INTERVIEW: Anthony Arkin has found his ‘Original Sound’ at the Cherry Lane
Photo: Original Sound, currently playing the Cherry Lane Theatre, stars Anthony Arkin and Jane Bruce. Photo courtesy of Russ Rowland / Provided by JT Public Relations with permission.
The new play Original Sound, written by Adam Seidel and directed by Elena Araoz, deals with the dramatic and comedic ins and outs of the music industry as it relates to copyright infringement. The show, which runs through June 8 at New York City’s Cherry Lane Theatre, details the journeys of a young Nuyorican beat maker who questions why a pop star has stolen his track.
One of the central figures in Original Sound is played by Anthony Arkin, a successful actor who has experience in theater, film and TV. Audiences will recognize him from his turn as Stavos, a travel agent, on the hit TV series The Americans. He has also appeared in Sneaky Pete, Person of Interest, Blue Bloods, Elementary and Madoff.
“The journey has been fantastic,” Arkin said in a recent phone interview about his time in Original Sound. “It’s been really wonderful. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a show. I was feeling a little bit rusty, but this company made me feel really at home. And the Cherry Lane is a place I’ve wanted to work forever, so it’s really been special.”
Arkin said he is generally interested in the music business, and he has a lot of friends who are musicians and recording artists. Their experiences helped inform his character and his experiences in Original Sound.
“I’ve been in the studios before and seen how records are made, so I just have an interest in the story,” he said. “But I also felt like the combination of music and the kind of writing that Adam has done, it was a really unique kind of combination, and I just love the writing. I thought it was an incredibly fresh-sounding play, and it was a good fit. I’m really happy it worked.”
Arkin had high praise for Araoz as a director. He called her incredibly creative and present throughout the rehearsal process. He was impressed by her handle on the design of the show and the play’s overall conception.
“It’s been great,” Arkin said. “She’s the full package, so it’s been great.”
For an actor who has dabbled in several media forms, scheduling all of these projects can be difficult. Even though TV and film have attracted his attention in recent years, it appears Arkin’s first love is for the stage.
“As far as acting is concerned, I prefer acting on stage I think to film work or TV work,” he admitted. “I love the rehearsal process. I love the time that you can take for a deep dive into a project, which you don’t really have unless you’re really, really, really fortunate on a film or a TV show. So I love that. I love the process. I’m really split. I love making films. I love the directing that I’ve done. I love to write projects that I do, so at this age it’s becoming one thing. It’s kind of hard for me to pick apart what I love best because it’s all kind of interwoven right now.”
Directing is a role Arkin has performed in the past, and he seems open to that side of the business in the future as well. State of Rock, which came out in 2008, is a highlight for his résumé.
“That was an amazing experience,” he said. “I had started out as a kid making films. I was a super-8 kid, so I was making movies in my basement. You know, because I come from an acting family, I was on sets a lot, and I kind of fell in love with the film process. And so I was making shorts and stuff for many years, and acting kind of took the forefront for a while. … I turned 31 or something, and I realized that my other life, directing, I hadn’t really paid enough attention to it. So I took some time, and I found a project. I just stumbled into it. I moved into a new building in Brooklyn 20 years ago, and on our floor was a couple of guys from a heavy metal band. And we became friends, and their story was interesting. They were at an interesting point in their career, and we were good enough friends that they let me follow them around with a camera for five years.”
Arkin amazingly filmed his new friends for those five years. He had so much footage he couldn’t find an editor to help him bring the project down to a digestible size, so he stepped in and learned how to edit himself.
“There was so much material that they said, ‘No, I’m not going to edit this,'” he remembers. “So I had to learn myself, which was great, because that turned into another creative thing I can do. That was obviously about the rock world, the music world, so that project ignited my interest in music, which ties into this play also. I got a little attention for it. It got a small release online, and I won an award for editing, which was an amazing thing for my first film. I’m still surprised that happened. We released that in ‘08. It’s online. It’s available for people to see it, but it’s kind of like a diary of my experience of living in New York in the early 2000s.”
Now, he has come full circle by still exploring the ins and outs of the music industry in Original Sound.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Original Sound, by Adam Seidel and directed by Elena Araoz, plays through June 8 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
