ARS Day 3

Dress Rehearsal Day!

During our morning meeting, we determined to go through the whole play, stopping and starting as needed. Before that, we had a music rehearsal for the in-show songs. If I'm not mistaken, As You Like It has the most songs of any Shakespeare play:

"Under the Greenwood Tree"
"Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind."
"It Was a Lover and His Lass."
"What Shall He Hath That Killed The Deer."
"Wedding is Great Juno's Crown."

We also bring "Blow, Blow" back at the end with a dance.

We managed to make it through the show in the morning. I used it as a practice dress rehearsal and tried out all my costumes, since I wasn't exactly sure how much time I had for my changes. Backstage, stage management has posted a scene chart with the number of lines in each scene along with who's in that scene (remember, we've only been provided with cue scripts). It's a good way to gauge, early on, how much time we've got before the next entrance. I learned my changes are pretty easy. There are some times when actors have to leave a scene as one character and enter in the next as another. We're working with some creative ways to get those people off stage earlier to help with the quick change.

I MUST MUST MUST write in new entrance cues for some of my scenes. Often a character will say "here comes ______________" and that's the cue to enter. But given that we've got doors on the Blackfriars Stage, it doesn't make the most sense for a character to magically know that another is entering without seeing them. This means the cue has to be bumped up a line or two.

After an hour lunch break, we got ready for our dress rehearsal. We used music call to work on the interlude music. Our pre-show music is not quite ready. I think we're using the four hours we have on Friday's rehearsal to use for that. Some staff from the theatre staff showed up for the dress. We even had a person sit on the gallant stools on stage--always helpful.

I imagine we'll get some notes about how everything looks and flows on Friday. I know there's a few blocking snafus that I'd like to adjust in a couple of my scenes. They may or may not get rehearsal. We can discuss as needed. I love how open and willing everyone is when it comes to addressing concerns or little problems. There's absolutely no ego involved.