Day One: First Read Through

I can see through all of your motivations.

Usually on the first day of rehearsals for a play, you get to meet the rest of the cast and crew, exchange pleasantries, look at the sets and costume designs, fill out paperwork, have an election for an Equity deputy with the Actors Equity members in the cast and do a table of the read of the play. Today was unusual because the cast is just me! We still had the Equity Deputy election and I voted for myself unanimously to be the deputy for the production.

When I first came into the theater, Brendan, Brittney and Michael were onstage around the usual "table" and I sat with my back to the audience to do paperwork and say hi to everyone. We did the election, took a "5" and I realized that I was really uncomfortable with my back to the audience, so I asked Brendan if I could switch places with him. It just seemed more natural to be facing out to the house. Plus, I want to start getting the feeling that I'm telling the story to the audience as soon as possible. It's amazing to me, how much more relaxed I was just turning and facing the potential of those seats being filled with people. Brendan said the playwright may come see the show as well. That made me a little nervous and excited at the same time. I'm looking forward to doing it in front of an audience and have them help me create this world.

We read through the whole play, well I did anyway, and I found new things already as I was doing it for the first time and re-hearing it which is what rehearsal actually means, re-hear-sal. The pace was quick and we got through it in about an hour and six minutes, which seems to be about right. There wasn't a whole lot of laughter, but I know we'll get there. I also know I still have a lot of work to do, but Brendan was happy with the overall feel of the characters and where they are going. After the read through we went through the play character by character (there are 40) and I took notes on what to work on with each role. Mostly I want to make sure that the characters have strong wants and are "fully committed" to getting them. I want them to have a truth about them and not just have them be caricatures.

I came back to the actor housing after the rehearsal and started working on the lines again. The memorization still seems like such a bear, but I'm starting to feel like I'm getting a grasp on it. Because I was tired some of the lines I've known for weeks were a bit ragged but I know after I get a good night's sleep tonight and get some food in the morning, I should be good to go.

I did take a bit of a break in between eating dinner and working on my lines and stumbled on this very fascinating web series called, "KIDS react to" and "TEENS react to" by The Fine Brothers. The kids watch viral videos and the Fine Brothers show both the videos and the kids reacting to them at the same time. The multi-cultural kids are bright and funny and make great comments and the videos are well made with comments about the history of the videos as well. If you want to spend a few pleasant minutes watching internet memes and hearing the "darndest things" that kids say about entertainment on the internet, tune into "KIDS react to" or "TEENS react to." If you watch a bunch of them, you see the kids grow up, too, which adds an interesting poignancy to the series.

WP

http://imdb.me/waynepyle

The Journey Begins...

Studying my script for FULLY COMMITTED while at rehearsal
for Half Moon Theatre's 10-minute Play Festival. 

Here I am. At last. In Ellenville, NY. It's the night before my first rehearsal for Shadowland Theatre's FULLY COMMITTED, Becky Mode's one-person play about an out-of-work actor who works in the reservations office of a four-star restaurant in Manhattan. 

I moved into the actor housing, had dinner with my wife, Heidi, and my son and then saw them off as they headed home, worked on the first third of the play, Skyped with my Dad and Heidi, and decided to log on to Blogger to put down my first thoughts before we begin.

Nervousness is still there. This feeling of a long journey that has to be undertaken in a short amount of time is still there. Uncertainty over lines and character choices and storytelling is still there. The fear is no longer as prominent because I've spent some time with the script and I've been saying the lines and thinking about the people who inhabit this play every day.

It will be interesting to me, and I hope to you as well, how the process will work to get this play to where it needs to be for opening night. As I work through each section, I'm beginning to visualize ways to make the characters more real, more true, more wanting of something authentic and less just "voices" that I change to distinguish between who is speaking.

For those of you who don't know the play, Sam, the out-work-actor, arrives at his reservation job in the basement of a ritzy restaurant and his manager, Bob, and co-worker, Sonya, aren't there. The phones are ringing off the hook and he gets right to work putting everyone he can on hold and trying to handle everyone else's problems as efficiently as possible.

Needless to say, problems escalate at a faster rate than Sam can keep up with them, and as he tries to keep everything from falling apart he is also trying to figure out how to get home for Christmas to stay with his recently widowed father and he is waiting to hear if he is going to get a second callback for a part in a show at Lincoln Center.

The actor playing Sam also plays all of the 39 other characters who try to yell, plead, cry and cajole Sam into giving them what they want. By the end of the play, Sam has grown, based on some feedback he receives from his agent's receptionist and his willingness to stand up for himself.

It's a fun piece and will be physically and mentally challenging. I'm at that point now where I'm looking forward to seeing what the rehearsal process will bring out of me as an actor and a person. I'm tired as I write this, but look forward to tomorrow with a kind of nervous excitement like that feeling I remember getting when I stepped on to the big yellow school bus for that first day of school when I was a kid.

Right now, I've got to get some sleep so I'll be well rested. I'm going use one of my tried and true memorization techniques which is to put on my earphones with a copy of the play I recorded (on a cassette tape, no less, remember those?), so I can drift off listening to the story and hoping my unconscious mind will pick up some of the words and plot points my conscious mind is still resisting.

I've got several places in the script where I'm still not quite sure what happens next, but I know as I take the risks needed to play each character fully and as Brendan Burke, the director, guides the telling of the story, my body and mind will eventually start to know what part of the story needs to be told at just the right time to be effective. It's all a race against the clock of opening night, which I can already hear ticking LOUDLY in my ears. (or maybe that's just my high blood pressure)

They say "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step," but I say it can begin with one word spoken on a stage. I'll be posting again tomorrow after rehearsal. 

WP
http://imdb.me/waynepyle