break down night

i really have to stop talking about my nights to people before I blog...by the time I get here, I'm exhausted!! So tonight's rehearsal, like always, didn't go quite as planned. I wanted to run through Act1 twice, but Esther kept fudging on lines. She knows them! I've heard her say them. When she gets on stage though, it's totally different. We're going to run lines (just me and her) tomorrow on stage. Also, tonight, after rehearsal, we went through Act1 Scene1 and picked out the places she jumps topics and the lines she must absolutely not miss. I think it will help.

I think my breakdown started when I realized Cam's lied to me about almost every thing. I'm kinda disappointed, especially after our talk last night, that he felt he needed to lie to me about kissing, playing guitar, and smoking. Playing guitar is slightly understandable (cause otherwise, I probably wouldn't have cast him) but the other two?!?! I talked with David about ideas on how I could fix it and he mentioned playing up the fact that he's bad as a joke. It'll be hard for me to change my mind, just cause it's been set in one way for so long, but I think we can make it work.

3 days till show time!

Rehearsal was in the music room again because of the media banquet. First time I didn't allow my actors to call for line, unless they were completely and utterly lost. I talked to them about trying to help each other with feeding their line through improv. Cam tried a little too hard and wound up confusing Esther more. I was happy he tried though, it gave me something to work with. Cam is still trying too hard to be funny and therefor isn't. I told him I needed the funny Cam I saw at auditions.

Esther twas prepared to try the stage kiss but one of the faces Cam made during the part of feeling her face and getting freaked out from stuff falling off, came across as a look of disgust and it really hurt Esther (understandably). Costume changes are getting faster and I don't think I'll need an intermission. Esther's scene with Kathryn went really well too. Blocking and lines were down pretty well.

Todd was great tonight! he took everything I gave him in notes from Friday night and applied them perfectly =) LOVE

O yeah, the scenes they ran on Saturday afternoon were a bit better. There was more character connection at least. After rehearsal, I talked with Esther and then actually got a chance to talk wtih Cam for a good hour. He wanted to let me know why he was super distracted Friday and Saturday. He opened up and trusted me as his director to keep our conversation confidential. It was such a great feeling! i talked him through how he might be able to apply some of what was going on in real life to what Don would feel at times. He talked to me about why the face touching scene was so awkward for him and his fear of rejection. I told him what I loved about his audition and the excitement he brought o table work. Go back to the beginning, the research, the excitement. We've dug so deep into his character, we need to pull ourselves back out. Find his comedy again and trust that the deep parts will be there when needed. I'm glad I got to talk with him. Usually I just get a chance to talk with Esther after rehearsal.

Saturday rehearsal

Today, after warm ups, we prayed! Every show has that one crappy rehearsal and last night was ours. NO MORE!!!! I hope. Today was better, line wise. We went through a lot of the technical scenes; specifically the kissing scene and working through the extension falling and eyelash falling, and the transitions of changing clothes. It'll take a couple more run-through's but I think we've got it mostly figured out. I had to leave for Touring Company stuff but there were still a couple scenes I wanted them to run, at least lines on. All three agreed to come back after lunch and run those scenes. LOVE!

I'm worried that I'm losing the funny-ness of Don. We've dove so far into his character that Cam's missing the surface level funny. The lines themselves are funny!! He's trying too hard.

My biggest problem is that they're not listening and reacting to each other. period.

Second problem... Cam doesn't know how to stay open. I'll have to explain the line that his body and face create and how to play with that to make it seem like he's open.

May 6

LAAAATE night! I'm so glad Brad was here with me. Lines were awful tonight.. lines they've gotten so many times before. It was the first night in costumes and makeup so that might have thrown them off a bit, even though they say it didn't. Costumes look great. I think I also got all the furniture (except the door) pulled. They kept getting frustrated with themselves for not remembering their lines, especially one's they've gotten before. The more they forgot, the more they got frustrated, the more they got out of character and forgot more lines. It was a bad cycle that I didn't know what to do with. It took an hour to get through the first half of scene 1. I decided to skip to Act 2 and work on Act 1 all of Saturday instead. Act 2 is usually a ton better (just cause we've had more rehearsals on it.. oops) but even that was rough. I just wanted to stop and send them home so many times, but I knew I couldn't. If I keep skipping rough scenes, they won't get better. I'm not happy that I held them till 2am, but I didn't feel like I had any other choice. Tonight was the first night I took notes (Brad was on book). We did warmups for the first time and I don't really know if it helped.

During the break, I stepped in the back and Brad calmed me down. I kept telling my actors "it's fine" even when we all knew it wasn't. Brad suggested I have them talk about it so they weren't concentrating on messing up anymore.

My favorite moment of the night was when Kathryn stopped and asked for more from Don to justify her actions. It was fun for me to help Cam figure out how to find what she needed.

the kissing scene

so today, Tracy came and helped with the stage kiss. jill and don didn't actually kiss but that's ok, and good actually. we talked about what leads up to the kiss and what causes the kiss and how it is received. Tracy explained how one of the most personal places on the body is a person's face. We compared how it's more comfortable and normal for Don to feel someone's face (be it, he's choosy about whose face he touches) and it's more intimate and touching for Jill. Jill isn't allowed to kiss Don until Don makes her feel like she wants to. He has to work for it.

I'm kinda getting scared because Cam is losing the funniness that I saw at auditions. Tracy said it's ok to call him out on it and ask for more. Yesterday was the first time I got frustrated with my actor's. Esther was fine for the most part, so I guess it was mainly Cam I was upset with. He didn't remember or do choices that we talked about the day before. He said his brain was fuzzy cause he was still kinda sick. On a good note, Todd was much more touchy with Esther. It looked infinitely better! I can't believe I cast the three most untouchy people in the theater!

I liked working with Tracy today. It was helpful to see how to guide actors to making their own choices. I asked her how to help create chemistry between Jill and Don. She said that they're concentrating too hard on their lines. They need to get out of the left side of their brain and work with the right. She said internal dialogue will be the most important; really listening to each other and responding authentically. Similar to how I took away their blocking, she mentioned I should take away their lines. Not sure how I'm gonna do that yet, but I've got time.

I'm glad I got to work with Tracy and David during this process. They say things that either I haven't figured out how to say, or haven't thought of pointing out. I wish I could remember it all, but I guess it'll come more naturally with time and experience.

David's help

Today was really great! but Kathryn was sick and couldn't come =/ We worked up in the mezzanine without blocking and just set up different obstacles for them to use. We ran Don and Jill's first "confrontal" scene (when she finds out he's blind). Jill liked the pacing (walking, not talking speed). We'll try adding it in when we run the scene for real.

David came to help today. We talked a lot about objectives for each character in the scene and who has control of the scene. We decided that Jill really has control and decides who should talk and when and what subjects are off limits. We talked about love languages of both the actors and the characters. Esther and Todd felt that touch was definitely NOT their love language, but it definitely was for Jill and Ralph. Esther asked me to point out areas of appropriate places to touch. I told her to look for moments where she feels like whoever she's talking with and her have a connection, and to usually insert touch around or shortly after there. The most difficult part about all this is not being able to describe what I want; I have to show them. I feel like it hinders my actors of making their own choices, and sometimes those are better than mine!

David explained the tennis ball game (tennis ball=power, can't talk unless you have the ball, how the ball is passed should represent emotion of speaker). It helped SO much!!! It was fun to see how the actors even surprised themselves. This exercise is great for establishing subtext.

Thursday's Rehearsal

I know this is late, so I'll try to keep it as accurate as possible! Today was the second night off book. They all did a great job.. still a little shaky, but they've got time. We ran through Act2 Scene1 and the very end of the show. I felt really bad because I didn't have all their blocking written down and they didn't either so I had no idea where they were supposed to be. They felt bad too for not having it written either. The hardest part of this all so far has been director AND stage manager. It's hard to write their blocking (especially when it changes) and watch them to make sure I like it and now helping them with lines. We got good work done though =)