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Ahead and Behind
Oct. 18th, 2006 10:42 amBusy with Temptation for the Havel Festival the last five days - and when not busy with the show, busy with some other little thing, or asleep. Or getting a movie in, a couple times.
The show is going really well. I keep saying that, but it's hard to convince myself of that. I keep being sure that something's wrong that I'm not seeing, or I'm missing something. We did "full-run-thrus" the last two nights (missing three actors on Monday, two yesterday) and . . . the show is good. Actorially, we're in very good shape for opening two weeks from tomorrow. Almost everyone is off-book, and the performances are architecturally sound - I just need to keep fixing the filigrees (new things happen and must be kept or quickly discarded before they become habit, old things that were to be kept are forgotten and must be cemented back on).
In terms of acting/staging, we're ahead of the game, and good on us. Now as to everything around the actors . . . well, I'm not really behind yet, at least as I usually am, but I feel like I am. No rehearsals the next two days, so I plan on beginning to bring things over to the space and start the load-in/build. I had hoped to have all of the tech done by the time of our first run in the space with the full cast on Tuesday, but I don't think I can get all of it done. Probably the set, possibly the lights, maybe some of the costumes, almost certainly not the sound. Once the set/lights are done, the sound will be, well, not easy, but a pleasurable hassle.
The costumes, as always, are the bit I know nothing about, hate, and wish I didn't have to think about (and I don't have Yvonne to help me out on this one as she did on World Gone Wrong and That's What We're Here For). Well, okay, there's a bunch of suits (how cheap? how cheesy? how nice?), and some lab coats (which I'm going to buy -- I always seem to need lab coats and never have them and wind up borrowing waiters' jackets), and then some evening clothes (I'll see if I can find a Salvation Army tux for Walter, and as for the women . . ?). Maybe when I'm getting the lab coats I'll look for "uniform" type clothing for Maggie and Jessi. Timothy and I seem to have most of what we need for him. The Dancer? If only I could find a purple velvet suit. With an ascot. Depending on how much I get done over the weekend (ie; if I finish set/lights), next Monday/Tuesday will be "costume-centered" days, then on to the sound.
And now it seems I have NO ONE for the small, non-speaking roles of The Lovers. I received over 70 original responses, and none of them have come through. I CAN cut the parts, but really don't want to, but I've exhausted nearly all my outlets. Well, I guess I can start posting at acting schools. Though I'm afraid I'll wind up with the same pattern -- I get emails of interest, I send back the details of the parts/schedule, they either don't respond or turn out to have conflicts. Mostly they don't respond.
The show is running around 2 hours 35 minutes plus a 10-minute intermission. 2:45. Half-hour longer than I thought/hoped. However, we're not in a situation where we need to clear the theatre for another show at any time (thankfully), and it doesn't feel slow, boring, or draggy at all (except for spots in two scenes in Act Two). I maybe will get 5 minutes off it. Maybe. No big deal if I don't. Long play, but not the longest I've directed (Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love and Richard Foreman's Harry in Love both hovered around the three-hour mark).
I thought I was getting sick yesterday with the whatever-it-is that's going around -- it's bounced through my cast slightly (last night it took out Christiaan), and I hear it's decimated Michael Gardner's cast at The Mountain Hotel. I felt fine during rehearsal and after, though. I think maybe it was some strange depressive mood like I get that was giving me cold chills and general loginess. I woke up early yesterday morning, couldn't get back to sleep, and so watched the restored Grindhouse DVD of Cannibal Holocaust on the laptop. I can't really describe that film - the Wikipedia entry I linked to there gives a pretty good overview, except it doesn't capture the weird combination of outright exploitation film, beautifully-crafted, great work of meaningful art, and evil, barely justifiable actions committed for real in the name of both the exploitation and the art, that it is. It's a great film, and a horrible one, and I think it may have been responsible for the upset and funk I was in all day yesterday until rehearsal.
Then, as usual, rehearsal cured everything. I love actors. They're not my friends -- with few exceptions I haven't, and generally don't think I should, become true friends with them, it can really screw up the work -- but in most ways I love them more than friends. Yes, of course I'm good friends with some actors, but generally that's when we've worked (and post-show drank and talked) for many shows and years, and we keep our friendship compartmentalized from our working relationship. Rehearsal is still a joy. Whenever I get tired of this whole thing, I try and think how good it feels in rehearsal or when the show is actually performing, and it gets me through.
So, the show's in better shape than usual. Which means I'm worrying that I'm forgetting something. Great. Well, as Berit says, "don't borrow trouble!"
Best wishes through the NYC theatre blogosphere to George Hunka, Isaac Butler, and Matt Johnston, opening In Public tonight, and James Comtois and Mac Rogers, opening The Blood Brothers Present: An Evening of Grand Guignol Horror. As the line goes around backstage before every Gemini CollisionWorks performance (taken from the first full production I directed, Richard Foreman's Egyptology), "Please! Break heads!"
Oh, and that reminds me of another good thing in the NYC Theatre Bloglandia -- Andre the Giant may have a Posse, I may have un stylo rouge, but Richard Foreman now has a blog!
More on Richard and his blog (and why I, a noted admirer of his work, and producer/director of my own versions of eight of his plays, didn't see his last two shows) sometime soon. Right now, I need food. Eggs.
(and while typing the last above, I got yet one more email back about the uncast parts in Temptation -- another ". . . thanks for considering me but schedule commitments prevent me from . . ." Where have all the young actors ready, willing, and able to show up to make out on stage for ten minutes gone? Why in MY day . . . grumble, grumble, snort, cough)
The show is going really well. I keep saying that, but it's hard to convince myself of that. I keep being sure that something's wrong that I'm not seeing, or I'm missing something. We did "full-run-thrus" the last two nights (missing three actors on Monday, two yesterday) and . . . the show is good. Actorially, we're in very good shape for opening two weeks from tomorrow. Almost everyone is off-book, and the performances are architecturally sound - I just need to keep fixing the filigrees (new things happen and must be kept or quickly discarded before they become habit, old things that were to be kept are forgotten and must be cemented back on).
In terms of acting/staging, we're ahead of the game, and good on us. Now as to everything around the actors . . . well, I'm not really behind yet, at least as I usually am, but I feel like I am. No rehearsals the next two days, so I plan on beginning to bring things over to the space and start the load-in/build. I had hoped to have all of the tech done by the time of our first run in the space with the full cast on Tuesday, but I don't think I can get all of it done. Probably the set, possibly the lights, maybe some of the costumes, almost certainly not the sound. Once the set/lights are done, the sound will be, well, not easy, but a pleasurable hassle.
The costumes, as always, are the bit I know nothing about, hate, and wish I didn't have to think about (and I don't have Yvonne to help me out on this one as she did on World Gone Wrong and That's What We're Here For). Well, okay, there's a bunch of suits (how cheap? how cheesy? how nice?), and some lab coats (which I'm going to buy -- I always seem to need lab coats and never have them and wind up borrowing waiters' jackets), and then some evening clothes (I'll see if I can find a Salvation Army tux for Walter, and as for the women . . ?). Maybe when I'm getting the lab coats I'll look for "uniform" type clothing for Maggie and Jessi. Timothy and I seem to have most of what we need for him. The Dancer? If only I could find a purple velvet suit. With an ascot. Depending on how much I get done over the weekend (ie; if I finish set/lights), next Monday/Tuesday will be "costume-centered" days, then on to the sound.
And now it seems I have NO ONE for the small, non-speaking roles of The Lovers. I received over 70 original responses, and none of them have come through. I CAN cut the parts, but really don't want to, but I've exhausted nearly all my outlets. Well, I guess I can start posting at acting schools. Though I'm afraid I'll wind up with the same pattern -- I get emails of interest, I send back the details of the parts/schedule, they either don't respond or turn out to have conflicts. Mostly they don't respond.
The show is running around 2 hours 35 minutes plus a 10-minute intermission. 2:45. Half-hour longer than I thought/hoped. However, we're not in a situation where we need to clear the theatre for another show at any time (thankfully), and it doesn't feel slow, boring, or draggy at all (except for spots in two scenes in Act Two). I maybe will get 5 minutes off it. Maybe. No big deal if I don't. Long play, but not the longest I've directed (Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love and Richard Foreman's Harry in Love both hovered around the three-hour mark).
I thought I was getting sick yesterday with the whatever-it-is that's going around -- it's bounced through my cast slightly (last night it took out Christiaan), and I hear it's decimated Michael Gardner's cast at The Mountain Hotel. I felt fine during rehearsal and after, though. I think maybe it was some strange depressive mood like I get that was giving me cold chills and general loginess. I woke up early yesterday morning, couldn't get back to sleep, and so watched the restored Grindhouse DVD of Cannibal Holocaust on the laptop. I can't really describe that film - the Wikipedia entry I linked to there gives a pretty good overview, except it doesn't capture the weird combination of outright exploitation film, beautifully-crafted, great work of meaningful art, and evil, barely justifiable actions committed for real in the name of both the exploitation and the art, that it is. It's a great film, and a horrible one, and I think it may have been responsible for the upset and funk I was in all day yesterday until rehearsal.
Then, as usual, rehearsal cured everything. I love actors. They're not my friends -- with few exceptions I haven't, and generally don't think I should, become true friends with them, it can really screw up the work -- but in most ways I love them more than friends. Yes, of course I'm good friends with some actors, but generally that's when we've worked (and post-show drank and talked) for many shows and years, and we keep our friendship compartmentalized from our working relationship. Rehearsal is still a joy. Whenever I get tired of this whole thing, I try and think how good it feels in rehearsal or when the show is actually performing, and it gets me through.
So, the show's in better shape than usual. Which means I'm worrying that I'm forgetting something. Great. Well, as Berit says, "don't borrow trouble!"
Best wishes through the NYC theatre blogosphere to George Hunka, Isaac Butler, and Matt Johnston, opening In Public tonight, and James Comtois and Mac Rogers, opening The Blood Brothers Present: An Evening of Grand Guignol Horror. As the line goes around backstage before every Gemini CollisionWorks performance (taken from the first full production I directed, Richard Foreman's Egyptology), "Please! Break heads!"
Oh, and that reminds me of another good thing in the NYC Theatre Bloglandia -- Andre the Giant may have a Posse, I may have un stylo rouge, but Richard Foreman now has a blog!
More on Richard and his blog (and why I, a noted admirer of his work, and producer/director of my own versions of eight of his plays, didn't see his last two shows) sometime soon. Right now, I need food. Eggs.
(and while typing the last above, I got yet one more email back about the uncast parts in Temptation -- another ". . . thanks for considering me but schedule commitments prevent me from . . ." Where have all the young actors ready, willing, and able to show up to make out on stage for ten minutes gone? Why in MY day . . . grumble, grumble, snort, cough)
