Quotes from tech

We’re in tech/previews now.

The great thing is that we get 5 previews and are able to rehearse in between. As our director said yesterday: “Everything we do is 50%, the other 50 is the audience.” She also informed us to “breathe with the audience.”

We had about 20-some people for the first ever preview. It was great to have them there. They were hesitant to laugh (we’re not quite sure how funny this show is). Afterwards, I chatted with a couple and one guy said that this reminded him of a Coen brothers film. I thought that was extremely appropriate.

Here are some other fun quotes. I’m not sure how well these translate on a blog post, but here we go:

• Director to the cast: “There’s no reason to be nice to each other…let it be the most dysfunctional family in 2010…it’s not a comedy of manners.”

• Director: “Is it time? Should we be acting?” (We had been on break for a while)

• Jeffrey Hatcher, who wrote the adaptation of this script: “I think Foldal should enter holding his severed foot.” (He’s describing a character whose foot is run over by a sleigh and comes limping on stage.)

• Director: I just messed this up.

Stage Manager: You’re right.
(The director had moved a chair onstage to explain some blocking. It moved off its spot, which had yet to be marked with spike tape)

• “We’ll just work through the show—I’ve got a list that could choke a horse.”
(The director met with the cast after the first preview performance the next day for rehearsal)


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A major note I received from our second preview is this tendency to move during funny lines.  This distracts the clarity of the humor; it pulls focus and the joke is lost.  I should know better right now, but it's been difficult to ascertain which lines are actually funny.  Now that we have preview audiences, we're getting more accustomed to the laughing bits.  I shall be still from now on!

I've also had a fun challenge of acting with both a hat (a back military-type thing) and some black gloves.  The show takes place in the winter in Norway, so things are cold (duh).  There's some precision with these accessories that cannot be taken lightly.  The last thing you want is a whole bunch of glove lazzi when you're trying to tell your mother off on an exit.

A lot of the work that I'm doing with this show has been an exercise in clarity and focus.  We've been working a lot of details that make all the difference in the world.  Until now it's been a bit dodgy and inconsistent from my perspective, but I get the sense that I'm starting to lock in the character.  The director says my performance has been growing steadily.  The self-consciousness is slipping away, thank goodness.

Snow Daze

We've were dumped with snow. And I have proof.

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This is just outside the theatre. I attempted to show how deep the snow got in some places, but that failed.
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The bluff nearby. I'm not sure if this photo can give the proper justice it deserves. Earlier this morning, the sun hit the bluff and made it all shiny with this haunting pinkish tint. You'll just have to take my word for it.



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Obligatory here's-my-car-underneath-a-ton-of-snow picture. Take a look at the front left part of the hood.


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Because of all the snow, I've been cooped up in the house, working on monologues. Here's the initials of every word to a Romeo monologue. It's a handy way to check memorization without having all the words in front of you:



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WE HAD A PERFORMANCE OF 1940'S RADIO HOUR last night. It was so great to be back on stage after three days of sitting around and watching movies. I did a bit of cleaning, but it was a ton of nothing. Last night, I finally had to walk to the gas station and get some milk (it's about a mile walk, round trip). My eyelashes felt particularly frosty after that trip.

BUT I DIGRESS.

The show was a lot of fun. It felt great to have a renewed sense of energy and purpose. The crowd was rather...inebriated... They were responsive to us, but it got to be a bit annoying and distracting.

I have a tiny speech where I talk about being in flight training and going off to war.

I said: "I got a call last night from my folks in Greenwood, Indiana..." I paused, trying to find the best way to say "and they said the best Christmas present I could give them next year would be my being home." Well, before going into that weighty bit, a couple people started cheering, applauding:

"WOO! Indiana!!!"

I stopped, hoping the silence would shut them up. It worked, but it put me completely out of the rest of the speech.

The audience acts as the actual audience of the radio show that is broadcast live throughout New York. So we interact with them and appreciate some verbal nods here and there. This time though...it was unwelcome.

A baby was also in the audience. It wasn't too distracting. While I was changing into my tap shoes and Ann is singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," I heard the baby coo. The mics picked that up into the dressing room feed. That was pretty adorable.

AND THEN TODAY we had 200 middle/high school students catching the show. They just didn't seem to appreciate the 40's. It's funny how one night the entire audience knows ALL the music, and the next it goes right over their heads. I think they ended up enjoying the show (or getting out of classes for a morning).

Movin' Right Along

I need more creative titles.

We do six shows in four days: 1 Thursday night, 2 on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and 1 on Sunday afternoon. It's quite a feat! The audiences really seemed to enjoy our performances this weekend. It's great.

Today, we had a special event called "Sunday Salon," in which an invited guest comes to discuss some topic that deals with the show. Today we heard some WWII stories. One couple was invited to explain how they used song titles as a code system. If "White Christmas" was mentioned in a letter, the wife knew her husband was in Hawaii. "I'll Be Seeing" you meant he was in Japan and so forth. It was very clever and never censored! Other people chimed in from the audience, sharing their stories from the war and using the radio as a means for entertainment and news.

It's great to hear these accounts. There were lots of tears in the room during the salon. This medium has a powerful impact on people. I think this show takes many by surprise.

Yesterday, we had a rehearsal look-back. The cast gathered with the artistic director and discussed how the rehearsal process went. We expressed what we loved, what was frustrating, how we grew as artists, etc. It was interesting to hear what people had to say. I won't go into details, but it's great that we had an honest conversation about what worked and what didn't. Hopefully what didn't work out so well can be remedied for future shows of this nature and others. We're constantly learning in this company, which I appreciate. We'll also have a production look-back or post-mortem to examine similar elements (outside of rehearsals, obviously).

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GRAD SCHOOL COUNTDOWN

I'll be auditioning for grad schools in less than two months.

Tonight, I'll be lookin' over Shakespeare stuff. I've got a bit of anxiety about choosing the right Shakespeare monologues. I'm looking at the ingenues, which just seem to be so cliche, but with my age and looks, that's my options (it's just weird to me to think I may end up working on Romeo's lines). There's a lot of Shakespeare that I haven't read. So I'm trying to find a good balance of working with what I know and stretching beyond that a bit. As much as I enjoy Shakespeare, I can't just sit and read it for long periods of time. I need to speak it and hear it. The problem is that time is ticking and I've got some finalized decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later. I aim to have a list picked out by Tuesday (probably of five or so monologues).

I do have my contemporary monologues. One is Alan from Picnic and the other is Pip from Three Days of Rain (which may be a bit too old for me, but it's got such a great amount of energy and humor, and I genuinely love the piece)

Thanksgiving

Whew. I just had Thanksgiving fun (traveling and eating) mixed in with opening a show and doing five performances in three days. It's tiring work to say the least. Add in some sickness recovery and you've got the potential for griping.

But that has all been wiped away.

I'm grateful for all the friends, family, talent, and opportunities I've had this year. It's been concentrated in the past few days. I've realized how much I enjoy talking to audience members. There are some outstanding, generous, and very smart subscribers and donors who love having a dialogue and relationship with the company members. Today, after our matinee, there was a mini reception and I had the opportunity to chat with some supporters who truly adore the work we do here. It's humbling.

It's not about receiving accolades and praise. It's realizing that the work I'm doing in this ensemble is making an impact on the lives of these people. That's why they keep coming back and bringing friends. Yes, it's entertaining, but it's sustaining and revitalizing people.



1940's Radio Hour has the potential to veer toward fluffy "deadly" theatre as Peter Brook would call it. But our production has some deeper elements and I think we're giving a nod to that pretty well. There's alcoholism and war content that broadens the scope and transports people in the audience, whether they were alive during the 40's, part of World War II, or any part of the military period (past and present)--okay, not so much the drinking bit, but it interrupts the radio show within the show for a little bit.

Initially, I wasn't a "fan" of this show, but the more I spend time with it and understand how much it has been affecting audiences and company members, the more I realize this stuff is important. It won't be too long before the folks of the 40's will be gone. This is a tribute to their times, which have plenty of ties to today. And theatre has a unique ability to link all of that together and aid in transporting people to places they weren't intending to go initially. It creates moments of transcendence--whether it's for five seconds, five minutes, or the entire show.

I've managed to feel that while attending shows (but it doesn't happen too frequently since I've got my eye on the acting and other production elements), but those striking moments kind of bash you over the head and feed the soul in ways you can't quite figure out. Art, particularly theatre in this case, changes lives.