Monday, January 5, 2009

First rehearsal

Tonight was the first rehearsal for A New Drama, the show that marks my return to the stage later this month.

I thought it was just going to be a read-through, but nope - I got to stay after the read through and block the first scene with Mark-Brian and BOY was it fast paced and furious. I'm still trying to get my sea legs back and here we are zipping through this. I'm sitting here trying to redevelop my blocking shorthand and make sense of it afterward for a quick runthrough. AUGH My brain was on semi-overload, trying to get dialogue right, translating my scribbles into action while trying to get the pacing right. But hey - I wanted to get back into this and WHEEE I'm getting in spades, possums!

Luckily, the director seems to be a patient guy (and super nice, too). He's very exacting, knows what he wants, expects nothing less and it's really cool. I've had stage directors in the past who who just point and say - "oh just move sortof over there somewhere." Not Charles! He has it down to the specific seats he wants us to move in front of (this makes sense if you know the performance space, an old stone cottage where the seats are placed in a "L" shape around the perimeter of the main room). No generalities here!

But in the end, it's all a very good thing Charles does what he does the way he does it. Anything less, and I'd probably have a much more causal attitude about the whole thing.

Thank god Shakespeare is only a supporting role. I only have 5 or 6 scenes across the three acts, and some of them are super-short (for me) so I have time to breathe through this rehearsal process.

Oh and this just hit me today: How fun is it that a Hathaway is playing Shakespeare?

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