Sunday, July 02, 2006
Is That The Way It's Meant To Go: Rehearsal Number Twelve?
There comes a time in every young show's life where caution must be thrown into the wind, nervousness must be blotted from one's mind, and seemingly impassable hurdles must be tackled... Saturday afternoon was our first full run through! It has been over a week since we have given any real attention to act one, and four days since we had stumbled through our act two, but the moment was nigh for an adventure and who were we to stop it!!!
Keith Dickerson, the other half of our FourPlay band, joined us for the first time and helped to get the space a-rocking! We were also on the SAK stage for our first regular rehearsal since week one. We reviewed some of the act one song structures, talked over some of the staging details and opening sequence, and then began with Charles, Ron, Chase and Mark stepping into the four positions. While it's unlikely that we'll ever field an all-male cast for an audience, with Robyn out today and Kate having played in our last act stumble through, I thought this was the best way to give some new faces a chance to feel the show firsthand in their bodies. The show has a different feel when it's uni-sex. Initially, when I had conceived of this piece, I had wanted a 2/2 gender balance, but the auditions didn't afford this possibility. I am keen, however, to make sure that we field one woman a night so that, particularly in the "core" role (that is, the character drawn from the audience) we are more likely to have a sympathetic portrayal. Gender switching typically creates a parodic approach, which provides much of the fun for the supporting roles, but can limit us in terms of our ability to represent diverse experiences. Gender in improv is an interesting issue in general--perhaps worthy of more developed discussion in a later entry. (Although I would highly recommend Amy Seham's Whose Improv Is It Anyway? for those interested in this subject.)
Some lessons from our first run:
1. When we drop the asides device in act one, we often end up with less developed and memorable relationships for act two, and subsequently, more challenging storyline potentials. Also, several characters tend to go unnamed when we don't fully exploit this dynamic, and often remain at the problematic level of "strangers."
2. When a chorus is going to be shared by others on stage, we have to keep it VERY simple so that it will be remembered. Ironically, many popular songs have very simple choruses, and yet we tend to avoid this in our own work.
3. The company generally has a good handle on tilting the world of other characters and pimping featured characters strongly into song. Mark gave a great moment early in the act when he immediately bought Charles's first house as a real estate broker. This propelled the action forward. Ron showed strong story skills in act two when he provided our antagonist, Chase, with a lackey henchman willing to take out Charles's power monger boss.
4. The "montage" song of act two is still problematic. Keith watched this one today to give him a sense of it. We're hoping he'll lead it during Sunday's rehearsal so we can try to set the dynamic more consistently. We may have to return to the inner thoughts dynamic if we can't make this more clearly articulated.
5. We can't be afraid of change as characters. Chase gave a nice push when his mentor figure to Charles kicked the bucket, thereby leaving the latter millions of dollars and potential problems. Charles made a good discovery of actually making choices as the second act star, even if this meant he regretted them. This is crucial to the success of act two. Our star can't merely ponder his/her future without acting upon it and allowing the resulting complications to influence him/her.
6. We're still a little shy in terms of building stakes and jeopardy. The end of act two is quite different, and we still have a tendency to want to diminish, solve or ignore problems, rather than allow them to literally propel us into active song.
We play with sound during Sunday's rehearsal and add our three techs, Dana, Matt and Charlie. Sound was a major issue last season, so we're all keen to explore this component early to get as many bugs out of the system as possible. Gina, our Assistant Director, also joins our merry band of players! Yeah!!!
Didn't really sleep at all last night :( Ruminating on production challenges and issues.
Your sleepy-but-sincere Director, David C.
There comes a time in every young show's life where caution must be thrown into the wind, nervousness must be blotted from one's mind, and seemingly impassable hurdles must be tackled... Saturday afternoon was our first full run through! It has been over a week since we have given any real attention to act one, and four days since we had stumbled through our act two, but the moment was nigh for an adventure and who were we to stop it!!!
Keith Dickerson, the other half of our FourPlay band, joined us for the first time and helped to get the space a-rocking! We were also on the SAK stage for our first regular rehearsal since week one. We reviewed some of the act one song structures, talked over some of the staging details and opening sequence, and then began with Charles, Ron, Chase and Mark stepping into the four positions. While it's unlikely that we'll ever field an all-male cast for an audience, with Robyn out today and Kate having played in our last act stumble through, I thought this was the best way to give some new faces a chance to feel the show firsthand in their bodies. The show has a different feel when it's uni-sex. Initially, when I had conceived of this piece, I had wanted a 2/2 gender balance, but the auditions didn't afford this possibility. I am keen, however, to make sure that we field one woman a night so that, particularly in the "core" role (that is, the character drawn from the audience) we are more likely to have a sympathetic portrayal. Gender switching typically creates a parodic approach, which provides much of the fun for the supporting roles, but can limit us in terms of our ability to represent diverse experiences. Gender in improv is an interesting issue in general--perhaps worthy of more developed discussion in a later entry. (Although I would highly recommend Amy Seham's Whose Improv Is It Anyway? for those interested in this subject.)
Some lessons from our first run:1. When we drop the asides device in act one, we often end up with less developed and memorable relationships for act two, and subsequently, more challenging storyline potentials. Also, several characters tend to go unnamed when we don't fully exploit this dynamic, and often remain at the problematic level of "strangers."
2. When a chorus is going to be shared by others on stage, we have to keep it VERY simple so that it will be remembered. Ironically, many popular songs have very simple choruses, and yet we tend to avoid this in our own work.
3. The company generally has a good handle on tilting the world of other characters and pimping featured characters strongly into song. Mark gave a great moment early in the act when he immediately bought Charles's first house as a real estate broker. This propelled the action forward. Ron showed strong story skills in act two when he provided our antagonist, Chase, with a lackey henchman willing to take out Charles's power monger boss.
4. The "montage" song of act two is still problematic. Keith watched this one today to give him a sense of it. We're hoping he'll lead it during Sunday's rehearsal so we can try to set the dynamic more consistently. We may have to return to the inner thoughts dynamic if we can't make this more clearly articulated.
5. We can't be afraid of change as characters. Chase gave a nice push when his mentor figure to Charles kicked the bucket, thereby leaving the latter millions of dollars and potential problems. Charles made a good discovery of actually making choices as the second act star, even if this meant he regretted them. This is crucial to the success of act two. Our star can't merely ponder his/her future without acting upon it and allowing the resulting complications to influence him/her.
6. We're still a little shy in terms of building stakes and jeopardy. The end of act two is quite different, and we still have a tendency to want to diminish, solve or ignore problems, rather than allow them to literally propel us into active song.
We play with sound during Sunday's rehearsal and add our three techs, Dana, Matt and Charlie. Sound was a major issue last season, so we're all keen to explore this component early to get as many bugs out of the system as possible. Gina, our Assistant Director, also joins our merry band of players! Yeah!!!
Didn't really sleep at all last night :( Ruminating on production challenges and issues.
Your sleepy-but-sincere Director, David C.
