rehearsal roundup week 1
Our first week of rehearsals of Hunter Gatherers is complete!
Rehearsals have been a delightful blend of heady "table work" (that's reading the script, talking about it, rereading) and fight practice. Carla, our fight choreographer, has given the cast a crash course in all sorts of techniques. I don't want to give too much away as to what type of fighting takes place, but I will say that at some point during the show Wendy does a "Punto Reverso" and that's awesome.
We were also graced by the presence of a lamb expert, John, who runs a nifty little farm up in Sonoma where they, indeed, raise and slaughter lambs. The process doesn't take very long to move from walking lamb to something ready for the oven, and the idea that someone would actually kill and cook in the same day is a valid one, not just a concept I made up for the play. Phew. At least something is based in reality in my play. An expert can do it in about a half hour. I figure that Richard, in this play, would probably take an hour to do it. Their loft has to have a huge oven, of course.
I am still making little tweaks and adjustments to chunks of the script but I am starting to feel uneasily at peace with the state of the script, and I think after the next week of rehearsals, I should hopefully only be focusing on little things. I don't think there's anything huge, writing-wise, for me to do any more. Or is that just false confidence? I hope not. I certainly did not feel entirely happy after a reading last March, as the play made a big shift and parts of it felt raw, but I think that sparked some wonderful development in the script over the last two months. So maybe feeling good about it now is justified. Yes it is!
We're all having a ball, and I'm loving rehearsals so far. So much fun, in fact, that it doesn't always feel like work, and then I realize how soon the performances begin, and then I panic, but then I feel good, and then I tweak a line, and then I have fun, and then it amazes me how quick the final process is, and then I make a bad joke, and then I realize I shouldn't talk too much in rehearsals, and then I just listen and enjoy, and then I go to sleep.
Rehearsals have been a delightful blend of heady "table work" (that's reading the script, talking about it, rereading) and fight practice. Carla, our fight choreographer, has given the cast a crash course in all sorts of techniques. I don't want to give too much away as to what type of fighting takes place, but I will say that at some point during the show Wendy does a "Punto Reverso" and that's awesome.
We were also graced by the presence of a lamb expert, John, who runs a nifty little farm up in Sonoma where they, indeed, raise and slaughter lambs. The process doesn't take very long to move from walking lamb to something ready for the oven, and the idea that someone would actually kill and cook in the same day is a valid one, not just a concept I made up for the play. Phew. At least something is based in reality in my play. An expert can do it in about a half hour. I figure that Richard, in this play, would probably take an hour to do it. Their loft has to have a huge oven, of course.
I am still making little tweaks and adjustments to chunks of the script but I am starting to feel uneasily at peace with the state of the script, and I think after the next week of rehearsals, I should hopefully only be focusing on little things. I don't think there's anything huge, writing-wise, for me to do any more. Or is that just false confidence? I hope not. I certainly did not feel entirely happy after a reading last March, as the play made a big shift and parts of it felt raw, but I think that sparked some wonderful development in the script over the last two months. So maybe feeling good about it now is justified. Yes it is!
We're all having a ball, and I'm loving rehearsals so far. So much fun, in fact, that it doesn't always feel like work, and then I realize how soon the performances begin, and then I panic, but then I feel good, and then I tweak a line, and then I have fun, and then it amazes me how quick the final process is, and then I make a bad joke, and then I realize I shouldn't talk too much in rehearsals, and then I just listen and enjoy, and then I go to sleep.
posted by Unknown at 10:42 AM
2 Comments:
Rock on--it was a kick ass play a year ago and I'm sure it's uber fab to the nth now. Can't wait!
Wow, at peace with your script, that's amazing! Can't wait to see it in full production. Congrats
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