (40:02):
Absolutely, let's start with Fiona.
Fiona (40:05):
Hello, hi, thank you so much for speaking with us, I remember when you came to campus.
Ron Cephas Jones (40:11):
I remember you, of course I remember you, Fiona. Hello.
Fiona (40:16):
Thank you. Thank you. But I have been kind of in a creative rut, right now, during quarantine, as I'm sure a lot of us have during the transitional time of creating during COVID. And I'm really struggling with feeling connected when I'm filming all of these self tapes and I'm supposed to be acting with my scene partner, but there's a laptop in my face. So just kind of... I don't know if you had any advice for bringing more humanity into this new Zoom world and still trying to be honest to our craft and to creating.
Ron Cephas Jones (40:57):
Well I think the first thing I would tell you is that you're not alone. That's one of the most difficult things for me right now. I don't have an answer, directly. And I'm still searching for that answer. I think it's one of the things that I first talked about when I first got online with everyone, I was like I just pray and hope that we get past this soon because it's the element that's missing that's causing me the most strife. And I feel the same way you do. And that's the main thing, I guess I can say is that you're not alone. And without that, there's an emptiness that's just going to be there. And it's there for me right now. Even talking about it, I long for it, I need it so much, and it's the element that's missing.
Ron Cephas Jones (41:40):
And then I think we just have to do as much as we can to keep our souls alive, fresh, keep reading stuff, keep dreaming, keep thinking about when the day comes when we are clear, the things that we will be able to do, think about the joy that you're going to feel when we do get past this and when you are able to run into the arms of your friends and say man, let's go, let's create. Just keep your eyes on that feeling, because we will get past it and it will happen and what's going to happen is your soul will burst open and all that stuff that you've been dreaming and wanting to do, you'll start to do. But I'm with you, and what you're feeling right now and we'll feel it together and we'll get through it together.
Fiona (42:30):
Thank you so much.
Ron Cephas Jones (42:31):
You're welcome.
interviewer (42:32):
All right, we have [Aubrey 00:42:32] next.
Aubrey (42:32):
Hi.
Ron Cephas Jones (42:32):
Hello.
Aubrey (42:39):
I wanted to ask you about... you were talking about your artistic journey and I wanted to know at what point you realized or recognized your personal style as an actor. I don't know what my style is right now, I'm at the beginning, very beginning. I don't really understand it, so I just wanted to know at what point did you realize what your style was and what you brought to the characters that you play.
Ron Cephas Jones (43:04):
Now you mean style as in how you work? What your approach is style? Or what your personal style is as far as what your body feels like, what you sound like, what your tone is, what your rhythm? Be a little more specific.
Aubrey (43:19):
I guess all of it. Like what you bring to a character in addition to how you work, if that makes any sense?
Ron Cephas Jones (43:29):
Yeah, well how I work... I developed that through understanding what works best for me, what type of script work I do. Similar to what I was talking about earlier, how I take apart a script, what I look for, actioning, how I work toward... First of all, how I deal with a script. I work, basically, based on action. So that's a wider version of how I work. I open up a script and my whole goal is to figure out what am I doing and why am I doing it? The personal is finding my own voice, and falling in love with my own voice, and understanding what my voice is capable of doing. How it affects people. How I use my deeper register for certain things, and how I use a higher register for this and how I have a register where I can go up and down, and then I can be softer. So I can use my voice as tonality, like an instrument.
Ron Cephas Jones (44:24):
Volume, how much volume do I use in certain areas? Do I need to be loud and do I have to be big to be loud, or can I be little and be loud? So those are all the things that you find within yourself that work for you that you use as tools that create your own distinct way of who you are. So that when people see you and hear you, they go, "That's Aubrey, that's how she... Man, she works this way. That's her sound, it sounds like her, her ability to do, the way she does her hand." Some people create little things that they do that's identifiable with them. Certain things that certain actors do that become identifiable with how they work. So I don't know if that helps, or answering your question, but that's how you start to figure out who you are, what your instrument is and what your instrument can do.
Ron Cephas Jones (45:19):
And then falling in love with your instrument and saying to yourself, "I'm enough. I'm enough, this is who I am and let me show you who I am." It's like when you go into a room to an audition, it's not their room, it's your room. So we have to switch that psychology. We have to rewrite the narrative. You go into an audition room, it's not their room, it's your room. So we have to learn how to take command of the room, and demand that they listen to you, not you listen to them. You're there to let them know, "You have to listen to me. This is my time, listen to me." And bring something. They're sitting there waiting to say, "What have you brought us?" They're not there to say, "Well, here's what we want you to bring." I mean some will do that, but you have to change that narrative.
Ron Cephas Jones (46:07):
You have to go in and say, "I studied for all week, here's what I brought, this is my product. Bam, here it is." Be confident in it and then leave the room knowing that you brought them your goods. You grew it. Those are your apples, you spent all week growing those apples, they're red, they're ripe, they're juicy. You want them to eat that apple and say I got the best apples. That's the product you bring, you are the product. Bring your product, but study it, nourish it, make sure you got a good product. Don't bring in a rotten apple, you didn't read the script enough, you didn't study, so you go on in there and bringing rotten apples and you want them to eat these rotten apples. [Travis laughs] Like, I don't... "We don't like those apples." But if you bring them a nice red, ripe apple, they're going to go, "Wow, man, we want to bite that apple. That's the apple." You got to bring them something. "This is what I'm bringing you. You going to dig it, or you don't dig it. You don't like my apples, cool, but I know that they are red, they are ripe and they are juicy. If you don't want to bite it, don't bite it." And then you leave the room. Not going "Oh, they didn't eat my apples. Like shit, it's their loss." You know you worked on that apple. That make sense?
interviewer (47:20):
Next we have [Heather 00:47:22].
Heather (47:21):
Hi Ron, yes, can you hear me?
Ron Cephas Jones (47:24):
Yes, I can. Hello, Heather.
Heather (47:25):
Hi Ron, last time I saw you, I think we were hanging out in Hong Kong together.
Ron Cephas Jones (47:30):
That's right. Isn't that something?
Heather (47:33):
I'm wondering if you could talk to us about how to nurture yourself artistically when gigs are not happening. One thing I remember you doing at CalArts years ago was something that you were creating yourself because of your interest in jazz and I'm wondering if you can share with the students how you nurture yourself, how you motivate yourself when someone isn't offering you the opportunity to play?
Ron Cephas Jones (47:58):
Well, what I started to learn how to do was... my limited experience with writing, those solitude moments where I felt like things weren't coming... But I started to understand that I could create my own vehicles. And it started from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and writing poetry and doing poetry slams. And doing poetry readings. So when I wasn't doing the theater, or couldn't book anything, I'd go to open readings and I would find a way to be able to express myself still when I wasn't working. So I always felt like I was working, or I was always being an artist. So I would write poems and then I'd go down to the Nuyorican and open mic. Even karaoke, it's a good way of just getting out, singing, being expressive, being creative.
Ron Cephas Jones (48:48):
Going to a museum and sitting in front of a painting, sometimes I've found, would be so beautiful and gratifying to me. I never thought that I could actually sit in a museum and just stare at a painting and get so much joy out of it until I actually started to do it. Because it always sounded boring to me, why would I sit in front of a painting and just sit there and look at something for so long. But when I actually did it, I realized how soothing and beautiful and gratifying. And I've spent hours at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Guggenheim. Hours. I could kill a whole day. Or I'd go and listen to some music and stay connected.
Ron Cephas Jones (49:34):
But whatever I could do. But I'm telling you, man, museums saved my life, man. And book stores. Back when, before you got a computer, I would go to the bookstore, get a coffee at the café at the bookstore, sit on the floor, and I could read any book I wanted to read with a coffee. So I'd get lost, in the library, and in the bookstore. Even children's books. My daughter, I would take with me, and I'd read her poems, children's poems, watch Sesame Street and sing Sesame Street songs. And my son in law to be is in a video with Sesame Street about the sun in a rap battle with the cloud and what's better, a cloudy day, or a sunny day? All those little kind of things, man, that are creative, that give me joy, and make me happy and put tears in my eyes, that's what I would do when I wasn't working.
Ron Cephas Jones (50:38):
So there's always something to do, its just you got to use your imagination. And that's what we are, we're creative people, use your imagination, go to the beach and dance. Allow yourself to do things that you think most people think are crazy or you don't do. But that's what I do to stay alive, even when I'm sequestered, I go out and look at birds. I got some plants on the back porch, that I wake up every morning and I just revel at the fact that I'm able to keep them alive. These little beautiful creative things that you can do as a human being that keep us safe, that keep us alive, and keep love in our hearts. There's so much other stuff that's trying to tear us from that, keep us from it. So Heather, that's what I try to do.
Ron Cephas Jones (51:21):
Just like we met at that place in Hong Kong, with that beautiful garden, that spiritual place where we ran into each other. That's what I was doing on my down time. And we ran into each other there and it was like one of the biggest most beautiful spiritual places you could be. Instead of me being in my thing going "Oh, whatever." I'm like, "I'm in Hong Kong, let's go out and see some beautiful things." And then we ran into each other. So that's a perfect example and an idea of what we do.
Ron Cephas Jones (51:52):
I do hope and pray that we can quickly as possible get past this whole COVID thing so that we can have this human contact again. I find it very, very difficult to even think about maneuvering in a theatrical way without being able to hug anybody. I mean, to look in someones eyes and to breathe the same breath, it just breaks my heart to think that we can develop theater in this inhuman way. And I pray on that every day because it is the human contact that I think is causing so much divisiveness and rage and hatefulness. And then we have this lack of human contact and love that the theater and the art form brings to us as humans. It's why I think it's so important to have art in our lives, you know what I mean? It adds that ingredient that keeps us whole, and keeps us human and empathetic and sympathetic.
Travis Preston (53:02):
Ronny, thank you so much for being here today. And you know we love you and wish you all of the best.
Ron Cephas Jones (53:12):
Thank you.
Travis Preston (53:12):
And thank you to the whole community for being here.
Ron Cephas Jones (53:16):
All right, Travis, talk to you later, guys.
Marissa Chibas (53:18):
[Music] That was Ron Cephas Jones in dialogue with Travis Preston, recorded live as he addressed the CalArts campus community during two separate conversations, one in person in 2019, and another via Zoom in 2020. Thanks for joining us for this CalArts Center for New Performance Podcast. You can find more episodes and subscribe for upcoming episodes at centerfornewperformance.org/podcast. Or find us on your favorite source for podcasts, including iTunes and Spotify. This podcast was produced by CalArts Center for New Performance, the professional producing arm of California Institute of the Arts. Travis Preston, Artistic Director, and Dean of CalArts School of Theater. Produced by George Lugg and Brooke Harbaugh. Editing and sound engineering by Duncan Woodbury. Podcast theme music by Cristian Amigo. Special thanks to Ravi Rajan, president of CalArts. For all things CNP, visit centerfornewperformance.org. Until next time.