Read Through & First Rehearsal

I made this blog about a week after I cast Wes and Penny as the other two performers, so we have consequently already had our first read through and one rehearsal.
At the read through I introduced them to my concept and described how I envisioned the performance.  Then we read through the six scenes that I have chosen from the following plays:

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Melancholy Play by Sara Ruhl
Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (will possibly be replaced by a scene from The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker)
Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief by Paula Vogel
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The order in which the plays have been listed is most likely the order in which the scenes will be performed.
At the end of the read through Wes and Penny expressed enthusiasm for the concept and scripts I've selected.  They're both excited to dive into rehearsals and so am I! Wes and I scheduled a rehearsal for the upcoming Friday.

At this rehearsal Wes and I worked on the scene from Melancholy Play, which is between the characters Frank (to be played by Wes) and Tilly (played by myself).  We started off the rehearsal by warming up and stretching to a song that I've picked out as a possible transition song for this scene.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKQqxt7xd20)

Transitions are still something of a problem for me.  I think I want a very abstract movement/music combination to move us from scene to scene.  After I've blocked each scene I will start rehearsing with Wes and Penny in the dance studio and we will focus on how to make these transitions happen.

This first rehearsal made me confident that the blocking part of the process will happen quickly.  Wes and I ran the scene probably 5 times and worked on getting into the position for the statue that will be used for this scene:

Rodin's "Pygmalion and Galatea"

Both Penny and Wes are in a production that goes up the last weekend of February, so they have just begun tech rehearsals now.  I'm going to give them a break until after their show closes before starting in with a regular rehearsal schedule.  In the mean time I will be working out the script for the introduction.  In order to introduce the idea of the sculptures happening in the scenes I am going to pick out a monologue or two to be performed by myself at the beginning.  I'm thinking I will weave the monologues around a sculpture or two so that the audience can grasp the concept of sculptures occurring as moments of physicality within the performance and the idea that these sculptures can take on new meanings based on the context of the scene (or in the case of the introduction, monologue).  Since the Shakespeare scene is super short and I do not have a speaking role in it, I intend to use a Shakespeare monologue in the intro.  Unfortunately that is about as far as I have made it in terms of planning out this intro.  I will post within the next week with my progress on the subject.