Friday, March 30, 2012

3.28.12-3.30.12 – Rehearsal 16, 17, and 18


Today we finished staging the play and did a full run through of the play.  Very exciting stuff.  This is the way these past rehearsals have worked: we would all convene in the theater, we would work through some moments in order, and then we would run the moments in sequence without stopping.  Andy would end the rehearsal by giving the actors some notes.  Andy and I would meet after rehearsal ended to go over any script editing or rewriting we needed to do before the next rehearsal.  What I mean by “work through” is Andy would give us actors our general movements on stage and then he would ask us some questions about our character: what do we want in the scene, how are we getting what we want, what are the logical steps of the argument we are advancing.  While these characters are based on real people, they are and are not those people.  By that I mean that when you put a real person on stage you flatten them out by not including a lot of the complexities of a real human being, but you also exaggerate certain aspects of who they are so they can conflict with other characters.  As the person who did all the interviews and knows these people (to varying degrees) in real life, it has been interesting and entertaining to see when the onstage character the actor is creating differs from the person in real life and when there are similarities.  We have a much needed day off tomorrow and then jump into our last week of rehearsals before we add all the technical elements to the show. Andy and I will make final edits to the script and on Sunday, we will distribute a final full copy of the script to all actors and designers.  Next week we will go deeper into the physicality of our characters and get more specific about the choices we make as actors in each moment.

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