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And So It Begins . . .
Jun. 3rd, 2007 09:21 amThe Pretentious Festival has opened. Look on Our Works, Ye Mighty, and despair!
Now I have a week and two days to get Ian W. Hill's Hamlet ready. Well, we're pretty much okay. I have lots of things to do, but time to do them in, pretty much:
The postcard (mostly in Berit's hands now - we have the image, she has to do the processing/layout from my design, then I do the typography).
Building the platforms - I thought more shows in the Fest wanted to use them, but it seems like it will only be mine and Q1: The Bad Hamlet unless others grab them (Q1 is wonderfully reciprocating by letting me borrow an Ophelia coffin and a Yorick skull) - I'm making two new 2x7' platforms and reusing the 6x3.5' top of the Temptation bed and putting 2' legs on them (though I'm making the legs removable for storage purposes and so other shows can leg them at different heights; I'm making legs for Q1 of 8" on one platform and 18" on another).
I have to go through the potential music I've put aside and settle on certain music for certain scenes/transitions and get the sound effects together - some stock, some to record (I need to have the music settled for the dumb show by Monday, when we rehearse it again to put it to whatever music I pick).
Get the last of my lines down - I'm almost there.
Get the fencing foils, masks, jackets, gloves (and the fight choreographer) in.
Charts and diagrams for the company for the scene transitions (lots of platform, chairs, and desk moves).
Props that we don't already have must be acquired.
I'm sure we'll think of other things we've missed. Hopefully, well before tech.
Oh, yeah, and rehearse it some more . . . We have four more runthrus - Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and next Monday (tech). And that's it. Some work tomorrow at The Brick (dumb show) and maybe next Sunday, but that's it.
Luckily, it's looking good as of yesterday. The previous run, on Thursday, was logi and lacked momentum. It wasn't helped by the fact that we were focusing on the transitions, and so there was a long pause after each scene while we worked out who was moving what, but even taking that into account, it just kinda lay there like a lox. Once upon a time, it would have worried me, but I could see the work we'd been doing underneath the blah-ness. The thought was there, the smarts, the levels, just not the energy.
So I wasn't worried, and rightly so, as it turns out - yesterday's run worked very nicely indeed, despite (or maybe helped by, actually) being in the small room at Studio 111. A hot, confined space, and there we are, doing Hamlet (and it wasn't even all 18 of us; just 14). I wanted to laugh, sometimes, seeing us do the great big Famous Work in this little room. We had to skip sections due to actor lack, but the show was mostly there, with marked blocking at many points. The intensity, drive, and focus was back. We did good.
I was a wreck after, though. I need a little more fuel in me before I do Hamlet, and water around offstage. My engine was running on fumes right after. But a trip over to The Brick to see Art Wallace's Between the Legs of God was a nice warm-down (hysterically funny, with a few old classic in-jokes from Art's and my days at Nada). Followed by a screening of Art's DV-Movie from a few years back, Melon of the Sky (in which my performance did not embarrass me so much as I thought it would - not nearly as bad as I remembered), and a few hours of Berit and I hanging out at the space with friends, eventually closing down the place with Aaron Baker, Gyda Arber, Tom X. Chao, and Michael Criscuolo. A nice evening of theatre talk and bitchy dish (like there's a difference). Just what I needed.
Ah, just spent time on a show announcement I just realized should be it's own entry. Coming up shortly.
Now I have a week and two days to get Ian W. Hill's Hamlet ready. Well, we're pretty much okay. I have lots of things to do, but time to do them in, pretty much:
The postcard (mostly in Berit's hands now - we have the image, she has to do the processing/layout from my design, then I do the typography).
Building the platforms - I thought more shows in the Fest wanted to use them, but it seems like it will only be mine and Q1: The Bad Hamlet unless others grab them (Q1 is wonderfully reciprocating by letting me borrow an Ophelia coffin and a Yorick skull) - I'm making two new 2x7' platforms and reusing the 6x3.5' top of the Temptation bed and putting 2' legs on them (though I'm making the legs removable for storage purposes and so other shows can leg them at different heights; I'm making legs for Q1 of 8" on one platform and 18" on another).
I have to go through the potential music I've put aside and settle on certain music for certain scenes/transitions and get the sound effects together - some stock, some to record (I need to have the music settled for the dumb show by Monday, when we rehearse it again to put it to whatever music I pick).
Get the last of my lines down - I'm almost there.
Get the fencing foils, masks, jackets, gloves (and the fight choreographer) in.
Charts and diagrams for the company for the scene transitions (lots of platform, chairs, and desk moves).
Props that we don't already have must be acquired.
I'm sure we'll think of other things we've missed. Hopefully, well before tech.
Oh, yeah, and rehearse it some more . . . We have four more runthrus - Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and next Monday (tech). And that's it. Some work tomorrow at The Brick (dumb show) and maybe next Sunday, but that's it.
Luckily, it's looking good as of yesterday. The previous run, on Thursday, was logi and lacked momentum. It wasn't helped by the fact that we were focusing on the transitions, and so there was a long pause after each scene while we worked out who was moving what, but even taking that into account, it just kinda lay there like a lox. Once upon a time, it would have worried me, but I could see the work we'd been doing underneath the blah-ness. The thought was there, the smarts, the levels, just not the energy.
So I wasn't worried, and rightly so, as it turns out - yesterday's run worked very nicely indeed, despite (or maybe helped by, actually) being in the small room at Studio 111. A hot, confined space, and there we are, doing Hamlet (and it wasn't even all 18 of us; just 14). I wanted to laugh, sometimes, seeing us do the great big Famous Work in this little room. We had to skip sections due to actor lack, but the show was mostly there, with marked blocking at many points. The intensity, drive, and focus was back. We did good.
I was a wreck after, though. I need a little more fuel in me before I do Hamlet, and water around offstage. My engine was running on fumes right after. But a trip over to The Brick to see Art Wallace's Between the Legs of God was a nice warm-down (hysterically funny, with a few old classic in-jokes from Art's and my days at Nada). Followed by a screening of Art's DV-Movie from a few years back, Melon of the Sky (in which my performance did not embarrass me so much as I thought it would - not nearly as bad as I remembered), and a few hours of Berit and I hanging out at the space with friends, eventually closing down the place with Aaron Baker, Gyda Arber, Tom X. Chao, and Michael Criscuolo. A nice evening of theatre talk and bitchy dish (like there's a difference). Just what I needed.
Ah, just spent time on a show announcement I just realized should be it's own entry. Coming up shortly.
