Tech Rehearsal

I applaud my designers and director. Paper tech, dry tech, and wet tech all in one day? It is a feat. Yes, we have a total of roughly seven light cues but still, wonderful work. We've had some issues with the set here and there, and we still don't know exactly where we are getting chairs for seating but it'll come together. Our actors were dismissed after just an hour and a half tonight. Now that's efficiency.

I will say this: ah, the perils of a found space. I think the cast is really getting settled in nicely to finally being in the performance space but set up and tear down is quite the process. According to our contract through our producing body Student Theatre Productions (STP), we have to be able to tear down and store our set every night so as not to be in the way of any thing else that might be in that space (usually classes or other productions). That is true of all levels of productions through STP because we simply do not have a space of our own to use. The College of Fine and Preforming Arts (CFPA) is kind enough to let us use this weird space, but, of course that means some extra interesting challenges to work through.

Behind our playing space are three massive mirrors that need to be covered. If we do not cover them, the light will reflect off the mirrors and interrupt the actors and distract the audience. So there is a necessity to cover the mirrors. The challenge is not really how to cover the mirrors or what to cover them with (black paper, if you are curious) but coordinating the schedule of set up and take down. Danielle is prepared with jobs and we have sufficient time. Then the issue becomes storage. Being, once again, in this weird space we don't have any storage at all. We will be storing props and set pieces in our stage manager's (Kayley) car.

Today, all of it seemed to come together. We're moving into dress rehearsals tomorrow. We have a preview scheduled for Wednesday night, and our shows are Thursday and Friday.

(I've decided) The tagline for the shows:
The apocalypse is coming...
But don't worry. It's a good thing.

tech weekend

We ran a whole she-bang last night for the first time and Danielle and I realized something:

We have a show!

And now, we have some big issues to deal with. Tomorrow begins tech. You'll have an update by the end of the weekend.

I got lucky.

Over two weeks since my last post but that doesn't mean things haven't happened. Final edits have come and gone. Our challenge right now is making sure our actors are off book. They no longer have scripts in hand and they're last day (ahem...my last day too) to call line is on Saturday. That means our first dress is Sunday. Everything is moving so fast.

On this day next week, we open. (I guess, technically, we're doing a preview on Wednesday so it's like we open Wednesday...but officially, this day next week, WE OPEN.)

The last two weeks have been a bit rocky, to be honest. With everyone so busy the commitment hasn't always been 100% from anyone, which is entirely understandable. Winter quarter is awful that way. Especially considering that in the last two weeks Iceman has opened and closed, midterms have come and gone, we're about to head into dead week and finals week, and our tech is in two days. I can't believe we haven't gone off the deep end at this point. We are starting to see amazing work from our actors. Some of them are very committed and some, I just can't tell. But I've been very lucky - I have an amazing director to work with. She's hit all these challenges with stride all while having to deal with a playwright.

I think the edits turned out pretty well. Originally, I thought they were probably going to be much more extensive but I find that the dialogue at least, was in pretty good shape. What really needed tweaking were certain plot points to better clarify the themes of the shows. I think in many ways, the themes could still be clearer but I think I need an audience to help me figure out where those places are. Seeing these plays in production just makes me hope that part or all of them will be produced again one day.

My major obstacle before the show opens is the solo piece. I knew when we proposed the show that this was going to be the biggest challenge for me (after being a silent partner playwright, that is). It is hard to step outside of yourself as a writer to become an actor, especially on something that you wrote yourself. That, however, is not my biggest challenge. My biggest challenge is overcoming some fear and blocks that I have from previous events in theatre over the past couple of years. I'm trying to be comfortable as an actor again, and I'm finding it really difficult. As I mentioned before, I have an amazing director and we're working really hard to create a character that is different from "Samantha," so hopefully that will alleviate some of the pressure. I have faith in my work; I'm just hoping I can get it to the caliber I want it to be by preview.

We're at the point in the process where it feels like it isn't going to happen. But it is. No matter the obstacles we come across (and trust me, there have been plenty so far), we're going to make it. Whew. We're going to make it

more than one

final edits due: tomorrow, february 12, 2010.

I was going to work on edits now before I head off to see The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill here at good ole Western Washington University, but I think I need more time to sit on them. I feeling pretty confident about the rewrites now but of course they need more work. (Rewrites always always happen.) I'm surprised how important the little things are to me. I spend hours agonizing over ellipsis and whether I should use "and" or "but" in a particular line of dialogue. From rehearsal to rehearsal, what I want goes back and forth. It is the little things that make the dialogue sound the way I want them too. One word often changes the tone of the line, the scene, and sometimes the play.

We haven't been in rehearsal for a couple of days so I'm trying to think back as to how everything sounds. It is time to be done with major rewrites and let the actors go to town with the work. They are already making some amazing discoveries. Of course, not everything goes how you expect it will but what ever does? I'm just trying to absorb all I can.

Danielle met with the boys from Regarding Eden on Tuesday and it was probably one of the most enlightening rehearsals we've had the entire process. She focused on character work interview style. This is something I always do as an actor and rarely do as a writer: ask every question I can possibly think about. Danielle had them all, all of the right questions to make me smile, to make me learn how my work comes out in other people's heads. I think the greatest moment of the night was between Danielle (DP) and Brian Toews (BT) who plays Devin:
DP: Based on that [all previous questions], do you think Devin believes in God?
BT: (after a moment) I don't think he knows.

THAT'S IT! Director helping actor learn character. Actor learning character. Actor helping writer learn what she has written. Writer learning about what she thinks.

I just hope I can do this whole process justice. With rewrites almost completed I step into ultra-silent mode. No more rewrites means just absorption. Of course, I also step into actor shoes. It's been awhile and since the writing is my baby, I expect a bit of struggle. But I'm still a performer. Everyone needs to know that. I still perform and will always.

Because you don't have to be just one thing.

time keeps melting away

We've decided that the final date for major script changes will be before ACTF week. So before February 15th. That is coming up quickly.

The solo piece (The Button) is looking good. As I mentioned in my last post, I shaved a whole page of unnecessary dialogue off the piece which, in turn, probably took at least five minutes off the running time. Until I read it out loud, I didn't realize that most of the beginning part was me just trying to get started. The pacing the first time we read it was very slow. Now the challenge will be to mine for character. They may mean adding more to the script. Or it may mean that now is the time the work of the actor really begins.

The ten minute (Bathtub Safety) is also looking pretty good. I did some minor edits of that script over the weekend to fix a plot point at the end and it seems to be flowing better than it was before. Bathtub Safety was the script that I had worked on the most before the project even began. I've been living with this script the longest and editing it the most, the work load with it started as significantly less. I doubt much more will change with the script but there are some repetitive parts, especially in the middle, that need to be smoothed out.

The one-act (Regarding Eden) is the script that requires the most attention at this point. While the major theme of the show is not religious (on my end) there is a lot of stuff about various religions and historical events that really need to be hashed out. Right now, I feel like it is slowing the progress of the show down because I don't yet have a clear grasp on what I want the purpose of the religious elements to be (well some of them, some of them I know.).

It seems that my major issue when writing is my repetitive nature. When I first write it, being repetitive helps me find a character voice. But by the second draft, it isn't character, it is too many words. I am slowly but surely discovering the depths of my process. More to come...