Townspeople, aware of the show but not actually part of it, will wander through doing their regular jobs, but 23 people in the town will be phony, played by improvisational actors making up lines to suit the situation and their assigned roles.
They may think that the stories are merely manipulative, that the actors are phonies, that the writers, directors, and set designers are getting away with something.
The one thing the Brave New World Repertory Theater actors hope remains undeniably fake — as phony as Coney — is the thunderstorm at sea that opens Shakespeare's "The Tempest".
"Actors are always doing this phony breathing," Mr. McCourt said.
[An actor like you, you Anglicized, Jew-hating phony.] All male cats are named Tom — unless they have been fixed.
Over and over politicians, pundits and citizens faulted him for not being phony enough -- for not being as good an actor as Bill Clinton.
The rapper-actor gathered hilarious opinions as he recalled phony moments from a nonexistent ESPYs broadcast.
Meanwhile, phony memoirists get hailed (initially) on Oprah, and gasbag talk-show actors (they are not journalists, by a long shot) become millionaires as paragons of truth.
I have a whole new respect for actors and real celebrities -- you know, we're just phonies -- because it's not easy.
It releases the teen-age heroes, Will and Lyra — played by two excellent young actors, Dominic Cooper and Anna Maxwell Martin — from a world of guilt and oppression and phony purity.
