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Running Around or Looking at a Screen
Sep. 27th, 2006 01:32 pmSunday -- rehearsal with Alyssa and Walter for their two scenes in Temptation. To be clear, Havel's play is in 2 acts of 5 scenes each. 3 scenes take place at The Institute's Office and feature the main group of actors, nine or ten people, depending on the scene. 2 scenes take place in The Institute's Garden and feature the same people, plus another two or three, depending on the scene. 3 scenes take place at the apartment of the main character, Foustka, and feature two or three people, and 2 scenes take place at his girlfriend and colleague Vilma's apartment, and feature three people.
So we were doing the Foustka/Vilma scenes on Sunday, with me standing in briefly for the as-yet-uncast part of the Dancer (a rival for Vilma's attentions). We worked at Alyssa's apartment, as we could with the small group, and blocked their scenes (thus finishing blocking the show, hooray). Ran each of the scenes several times as well, able to deal more with acting than I had at the other "blocking" rehearsals.
And here's where I even realized at the time how boring the blog was going to get as rehearsals went on, for Alyssa and Walter got where I wanted to go with the scenes almost immediately and did great work that will only get better with repetition and more and more focus. So, how interesting is that to write about and read? "The actors are great and will get better." Well, that's an exciting journal entry right there. Maybe I can write about paint drying for a follow-up.
Maybe I'll just make things up . . .
No. Just fewer things to ramble about.
Well, the BIG problem I'm facing now (problems being more interesting), and have been facing for days, is that I'm still down five actors -- two small speaking roles, three small mute roles. Casting notices have gone out and around, and have wound up posted in public places, so I am getting inundated with submissions for the parts -- most often from people who are obviously getting it from some casting website where they can just click to send me their headshot/resume and form cover letter. So, lots of submissions, great. Then I send all these people the more detailed cast breakdown and schedule, and I get almost no responses. A couple of "schedule doesn't work" people, one "can't make auditions this week, how's next week" person, and one person I was expecting to meet at The Brick yesterday who didn't show. I came home last night from rehearsal to 8 new submissions, and woke up this morning with another 6. Let's see if any of them respond to my emails.
So, when I'm not off at rehearsals or meetings this week, I'm sitting around pot-watching the internet until my inbox boils, and dealing with more business stuff online (insurance, rights, program, etc.).
Monday night was a big HavelFest meeting at The Brick. Meet and greet, see other directors and cast, ask and answer questions. I helped Michael and Jeff show the other Brick crews, new to the space, around the theatre a bit. It looks like things will run fairly smoothly at The Brick. Don't know about The Ohio, they've got a lot more shows/people there, but that's not my problem (sorry, Berit, I know it's yours).
Last night, we had our first rehearsal in the actual space, with most of the "office" crew there. I came in early to set up the "set" in the space for the first time, hoping my plan would work, and it did . . . almost. Basically, the three "indoor" locations are all upstage, left, right, and center, with two screens that will be rolled to different positions to delineate the spaces, which share a few pieces of furniture (so a desk in the office becomes a vanity table in Vilma's, etc.). Unfortunately, this was more clever on paper than in the space, and I had to adjust pieces to accomodate where the screens will have to go and for the sake of audience sightlines. Measuring things out on Monday night, it also became apparent that instead of two 8'x7' screens, one of them will have to be 10'x7' to cover what it needs to (I may drop the height to 6'). They will definitely have to be built to break down now -- which Berit had insisted on and which I had thought was unimportant. At least it became obvious to me where I would have to place the practicals (all the upstage scenes are lit only with practical lamps, no stage lights), and the light will look lovely (luckily, Michael Gardner also wants to light his Havel show with practicals, so we can really insist to the house plot designer to give us all the dimmable onstage edison plugs we need (I need eight, would like ten).
The office scenes looked good crammed in their upstage right home. We went through the first two last night and cleaned up the blocking now that we're in the actual space. Ran each scene three times each, I think, and focused on acting more and more. The first scene is actually more difficult than I thought -- it sets everything up, and it's shorter than it feels when reading it, but it's pretty static and uneventful in and of itself. I think I'm maybe a little too used to the eccentricities that are there, which will hold an audience's interest, at least I hope so, as it IS the first scene of the show. It'll wind up requiring an inordinate amount of work to get the pacing right, I'm sure. The second scene has many more ups and downs, and a lot more meat to it, and was fun to get into. Very funny and very painful.
. . . which is the great thing I've found about this play, it's both a lot more funny and a lot more painful than I expected it to be (I expected more "creepy" and "witty"). Since I like to both bring the pain and bring the funny (together if possible), this is good for me. The actors are getting into both sides as well -- faster than I thought was going to happen -- I just need to ride them on the lines they'll be walking, so they don't fall too much into one emotion or another.
Tonight, I'm director of photography on Daniel Kleinfeld's short DV horror film, Still Life. Tomorrow, I see if I can write/design/shoot my own horror short, Software, for the same anthology project of Bryan Enk's in one or two days. Saturday morning, EARLY, back to The Brick for rehearsal. It never rains but, never rains but.
So we were doing the Foustka/Vilma scenes on Sunday, with me standing in briefly for the as-yet-uncast part of the Dancer (a rival for Vilma's attentions). We worked at Alyssa's apartment, as we could with the small group, and blocked their scenes (thus finishing blocking the show, hooray). Ran each of the scenes several times as well, able to deal more with acting than I had at the other "blocking" rehearsals.
And here's where I even realized at the time how boring the blog was going to get as rehearsals went on, for Alyssa and Walter got where I wanted to go with the scenes almost immediately and did great work that will only get better with repetition and more and more focus. So, how interesting is that to write about and read? "The actors are great and will get better." Well, that's an exciting journal entry right there. Maybe I can write about paint drying for a follow-up.
Maybe I'll just make things up . . .
No. Just fewer things to ramble about.
Well, the BIG problem I'm facing now (problems being more interesting), and have been facing for days, is that I'm still down five actors -- two small speaking roles, three small mute roles. Casting notices have gone out and around, and have wound up posted in public places, so I am getting inundated with submissions for the parts -- most often from people who are obviously getting it from some casting website where they can just click to send me their headshot/resume and form cover letter. So, lots of submissions, great. Then I send all these people the more detailed cast breakdown and schedule, and I get almost no responses. A couple of "schedule doesn't work" people, one "can't make auditions this week, how's next week" person, and one person I was expecting to meet at The Brick yesterday who didn't show. I came home last night from rehearsal to 8 new submissions, and woke up this morning with another 6. Let's see if any of them respond to my emails.
So, when I'm not off at rehearsals or meetings this week, I'm sitting around pot-watching the internet until my inbox boils, and dealing with more business stuff online (insurance, rights, program, etc.).
Monday night was a big HavelFest meeting at The Brick. Meet and greet, see other directors and cast, ask and answer questions. I helped Michael and Jeff show the other Brick crews, new to the space, around the theatre a bit. It looks like things will run fairly smoothly at The Brick. Don't know about The Ohio, they've got a lot more shows/people there, but that's not my problem (sorry, Berit, I know it's yours).
Last night, we had our first rehearsal in the actual space, with most of the "office" crew there. I came in early to set up the "set" in the space for the first time, hoping my plan would work, and it did . . . almost. Basically, the three "indoor" locations are all upstage, left, right, and center, with two screens that will be rolled to different positions to delineate the spaces, which share a few pieces of furniture (so a desk in the office becomes a vanity table in Vilma's, etc.). Unfortunately, this was more clever on paper than in the space, and I had to adjust pieces to accomodate where the screens will have to go and for the sake of audience sightlines. Measuring things out on Monday night, it also became apparent that instead of two 8'x7' screens, one of them will have to be 10'x7' to cover what it needs to (I may drop the height to 6'). They will definitely have to be built to break down now -- which Berit had insisted on and which I had thought was unimportant. At least it became obvious to me where I would have to place the practicals (all the upstage scenes are lit only with practical lamps, no stage lights), and the light will look lovely (luckily, Michael Gardner also wants to light his Havel show with practicals, so we can really insist to the house plot designer to give us all the dimmable onstage edison plugs we need (I need eight, would like ten).
The office scenes looked good crammed in their upstage right home. We went through the first two last night and cleaned up the blocking now that we're in the actual space. Ran each scene three times each, I think, and focused on acting more and more. The first scene is actually more difficult than I thought -- it sets everything up, and it's shorter than it feels when reading it, but it's pretty static and uneventful in and of itself. I think I'm maybe a little too used to the eccentricities that are there, which will hold an audience's interest, at least I hope so, as it IS the first scene of the show. It'll wind up requiring an inordinate amount of work to get the pacing right, I'm sure. The second scene has many more ups and downs, and a lot more meat to it, and was fun to get into. Very funny and very painful.
. . . which is the great thing I've found about this play, it's both a lot more funny and a lot more painful than I expected it to be (I expected more "creepy" and "witty"). Since I like to both bring the pain and bring the funny (together if possible), this is good for me. The actors are getting into both sides as well -- faster than I thought was going to happen -- I just need to ride them on the lines they'll be walking, so they don't fall too much into one emotion or another.
Tonight, I'm director of photography on Daniel Kleinfeld's short DV horror film, Still Life. Tomorrow, I see if I can write/design/shoot my own horror short, Software, for the same anthology project of Bryan Enk's in one or two days. Saturday morning, EARLY, back to The Brick for rehearsal. It never rains but, never rains but.
