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Griffin Stanton-Ameisen has accentuated accountability as a stage presence since middle school, believing he can command considerable sway in touting theater’s thrills. Balancing loves for established and newfangled works, the 28-year-old has become a coveted performer and is meshing the canonical with the contemporary by handling seven roles in “Gint,” Romulus Linney’s adaptation of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s “Peer Gynt.”
“We always need to find and keep finding who the next audience is,” the resident of the 500 block of Christian Street said of his status as a student of modern viewing habits. “I feel there’s nothing better than experiencing live theater with an audience, nothing as instructional.”
Through Sunday, the Queen Village inhabitant is giving and receiving lessons for EgoPo Classic Theatre at Old City’s Christ Church Neighborhood House. Making his fourth appearance for the South Philly-personnel-heavy company, he is reveling in reviving interest in Ibsen and promoting enriching entertainment.
“I really admire everyone at EgoPo,” Stanton-Ameisen said of his peers, including artistic director and East Passyunk Crossing resident Lane Savadove, who is helming the project. “I love its aesthetic and allegiance to themed seasons.”
“Gint” caps the 23-year-old entity’s Ibsen Festival, transplants the action from Norway to the Appalachia region and concerns the titular character’s tumultuous existence and search for solace. Stanton-Ameisen lauds the reworking of the 1876 classic as a “super different type of storytelling” that compels participants to inject themselves into discussions of its tenor.
“Lane says it’s a story for the everyman, the everywoman, and I believe that,” the thespian, whose personas include a bully, a hog king and a preacher, said of the tinkering. “It’s a powerful look at the struggles that occur when people consider where they fit in the world.”
In helping his contemporaries, whom he cherishes as representatives of Philadelphia’s tight-knit theater existence, he is also expanding his stance that time-tested pieces do not deserve desertion with respect to innovative looks at their messages simply because they have obtained hallowed estimations. A proponent of innovation, he will never see anything as too sacred to reconsider or alter.
“This play is very faithful to the text, with adjustments made for the setting,” Stanton-Ameisen said of his endeavor. “Its inspiration and other plays are calling for us to gain insights into who we are. We just can’t think of them as untouchable masterpieces. If we need to reimagine a work to help with accessibility, so be it.”
Bryn Mawr-born and bred, the focused force bowed to theater at a young age, parting with a passion for athletics. As a determined Rosemont-situated high school student, he relished responsibilities as a presenter of tales and initiated directing duties as a senior.
“I’ve never really looked back,” Stanton-Ameisen said, adding his secondary schooling intensified his resolve and receptivity to placing the likelihood of any success squarely on his shoulders. “I knew I had to find a strong reason to determine why I was involved, and that came easily.”
He found great support for his nature at Temple University, where directing, producing and acting proved his perspective-enhancing enticements. Feeling especially well-rounded as a pupil through English, history and philosophy courses and gaining great exposure through three years of FringeArts turns, he quenched his thirst for more knowledge at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“That was a fantastic experience,” Stanton-Ameisen said of his master’s degree-granting stint, which saw him teach every semester and take part in 14 productions through the Nevada Conservatory Theatre. “I was able to work on so much there that I really felt prepared to establish a career.”
Knowing before his departure that the East Coast would win his favor, he returned to Philadelphia and garnered immediate renown through numerous outfits, including EgoPo; the Walnut Street Theatre; Luna Theatre Co., 620 S. Eighth St.; and The Renegade Co., 930 Sigel St., for which, under artistic director and East Passyunk Crossing denizen Michael Durkin, he serves as associate artistic director. In that function, he is also revisiting esteemed reads and using “Unconventional Community Collaborations,” according to a release for last Sunday’s Star Wars-themed fundraiser, to broaden their appeal.
“‘Gint’ could be a Renegade work,” Stanton-Ameisen said of showing that strikingly new analyses can come from work pigeonholed as complete.
The multi-faceted figure has become infatuated with addressing the output of another frequent recipient of acclaim, William Shakespeare, and founded Revolution Shakespeare in August to stage “bold productions and readings” of the Bard.
“Being revolutionary can just mean doing something well,” Stanton-Ameisen said of a critique that his brainchild has a pretentious title. “His material is some of, if not the absolute, hardest work to act, direct and conceive well-roundedly. It’s the most invigorating, too, though.”
His creation, which presented “Henry VI, Part 3” at Hawthorne Park, 12th and Catharine streets, in October, will handle a production of Orson Welles’ Shakespeare adaptation “Five Kings” in July through a Philadelphia Museum of Art partnership. That task figures to delight Stanton-Ameisen, as will the honor of playing Hamlet for the Delaware Shakespeare Festival that same month.
“I want to do the whole canon at least twice,” he said of his affinity for its constituents, which he added always contain themes relevant to today’s citizenry.
One such topic, marriage, will soon sate him, as he and fellow thespian Dana Kreitz became engaged in March and are envisioning a Fall 2015 wedding.
“I’m a pretty happy guy,” he said of his vocation and relationship. “A fortunate one, too.”
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