Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Fico. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, John thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most important projects to me have been the ones in which I have had a personal connection- of which there have been very few. As a young actor new to NYC, I was told to accept any role I was offered. I did that and I ended up in some good projects but in many truly terrible ones too. Of course, you learn from everything you do; the good and the bad. All work can be interesting, and challenging, and you can make wonderful connections to new people. However, when it’s bad or very distanced from your emotional or personal experience it can become difficult and require more time than a low-budget production can give you in rehearsal. So it makes a big difference when you work on something that has real meaning to you. The work of truthfully fulfilling the playwright’s intention gets so much easier and when the job is easier, you can go so much deeper and further with your work. You can get more nuance and richness from a character and truly live onstage! So fast forward a few years from my arrival in NYC and after a decade of appearing in painfully unsuccessful theatre productions, I was finally cast in a wonderful and successful play, a new work by A.R. Gurney and directed by Jim Simpson at The Flea Theatre in NYC. It was called Screen Play and was a politically comedic riff on the classic film Casablanca. It was brilliantly written, hilarious, and timely — and was seen by an undiscovered playwright in The Flea’s playwriting workshop named Monica Bauer and she started casting me in her new plays. These were good productions and I wasn’t always good in them but Monica was kind and we became friends. Fast forward a few years to 2009 when Monica was having a crisis of faith after her largest and most ambitious play had failed to create fame and success. Meanwhile, despite the success of Screen Play years earlier, I was also having a crisis of faith. We were heartbroken and tired of putting everything we had into productions that just couldn’t lead anywhere. Still, we remained ambitious and driven. She had heard me wish that I could write a solo play for myself (after several terrible essays I decided to leave that to the professionals) and decided to write something for me! It would be a solo show, smaller than her previous plays, easier to control, and much less expensive to produce. But what should she write? Fortunately, Monica Bauer is one smart playwright. First, she interviewed me about what I wanted to say, the topics and performance styles I most loved and wanted to explore. In response, I told her some stories about my grandfather, whom I had never met until I shared a bedroom with him at the end of his life when I was twelve years old. Two weeks later, Monica came back having written a beautiful play performed in direct address called Made For Each Other. It isn’t about my grandfather but instead is a four-character fictional story that takes elements from my life, my marriage, and my career, but most importantly, it bases one of the characters on my grandfather and aspects of his life in his final years. Developing these characters, with our brilliant director John D. FitzGibbon, was the biggest swing I had ever attempted. At 39 years old, I had to find the physicality and vocal characteristics of two individual men my age, one 70-year-old former chorus girl with Alzheimer’s, and an ill 82-year-old immigrant with an accent. It was a huge challenge — but it was somehow never an overwhelming effort. Working on all this material that was so close to my heart gave me great amounts of inspiration and energy. I found pieces of my grandfather to put into the character, but also of a beloved aunt, an astoundingly lively elderly uncle, and even my father. Performing it was even more enervating! Even when I was tired during its run at The Edinburgh Fringe, or when I knew the house was not close to full — or once when I performed it in Central Park and a raccoon ran right across my playing area — I knew that all I had to do was breath deeply and give in. The characters would come, the playwright’s words would be honored, and I would receive some divine grace by honoring myself and the family that had come before me. It was a simple and glorious thing to connect with my audiences, the writing, my family, and myself. The biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on was the easiest one to work on! We’ve been doing Made For Each Other now for 14 years on and off and given its small origins and the lack of famous names involved, it has been a great success! It’s always been something that brings me personal satisfaction and gratitude. My craft grew so much in Made For Each Other’s premiere run in 2010 and in every run since there has always been something that I can find to work on — as if the piece was new to me each time. Although I truly believe the play, its writing, direction, and performance are all very very good, I know in my heart that its true appeal to audiences and reviewers is how much meaning the play and characters have for me and for the playwright (She also put elements from her own life into the piece. As Monica says, we both have skin in the game!) and the love and interest we have for the story comes through our work and speaks to people. They find meaning in it because Monica and I find great meaning in it — and have been nurtured by an intuitive and inventive director. Meanwhile, the success of the play — in NYC, LA, Florida, Arizona, Connecticut, London, and Edinburgh in legit theaters, bars, church community rooms, private backyards, and even near that raccoon den in Central Park — has led to an agent for me which has led to more auditions than I have ever had before, as well as bookings in commercials, v.o., print, and television. As they say; things lead to things. It should be noted that a production of Made For Each Other comes with offstage efforts as well. It usually involves me hauling a very large and heavy suitcase of props, set pieces, and costumes through the subway, across a tarmac, or up a long hill to a theater. Nevertheless, I have truly loved every minute of it. It has been a wonderful journey — and has been profitable in every way. The difference though between this play and all the others was the personal connection that I and the writer/producer Monica Bauer had to this project, this play, and to these characters. It has allowed me to truly reveal my truth, as we say onstage, in fictional circumstances. That’s what I was getting onstage to do after all, right? I can’t wait to perform it again!
John, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a versatile character actor who works in TV, theatre, and voice-over. I was once a professional puppeteer and now live with my husband of 10 years with our giant chihuahua in New York City.
The only things I have ever truly wanted to be were an actor and a New Yorker. The former was inspired by a grammar school trip to see a dazzling local high school production of the musical Mame. The latter was due to a first-grade excursion to the Empire State Building with my mother. (After eating my way across town from pretzel cart to hot dog vendor, I knew there was no going home again.)
As an audition coach, I tell my clients to let their characters take responsibility for their feelings — advice I also give to myself. Give your frustrations with the audition process, your anxieties about memorizing, in fact all your problems to the character and let them deal with it in the scene. In other words, give yourself a break and put it into your work.
I have found that keys to “success” (whatever that means) in this business is persistence, and an honest open breath. And persistence. Also, persistence.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
This may sound silly or obvious, but my goal is to keep going. Yes, I want that Guest Star role. Of course, I want more auditions and I’m counting callbacks. And I am definitely hoping for that one big huge break that will change my life forever. But what I really want is to get up each day and begin again. At the end of the day there is only myself and the people around me. I get to know both better each day.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I learned to rely on other people and institutions when I was younger. I thought there was no place for me in an internship with a non-profit theatre company. I assumed that asking friends for help in any way would be a sign of weakness. It turns out you can read all the career-advancement books out there and try to do it all yourself but that printed advice is already about to go stale in our ever-changing and competitive industry and you need a support system because it is simply too hard to do it alone. Find your people and ask them for help. And offer help to them! Knock on doors and find out not just what is being cast this season but if you can be useful and helpful in some other capacity. You’ll learn so much from the inside and you’ll make friends along the way.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
production photos by Ellis Gaskell headshots by Matthew Murphy