Week 8: March 23-29

This week in ‘stumbling through’:

We did a stumble through (where you’ve worked on every scene in the play, and you attempt to run the whole play as a full unit in one go for the first time) for Lady from the Sea and it went really well. It was our first time putting all the pieces together. The ASM and I set all the props up for their pre-set and it was so incredible how prepared we were. There aren’t that many props/costumes in this show, but we had everything in the right place for the entire play. It was so seamless I don’t think I’ve been this prepared for a first stumble before.

This week in confidence building:

Every day I just feel myself growing. Ali and I had a great check in this morning. It’s been a few weeks since we had a chance to talk and find out how things are going on opposite sides of the building. I told her how amazing rehearsals are going on my end and how fantastic the SM and ASM are to work with. I feel so supported and comfortable in this world to really let myself learn and make mistakes. Ali suggested I come sit in on a You Never Can Tell rehearsal to watch another ASM work. Everyone has their own methods; it’s interesting to see what the possibilities are. So much of how I do my work is based on what I’ve seen other people do and adapt it to my own style. I love the fact that we all have our own methods and that everyone you work with affects how you might do paperwork or anything else. The ASM I’m working with is so zen about everything, it’s so rewarding to watch her work.

This week’s key words-AKA a lesson to live by:

“Be Strong and Wrong”

Our rehearsal room has developed an awesome vocabulary, things constantly get put into hot pants, we’re going to Buffalo, then Thailand and everything has a price. We’ve also being saying ‘Be Strong and wrong!’ Do something big and bold and if doesn’t work, we’ll fix it. Challenge everything. These words have really helped me a lot this week. Before the rehearsal process started, my SM asked what I would like to work on, and I told her I didn’t like prompting and that I’m not comfortable with it, so I’d like to improve. I’m constantly told to be louder, clearer and more confident when I prompt, and I’ve always struggled to do these things. I’m always afraid of giving an actor the wrong words, so I hesitate before I give them their line, and realized that because of this fear, I’m also not loud, so if I say the wrong words, they won’t hear it, and all is good. Except that’s completely wrong, but I’ve never been able to get over that until this week. At the end of rehearsals one day, the SM and I had a great chat about my prompting skills and how I’ve been doing. She told me my weakness is that I’m my harshest critic and that I doubt myself when I shouldn’t. This is something I’ve working on for a long time. It was such a comfort to hear her say that I need to stop judging myself and to just be strong and wrong, because I’m not helping anyone if they can’t hear me, and if I’m not confident then they’ll hesitate too and it breaks the scene. Now to put that into action! I got the chance to listen to another SM prompt and with the combination of this conversation and finally watching someone else do it, something in my head clicked and the rest of the week I just felt better about prompting, and all the fear and doubt disappeared. My SM even gave me a post it with a smile face on it!

This week in luxuries:

One night I sat in on the You Never Can Tell rehearsal for 2 hours to observe. It’s really incredible to be in a rehearsal room and have no responsibilities. I don’t think I’ve had the chance to sit back and observe other people work, and it’s such a huge part of learning for me. The ASM was working on paperwork the entire time so I didn’t really get to watch her in action and couldn’t really see her paper work. It was great being in a completely different process. Their show has so many props and it’s on a rake. The Shaw Fest really steps it up when it comes to providing the rehearsal room with everything as close to what it really would be like. Everything in the YNCT rehearsal hall is rigged to match the forced perspective/raked stage. It all will look like it is square to the audience, which means it really won’t be for the actors.

This week in directing and verbing:

To verb is to take your character’s text and break down every beat/line/moment by assigning a verb to it. It’s one way of clarifying your character’s actions. Tuesday we spent 3 ½ hours on the first 5 pages of Lady from the Sea. This play is very challenging. There are so many layers and very little is said. The actors have a lot of work to do in the first few pages to really establish the world and the characters. Without complete clarity in these first 5 pages the audience can really get lost in who everyone is, and it’s such a crucial part of this particular play. The relationships between Ellida and everyone else needs to be very clear from the beginning for the audience to come along for the ride and arrive at the same place.

This week in the shortest production meeting ever:

A production meeting was scheduled for Lady from the Sea this week, and about 20 people sat at the table to discuss anything technical about this show. We went department by department and each department basically had nothing to report or discuss. Everything is going pretty smoothly. We had one prop that still needs altering, the props team took the prop with them after the meeting and we had a much better version in rehearsal the next morning.