This quar­ter, we have cho­sen to spot­light Peter Meyer. He is a rel­a­tively new mem­ber to the orga­ni­za­tion, but is already very active — espe­cially as he has vol­un­teered to direct and head up the writ­ing of this year’s win­ter pro­duc­tion — Whose Shake­speare is It Any­way? He exer­cised his cre­ativ­ity and took a list of 21 pro­posed ques­tions and cre­ated the fol­low­ing inter­view. I am sur­pris­ingly well-written, if I do say so myself. (KB)

Recently, our esteemed web edi­tor sat down with mem­ber Peter Meyer over a cup of cof­fee and had this vir­tual discussion.

Karen Bog­ard:  It is so nice to sit down with you Peter and have a chance to get to know you.  I am sure our read­ers will enjoy the dis­cus­sion as well.

Peter Meyer:  Happy to do it.  I am always up for a cup of cof­fee, unless of course beer is offered.

KB:  I under­stand you were one of the first mem­bers to sug­gest a monthly Shakes­Beer meeting.

PM: Yeah, actu­ally I don’t want to take full credit, Dustin, Nol, and I were work­ing on the 2012 Win­ter show and meet­ing at Mad Anthony’s was a nat­ural choice, and from there the topic of Shake­speare, books, lit­er­a­ture, geek­dom, and of course beer grew, and lo and behold we insti­tuted Shakesbeer!

KB: I of course haven’t had the chance to attend due to silly work schedules.

PM: I am sorry for that. We intend to hold Shakes­beer on the week­ends too, so that oth­ers can join in on the merriment.

KB:  Great!  Well, I wanted to ask you some ques­tions to help our mem­bers get to know you bet­ter. (Pats a stack of blue index cards in front of her, Actor’s Stu­dio style)

PM: Go ahead!  (refills coffee)

KB: So first off, What is your full name?

PM:  Peter John Meyer.  I usu­ally go by Peter, though I have been called, PapaBear, Big Pete, and that drunken guy as well.  (Laughs, think­ing about how he got intro­duced to SFtH)

KB: PapaBear?

PM: Yeah, I played a father role in a col­lege show, and was called “Papa” a lot.  The bear part is kinda obvi­ous given the beard and size and all.

KB: what about “that drunken guy”?

PM: that’s kinda how I got intro­duced to SFtH.  I had been in a pro­duc­tion where I played a drunken Santa Claus.  Some fel­low cast mates tried out for the 2011 win­ter pro­duc­tion and told Dustin Reid about my act­ing.  He was look­ing for a Fal­staff.  So, large guy, does drunks,  yep… that drunken guy.

Case in point — Peter as Fal­staff in Best Regards.

KB: (flips a blue card) Well that answered my next ques­tion about how you got intro­duced to Shake­speare from the Heart.

PM: Yeah, the irony was that the two guys who got Dustin to audi­tion me ended up leav­ing the show early on.  That poor win­ter show almost didn’t hap­pen with actors being cast and leaving.

KB: But you stayed and we are thank­ful. Next ques­tion: What is your most mem­o­rable SFtH moment?

PM:  There are many great mem­o­ries. I am really glad to be a part of this group.  The whole pro­duc­tion of “Com­plete Works” comes to mind, espe­cially the night Dustin bit his own tongue in the first scene!  But the one that comes to mind hap­pened dur­ing the first show I did with SFtH.  It was at one of the pick up rehearsals between pro­duc­tion week­ends for “Best Regards”,  Dustin encour­aged us to try and mess each other up dur­ing rehearsal.  Then he started giv­ing act­ing sug­ges­tions like from “Whose Line Is it Any­way” and told me to do a scene as a piece of bacon fry­ing in a pan.

KB: Really?

PM: Yeah, so there I am lay­ing on the floor “siz­zling” It sort of just flopped there.

KB: Okay then. Next card, If you could cast your­self as any Shake­spearean char­ac­ter, who would that be and why?

PM:  I have always wanted to try Ham­let.  In “Com­plete Works” I got to be Ham­let.  My “to be or not to be” speech really chal­lenged my act­ing skills.

KB: Isn’t that when you went into a whole Twi­light ram­page about Bella and…

PM: (Blushes) Okay, see I think peo­ple mis­un­der­stood that whole episode.  I am a frus­trated junior high lit­er­a­ture teacher at heart. So I wanted to con­nect to our younger audi­ence, and felt that a ref­er­ence to pop cul­ture would deepen their under­stand­ing of the show and what Ham­let was facing.

KB: I believe Dustin and Nol had a real prob­lem with your ‘act­ing’ at that point.

PM: I sup­pose I did kinda lose sight of the real drama, but in my defence I have never actu­ally read the Twi­light books.  The whole thing was made up.

KB: Sure…

PM: Next question?

KB: Besides SFTH, which char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions are you pas­sion­ate about?

PM: My wife has worked for SCAN, and I am a big believer in pro­tect­ing our chil­dren from abuse and neglect.  So I was par­tic­u­larly glad when SFtH sup­ported their endeav­ors.  That is one of the aspects of SFtH that really appeals to me.  We share the love of Shake­speare and his works, but we do it as a way of ben­e­fit­ing Fort Wayne by help­ing local char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions.  I under­stand that the found­ing mem­bers were just a group of peo­ple who loved to act, yet they used that pas­sion to help oth­ers and not make a for profit activ­ity out of it.  I am excited for the future of Phoenix Pro­duc­tions, and SFtH in par­tic­u­lar.  Which is part of the rea­son why I vol­un­teered to direct the Win­ter 2014 production.

KB: What can you tell us about that show?

PM: It’s still in the writ­ing stage, but we want to build on the fun of “Com­plete Works” and have a light hearted evening of enter­tain­ment.  We are going to build a show based on “Whose line is it any­way” a improv game show.  Our actors will engage in a series of ‘games’ where they’ll impro­vise the scenes based on Shakespeare’s work given audi­ence input and participation.

KB: We’re look­ing for­ward to that.  Let’s wrap up with a few silly questions.

PM: Okay.  (Looks quizzi­cally over his coffee)

KB:  Star Trek or Star Wars? (And why)

PM: Ouch, I really enjoyed both as a kid, but I think Star Trek was a bit more believ­able.  I was a huge fan of STNG.  My wife and I would eat din­ner Sat­ur­day nights watch­ing STNG.  Though I am curi­ous to see what the next Star Wars films could be.  It’s a hard choice…

KB: (Flips a card) Cof­fee or tea? (And why)

PM: (Holds up steam­ing mug) Cof­fee 24/7.  The bean is the word.  Black, hot, and in steady supply!

KB: What is your favorite word? What is your least favorite word?

PM: Ennui.  It’s fun to say, no one knows what it means.  I like using big words.  Ennui means a lack of sat­is­fac­tion, or extreme bore­dom, BTW.

KB: and least favorite?

PM: I love words and play­ing around with the Eng­lish lan­guage I don’t know that I have an actual least favorite.  Though in gen­eral curse words bug me.  Its an easy way out, use your mind and express your­self in real language.

KB: What’s your favorite curse word?

PM: Shit.

KB: What sound do you love?

PM: Bacon fry­ing in the pan, and the cof­fee maker per­co­lat­ing.  Yep break­fast time. Bring it on.

KB: What sound do you hate?

PM: My alarm clock when its still dark outside!

KB:  Well thank you so much for your time today Peter!  We look for­ward to see­ing you around SFtH activities.

PM: Just don’t for­get to bring the cookies!