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So for the rehearsal updates I am taking advantage of the very fine work that Jarod Witkowski is doing with the rehearsal reports. I have removed some content that is not generally necessary (such as attendance and theater specific requests). The full report is at the bottom of the post.

Jarod is a fellow playwright in the NEOMFA program and was drafted into working on the playwright festival by Mike Geither as a part of the formative learning process of play production. Jarod is the stage manager for Patterns and is not even getting credit (formal credit) for it; though he’s putting in some serious hours. Additionally, Jarod fills in and reads parts when actors cannot be present. I know he’s proving to be highly valuable to Zoldessy in this process and I certainly respect what he’s doing. He also brought me some Zywiec from Chicago last time he was there, which makes him mighty fine in my book.

During the first full rehearsal (not reading) Zoldessy blocked the first 11 pages of the script. Blocking is the process of articulating how and where actors move in the space and what the actor will be doing at any given point in time. Blocking is always an issue, but it is especially so with a new play, where no template exists for how the thing has been done previously. Obviously, blocking is one of the more important pieces of getting the play up, as actors spend most of their time in motion or speaking. It wasn’t until this process began formally with Patterns that I recognized just how important. In this play there are 7 actors. Excepting one scene in the play, all actors are never on stage at the same time. This begs the rather obvious question: what are the actors doing when they aren’t “on stage”. This is a perceptive question that Geither asked me right off the bat. I admit that I did not understand the full implications of the question until blocking work started.

For instance, taking the most lame-o scenario imaginable: when two actors are “on stage” (I am using that term loosely to mean ‘doing something’ to garner the direct and immediate attention of the audience) the other five actors could be sitting on chairs at the back. (Which is exactly what my lame directorial imagination called up when writing the piece–largely because that was not the focus of my attention.) So, again, two actors acting, five actors sitting. This isn’t so much of a deal until you realize that five people sitting on chairs doing nothing can draw attention. But worse, one of five actors doing anything other than sitting can draw attention, too. So, there’s the discussion of whether or not the actors should “be in character” the whole time they’re sitting. This raises new questions for a play like mine in which actors portray multiple characters.

I brought a video camera and a TV we don’t use around the house. Jared Bendis lent me an Edirol video mixer to run multiple camera sources into one tv output; so, I will be playing with this. The camera is another important piece of the equation which must be mixed in to the blocking and the general timing of events to ensure that it is a part of the flow of the performance and not just a clunky add-on.

Rehearsals right now are in the East Storefront at CPT because the Levin is booked solid with Black Box through March 6. This poses problems of its own which are not uncommon to productions: you rehearse somewhere other than where you will perform. This means that on March 7, when we do get access to the space for Tech Week, the actors will have 4 days to get acclimated to the actual performance space. Unfortunately, these 4 days will not just be acclimation, they also represent time that must be spent testing light positions, light changes, special lighting effects, sound cues, video: in short, the mind will be under assault from a variety of directions and it will take serious focus on everyone’s part.

Date: 2/8/11
Start Time: 6:30 Break: 8:05 – 8:15 End Time: 9:45

Summary:
– Blocked pages 1-11
– Tom brought and hooked up video for use during rehearsal

Director:
– Line change on page 7, Aisa’s line to introduce the “Demented family dynamic causes daughter to live in head” scene previously included actors’ real names, they have been removed and will be removed in every subsequent case. Notes will be made when the time comes. Aisa’s line now reads, “In this scene, I shall play the part of the daughter. Not that this implies anything, you understand? (Calling to house) Family lighting please.”

– Mike will be in charge of camera during page 5’s caption read by Lynna, Laura will operate the camera when Debbie reads the caption on page 7, and Jim will be in charge of camera on Mike’s rant on page 11.

Props:
– One tv, one table, and one camera on tripod were all stored in the space for wednesday’s rehearsal
– The entire props list was completed by Tom/Brian and will be emailed/distributed to everyone by week’s end

Costume:
-none

Set:
-none

Video:
-Tom set up the feed effortlessly, worked flawlessly, and some cast members are aware that they will need to work either behind it, or in front of it at some point

Misc:
-The two center chairs that will be the focal point on the round, raised platform will need to have a straight back and flat seat in order to place the plywood on to make the Queen’s death scene into her death bed, so to speak.

Next Day Schedule:
Wednesday, feb 9th 6:30
We will block pages 11-20, review pages 1-11, and Ali will come in for measurements

I think the highlight of my bearing witness to auditions came several years ago when a very attractive student actor at CSU performed a pole dance / strip routine for my play Only Sing for Me. Unfortunately, we were not able to cast her as my play required no women. The cheap thrill remains, though.

The auditions at CPT were quite a bit more professional and much more reserved. Alongside Beth Wood, Associate Artistic Director at CPT, two of the directors sat at a long front table covered with note pads, binders, scripts, head shots and actor’s cvs. Behind this front table, on chairs rising toward the back of the James Levin space, sat the playwrights, stage managers, and various others, including Mike Geither who is running the NEOMFA portion of the festival.

Auditions were run in one hour blocks with between 5-8 actors in an hour. An actor would come in, led by Lindsay Carter, Festival Production Manager. The actor would go to the main table, deposit his or her head shot and cv, engage in brief chit-chat, and then go out into the space. He or she would say the piece they would be performing and then go. If there was interest, a director would ask him/her to do it again with some variation: louder and farther back (projecting), softer with greater nuance, in a different enunciation or accent. Sometimes, an actor would be asked to do a bit from Shakespeare (i.e. they had two pieces prepared–contemporary and Shakespearean). Interestingly, I learned that whenever there are auditions schools with acting programs send students to practice auditioning, so on one night several students came through.

It was a machine. Actors were processed through quickly, orderly, decisions were made. I was appalled at how quickly I adapted to the attitude. I was shocked, in retrospect, at how quickly I came to view actors according to specific attributes that the play required, and not as people at all. I believe the human mind is easily conditioned to systematic modes of thought: that the brain’s approach to things is easily conditioned, in this way, to chilling itself to emotion and becoming clinical. The danger of this mode of thinking is historically documented and is not a direction I intend to go with this blog entry, but I note the attitude nonetheless.

Geither advised me that the key attribute to look for in an actor was the willingness and ability to respond to the director. So, above I mentioned the director might ask an actor to do their piece again in a certain way; this is when you see how the actor responds and how well. Regardless, here are some excerpts from my own notes on the audition to get a sense of what I was discussing above:

Forced emotion. Not a good sense of delivery. Tense and constricted.

Good comic sense. Good delivery. Good shifts: speed up and slow down. Dynamic. Good smile. Confident.

Good eye contact. Strong presence. Good delivery. Good timing: funny.

Pretty convincing emotionally for a short audition piece. Direction? Takes it. Don’t know how well she projects. Seemed to do well, but would she hold up? Expressive. Did increase volume.

And so on…

On one night there were 14 auditions. Something similar on the other, I think. My play is the only play with women, so my play had the pick for the four actresses I needed. For the men, it was a bit tougher. All three plays have men and there weren’t many men auditioning to begin with. This led to some “negotiations” amongst the directors about who got which actor, etc. This conversation was almost as interesting as the auditions.

Brian asked me my opinion on some of the characters, my main character Aisa, for instance, who really must carry the show; and another prominent character: Harry Collins. Other than that, I felt that the casting was Brian’s decision, and Brian is working with a vision of types that I can only watch develop.

This is a point, as well, where it is important to comment on the vision of the playwright as the play is written, versus the reality of the play as it is produced. When the play is written it is staged, produced, and run in the mind of the playwright. Unfortunately, that is a production that will never be visible–or if it is, the technology that will make it possible is far, far away from where I’m sitting in time. This reality means that there will automatically be a disconnect between the vision of the playwright as the play is written, and the auditioned/staged reality of the production.

One benefit of Geither’s effort to get playwrights in productions at CSU is that I confronted the disconnect between my imagined version of the play and the real production many years ago. Consequently, I have moved beyond the superficial assumptions about what my characters would “look like” or “be like” in reality to realize that they will emerge through the writing.

After two days, Brian and I came away nearly fully cast. There were two holes in the play that were filled within the following week. What followed is the scheduling of rehearsals, calendars, contact sheets, etc.

Moving on next to the first production meeting.