Week 18: an impromptu update: The details

For any hopefuls looking for a better update from last week, here it is!

This week in the office:

With one week until I hit the stage, I tried to use as much of my office time to do paperwork for SKY. There wasn’t very much going on in the office this week, which should have allowed me time to update the things I needed to update, but because I had rehearsals every night this week and a few longer rehearsal blocks than what we’re used to, my office hours were actually very limited. I didn’t get much of a chance to do the paper work I wanted to do, but enough of it go updated so that I felt ready for the big day on stage.

This week in The Secret Cross:

No, this is not a religious thing, or as mysterious as it sounds. One of the actors that is in our cast has not been available for rehearsals up until this week. This particular scenario rarely happens-they call it the ‘secret cross’. Almost all the actors are cast in 2 shows per season (and usually have a few understudy roles-as described in last week’s post), when an actor is in two shows, they call it their cross shows (a lot of actors are in both Sweet Charity and Pygmalion this year- so it’s the Charity/Pygmalion cross cast. We have a cross cast chart so we know what to watch out for when we’re making schedules, so that we don’t double book anyone. When someone is in a ‘secret cross’ it means that they’re available to be in all the performances, but are not available to attend all the rehearsals. It usually happens when someone is playing a character with very few or no lines and is only in 2 pages or less. In this particular case, the actor wasn’t available to be with us for the first 7 weeks of rehearsal. He was available for one rehearsal before we hit the stage at the end of the week, and from on stage rehearsals to closing night, he’ll be with us every time. Needless to say, we spend his only rehearsal with us introducing him to his blocking and he got a chance to see the play and what we’d been doing without him. When he walked in the room at the beginning of the night, we all cheered and applauded him, and when he finished his track, we did the same.

This week in the land of dance and athletics:

I did so much physical activity this week! Wednesday was the first ‘boot camp in the park’ session. There will be 16 sessions every Wednesday morning. You pay for as many classes/sessions as you want to attend. I hate gyms and would much rather work out with a group and do something fun and different than figure out how to work machines and then never go to the gym. ALSO-working out in a park with a bunch of co-workers who are all so supportive and enthusiastic is so much better. We have a boot camp instructor, and there are about 8 of us-mostly made up of stage managers, and women (only one guy). The exercises are specifically designed each week to best help the group. So if you moan and complain and can’t finish something-guess what-next week you’ll have to do it again with modifications to make it harder. You feel like you want to die throughout the entire workout, but somehow at the end I knew I’d be coming back all summer, it felt good. We also laugh a lot-that means we’re working our abs right?

The next day I had cricket practice in the morning. I still need to get better at catching. We did some cool exercises, ever week we do different drills, and they’re all a lot of fun. This particular one was that we got split into two teams and then lined up and had to throw short passes up and down the line, while racing against the other team. My team lost each time, but barely. The exercise really helps with thinking and reacting quickly but accurately. Unfortunately a stage management meeting was scheduled for 11:00am I had to cut my cricket practice short, more on the meeting later.

I had one day of rest and then I did a Jazz Ballet class Saturday morning. This was the second Jazz Ballet class I’ve been to so far. I’d been looking forward to learning Jazz Ballet, I’ve been wanting to take classes for a really long time, I just didn’t have the space in my schedule. I’m definitely struggling with this class, it’s been probably 23 years since I last did Ballet (maybe more?) so to say the vocabulary is lost on me at this point is pretty accurate, which makes this particular class very challenging. Everyone else taking the class are all professional dancers and know these words and what movements are associated with them is second nature to everyone. I’m learning certain combos, but I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere because I’m just mimicking the person in front of me and I definitely don’t have the technique (specifically when doing any kind of turns-I get dizzy very easily and don’t have the technique of focusing on a spot while your body turns and your head follows quickly after.) I’d really love to have a private 30 minute lesson where I can link words with techniques so that the class can actually teach me a bit more. The actor teaching this one came up to me later that day and said she’s been thinking of different moves I can do that will help make the class more accessible to me. I thought that was so amazing. All these classes are being taught because actors are volunteering to teach them, so for someone to be thinking about how to help me in their spare time is amazing and wonderful!

Sunday I went to an actual Ballet class. We spent the first 45 minutes doing Bar exercises (and we had the musical director of the festival accompany us on piano). This was an amazing class! It was exactly what I wanted-a place to start. I definitely forget that I have arms when I dance and to match them with each ballet position was very helpful and I felt so graceful. The last 30 minutes of the class we did exercises away from the bar, which were obviously a bit more challenging for me, by the time we got to learning a few combos, I was out, I think I watched for about 10 minutes. Ballet takes a lot of brain power, and a much different use than what I normally do. It felt amazing. By the time Monday came I was definitely exhausted, but surprisingly not as sore as I thought I would be. I’m hoping that’s a good sign…

This week in moving to the stage:

As mentioned in my original Week 18 post-we had our first On Stage rehearsal. We were so ready for this! The room we were rehearsing in up until this point was just not big enough for us-our set barely fit in the room, and the SM table and Director table were actually technically on stage. Fortunately we were sitting on the apron (an apron is a part of the stage that extends beyond the proscenium-when the audience is all sitting facing the stage, and not on 2 or 3 sides, and the stage is framed as if it were a picture frame and the audience is looking into the picture it’s called a proscenium theatre. Prosceniums always have a bit of a lip or an edge that extends beyond the invisible forth wall.) Our tables and chairs had to be on the apron, the room just wasn’t big enough. Normally SM and Directors sit about 4 feet away from the edge of the stage in the rehearsal hall so the actors have a better sense of where the audience is and how much space they have. Luckily in this particular set design and blocking-the actors don’t use the apron at all so it wasn’t as big of a problem as it could have been for someone else. To get on stage and have as much room off stage as we did on our set was AMAZING. Because it’s a festival (and we’re on the main stage) there are 3 shows that get rotated in and out (when this happens it’s called a cross over, one set gets taken apart and stored and another set gets put in place for a performance, a third set also has to live in the same area). While Sweet Charity is being performed, backstage has to have enough room for two other sets (Light up the Sky and Pygmalion) plus room for all the traffic and quick changes and backstage goings on…. It’s GIGANTIC backstage and on top of so much space being occupied by sets not currently in used-there’s still TONS of space to walk around.

The difference between working in a unionized theater and a non-unionized theatre is that I hand over all my paperwork to someone else and watch them do it. My job back stage is to watch someone else do the work. I make sure actors are standing by for their entrances, and if they are not standing by, I ask someone to go get them. That’s what I do. I’m on stage left in this play and there are three entrances on my side. Like I said in my last post-I’ll have tons of spare time once this puppy opens. In Montreal, I would do my own pre-set, I would be the person placing all the props and costumes in their ‘start’ positions. Here, I write out where everything needs to go and then watch someone else do it. If I want to help I have to ask if it’s ok. It’s a weird feeling when my instinct is to place everything myself but can’t. I’ve definitely automatically taken props from actors as they walked off stage and then realized that I shouldn’t be doing that… I thought I would be excited about this particular part, but I kind of feel useless and like I don’t need to be backstage. There are definitely things for me to do, and I’m learning so much (like making sure my paperwork makes sense to someone else) and I’m sure I’ll get used to it!
This week in quotes:
"A play's dialogue is an incantation and the actors must bewitch us with it"

And that’s what really happened last week!