Hidden Treasure Productions

                            Director of Productions Valerie Herrera                                       SHADOWS OF THE MIND Written by: Kanaan Hesseling Directed by: Valerie Herrera ALL ROLES:  Unpaid, Non-Union  Character Breakdown AUDITIONS:  Online-only, prerecorded self-taped, slated audition piece. Please submit a google drive folder link to valjoyherrera@gmail.com  by  July 30th , with the following items in the google folder: 1) A slated audition video with a 2-3 minute dramatic monologue or dialogue (with the offscreen reader) of your choice for each role you are auditioning for. Your slate should include your name, the play’s name, the playwright’s name, and the character’s name. 2) Your resume. Please make sure your resume is up to date. 3) Your headshot (if not included on your resume). If you don’t have a professional picture, a school photo will do. It’s important that the directors are able to reference you for casting purposes. Please also complete the following google

My wife Beverly and I went to “spy out the land” in the London, England area of Harpenden in February of 2020, during the same time that our drama workshops were taking place here at home. We were in Harpenden to plan for our future construction/work team to go there in September 16-28 of this year and for our HTP production to perform there on April 7-21, 2021. Here in Oceanside, Valerie Herrera, our Director of Production, directed the drama workshops for our coming production, Shadows of the Mind.  Here is her Blog about the workshops: https://donatnewblogaddress.blogspot.com/2020/04/blog-5-to-worshop-or-not-to-worshop.html On a beautiful February day, we flew out to a very chilly and rainy London, England. It was cold in Harpenden, UK, and it even snowed on one day. I was not prepared well enough for the cold weather, but our host, Susan was able to borrow a warm sweatshirt for me to wear while indoors. Susan Murphy is our good friend and contact, as well as the Site Development

Would you consider supporting Hidden Treasure Productions (HTP)? We are a start-up 501(c)(3) non-profit theatre company, preparing to perform the play  Shadows of the Mind in Oceanside, California in October of this year, before taking it to international countries, including Third World countries in 2021. Our desire is to take live theatre to places in the world where it is not common or readily available.  We are in need of 20 wireless mics for our cast of 20 actors. The cost is about $10,000.00 dollars or about $500.00 for each mic. Please watch the video below for more details.        https://hiddentreasureproductions.org/contact%2F-give                Donald Dennison 1-760-458-0653 https://hiddentreasureproductions.org      don@hiddentreasureproductions.org Our Mission Statement is: Our mission is to create quality professional plays, to take into the world.

This is how it all started for me… anyway, kind of. When I was asked to perform in a theatrical play opposite of my wife, who by the way is a brilliant actor, my response was; “but I’m not an actor.” This two-act play would be a comedy in front of an audience of 300 plus for two showings… GULP!!! Having no experience on stage, it went surprisingly well. Actually, it was enjoyable! Little did I know that this one taste of theater would start me on this journey in the theatrical arts. Fast forward to 2018 and four plays later. I was involved, whether it was on the stage performing or behind the scenes. We decided to take one of these original two-act plays to Ukraine, to do a to three-city tour, with four different venues. This trip would be an adventure that resonates with me and many others, to this day! The challenges of being in a foreign country, the language barrier, customs, the different theaters and just the unknown were the norm.   This experience has taught me wha

I was asked to assist in the two-act play of Prodigal in Ukraine, not really understanding what I would be doing, except to support the production. What a great opportunity for a native-born Californian! As was to be the case, background pictures for scene changes and a translation in Ukrainian and English would be displayed during the performance. T hat was my job! It sounds simple, yet little did I realize how inspiring, nerve-racking and rewarding it would be all at the same time. This was in a foreign country, with different customs and norms, with two weeks to prepare. The goal was to learn the script, understand the scene changes, and positively interact with the cast and crew. It was an exciting challenge when the venue continually changed in both size and location. Keeping the flow and allowing for changes at every site was a learning experience. Inspired, I changed the translation lettering to be larger, huge in comparison to the English. Some sleepless nights we

What an adventure of traveling and performing in a foreign land! While we were stateside, I was amazed at how many rehearsals were required for the play Prodigal ! We performed this 2-Act play here in Oceanside, California, before taking it to Ukraine in October of 2018. At first, I was “all nerves” and a bit apprehensive, as this was my first time acting on stage in my life! Besides that, we were going to take it to Ukraine, too! Wow! When we left the USA, I had all of the normal worries. Was I any good? Would the play be accepted? Would anyone even show up? A lot of European countries have many more performances and are much more sophisticated, or so I had heard. You could say that I had my doubts about my undertaking! When we got there, we performed in 4 different locations and 3 different cities. One of the theatres was very old. All of the other actors, the Director and the support crew (make-up and running crew) were fantastic! I don’t think that even professional

My experience in other countries (23 so far) has taught me that there are many more ways to communicate than just using words. Sometimes communication is in mime, sometimes in hand gestures or another body language, and often just in facial expressions. Pictures can help and of course, there is Google Translate or some other language translator app. However, when performing a play, there is a myriad of other considerations, such as culture (trying not to offend others), humor (other countries have different senses of humor), dress (some places have rather sensitive ideas of what is appropriate), and even whether or not women should wear a headdress or veil. Some even want women to wear dresses that reach to the ground. Often, learning as much as possible about a culture before going helps avoid many misunderstandings. Performing in Ukraine was amazing! There were different stages in different cities and different cultures between different cities. Adapting to various stages was