Opening and Closing

Well, clearly the weekend has come and gone, which means that "Stone to Stage" has opened and closed its very brief performance run in Washington, DC.  I could not be more pleased with the way this piece turned out.  Over the past week in particular I have noticed a streamlining, a tightening up, and focusing, in my acting of each scene.  Wes and Penny were very patient and adaptive as I continued to receive notes from professors and friends and requested changes in their performances.  We neglected to take a picture in our fantastic hand-marbled unitards, but my parents did film both shows in order to share my thesis with family and friends, so perhaps I will end up being able to post a clip from that video.

Despite the stress of the process this was a very fun and gratifying piece to perform and I am extremely proud of Penny, Wes, and myself.  Thanks to everyone who helped and to everyone who read the blog.  I hope it was as entertaining for you as it was helpful for me!

Considering that I may be back to post a link to the video, I'll leave you this time with a very "I'll be back"-like dog:

Count Down to Friday...

After a successful first dress rehearsal (with only 2 holds to address lighting and sound cue problems) I am feeling very good about performing a smooth piece in front of Friday's audience.  My advisor, who was present for the run through, assured me that we are sufficiently rehearsed and definitely know our stuff but now we need to dig deeper into the scenes.

Now for some feelings:
While this comment from my advisor was reassuring, it also made me more aware of what I am nervous about: not having spent enough time exploring my performance as an actor on different levels.  I have expressed before how hectic a job it was to be the director etc. and an actor at the same time, and now I am feeling the results of this job-juggling.  My last post was all about me wanting to diva-up and focus on myself more since this is my thesis.  The acting notes from my advisor are all fairly simple and certainly things that I should have been able to address on my own as an actor by this point, so I was confirmed in my belief that there needs to be more me-time.  But it is the week of the performance!  So, what could help me right now...?

I do not feel that I could benefit from more time in order to address these aspects of the performance, instead I believe the only fix would be to simply be an actor in this thesis.  Unfortunately, I find myself unable to simply be an actor, even at this point when tech is running so smoothly.  I am just not the kind of person who lets her duties (varied as they are) drop until the project I am working on is over.  A personality flaw, maybe, but how often is an actor required to be a director for herself and two others, a production manager, costume/set/props designer, and all for a piece that was entirely devised (meaning there is no precedent set by previous productions because the piece has never existed before)?  As dreamy as it sounds to have that much control over an entire production, it is an awful lot of labor for one person.  And it is a rare phenomenon.

This is a performance thesis.  Performance.  PERFORMANCE.  My performance is what counts, not the design or even the performances of the other actors.  Yet, I am the one responsible for making sure that all the elements, like the set and costumes and Wes and Penny's performances, are all at a level where they compliment and support my performance.  It would have been irresponsible of me to ignore those elements for the sake of my own work as an actor, therefore I did not ignore them.  I do not find myself regretting the attention I payed to these elements.  I do find myself lamenting that it was me who had to provide this attention.

Sorry for the lengthy feelings--I only wanted to voice my opinion on the process (the point of this blog, actually) and how I believe it was flawed.

My thesis is by no means doomed by the flaws in the process! I believe in myself and my ability to deliver a great performance, so I am not terribly concerned.

In fact, I will end this post on a happy note.  No, not a dog wearing glasses yet.  Just the news that I received the package with the unitards yesterday, we tried them on, they fit, I dyed them to give them a marbled look today, and tomorrow we will see how this dye-job looks under the lights.  Hooray!




Now here's the dog:

Tech Begins!

After a one-on-one rehearsal with Wes on Friday I felt very good about the small pacing fixes that needed to be made to the Machinal scene.  We also worked in breath where it was not already present, such as the movements in and out of the statue moments.  (Penny was the victim of a mugging and subsequent problems that stemmed from that event last week--she is OK and has since joined us at rehearsals.)

Today we had a cue-to-cue with our amazing lighting designer and I could not be happier with how everything looks! Turns out that I am using an awful lot of light and sound cues--more than I had anticipated.  At first I was nervous about relying so much on technical aspects to keep the piece moving, but I am more at peace with that reliance after today.  The technical elements are fairly subtle and really support the action on stage, so I feel every light cue and every sound cue is completely justified.

Since tech has taken over my focus recently I made sure to review my lines on my own time and reminded my fellow actors to do the same.  I was debating whether or not to hold rehearsals during our regular rehearsal times this coming week since we will be running the piece on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  After realizing how long it has been since we did a run I decided that we would benefit from our time on Monday before doing the whole shebang with tech on Tuesday.  It's been long enough since we ran through everything together (especially our lines!) so I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of the show with Wes and Penny.

My focus during tomorrow's rehearsal will be to concentrate solely on my own performance.  I have spent so much of this rehearsal process being a director as well as an actor and I have finally reached the point where I must trust my fellow actors and stop being both things.  It is not as though I did not trust Wes and Penny earlier, I just couldn't let go of the observational habits I developed in the first few weeks.

Letting go: a lesson well learned.  From now on I'm turning into a diva.  This whole this is going to be about ME!

This is my inner diva.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Changes are being made and tech is being applied!

Wednesday's rehearsal was extremely productive in terms of incorporating acting and blocking changes based on the feedback we received last Friday.  We also went through each transition and worked on the timing using music.

I was very surprised to find that the timing of each transition, as we had been running them without music, matched the music I edited almost perfectly.  There are a few transitons where the music ran longer than the transition.  I am taking these as opportunities to milk the transitions for what they can convey (changes of breath, body, and attitude).  For example, in the transition out of August: Osage County and into Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief I morph from one character to another in a single area of light.  The amount of time that the music gives me to make this transformation is luxurious enough to allow me to change my body, breath, and attitude and even live in my new character (Emilia) for a beat before the dialogue begins.  Silent stage time can be very scary.  Actors often rush through silent moments because they feel the need to "perform" and fill the void left by the lack of dialogue, but I aim to embrace the silence and fill those times on stage with very clear physical and emotional reality.  In most cases during this piece the most important moments--when characters are established--occur in silence.

Also taking place in silence are the statue moments, which we will be working extensively this Friday.  I secured the dance studio for an hour and intend to work the moments leading into and out of the statue moments until the breath, length, and stillness of these moments are ingrained in our bodies' muscle memories.  Using the mirrors to gauge how breath effects our bodies and what kind of stage pictures we create when moving in and out of the statue positions, I will have a better idea of the overall look of the piece.  I want everything to look clean so it is important to me that I know how these moments work from an outside point of view.

On a more technical note, I have met with the lighting designer and explained to her what my lighting needs will be.  In this discussion I realized that I would need two of the areas of light to have two sizes associated with them (something I hadn't formerly thought about since I thought I was being ultimately clever by staging a lot of the action in specific areas--little did I realize that lighting three people in one area is different from lighting only one person!).  Luckily I am working with a very knowledgable lighting designer and I have the utmost confidence in her ability to make happen what I described to her.

On another technical note I have ordered the unitards and they are due to arrive on Saturday! If they are a complete disaster (wrong sizing or see through fabric) I should have enough time to order a different brand before the show.  Fingers crossed that these first ones are perfect though! I would rather not cut it close with a second order.  All props have been acquired except for 2 handkerchiefs which I will ask the costume shop for tomorrow.

I can't wait to get the lights hung this weekend and see what my stage will look like with bodies and lights and costumes! Exciting!!!

Speaking of exciting, look how excited this dog is to be wearing glasses!

There Will Be Music!!

There was no rehearsal on Monday of this week because Wes and I both had other commitments.  To make up for the missed rehearsal time I finally forced myself to buckle down and edit the music for the transitions.  Using my novice GarageBand skills I cut selections of songs that that I picked out at the beginning of the rehearsal period.  Here is a sampling of the songs I picked:

"Little Person" by Jon Brion

"Second Lover" by Noah and the Whale

"We Move Lightly" by Dustin O'Halloran

The clips that I made vary from 20-40 seconds in length and will be used to create a tonal shift from one scene to the next and to support the action during the transitions.  During Wednesday's rehearsal we will incorporate these songs into the transitons.  My other goal for this rehearsal is to apply the notes I received from my advisor last Friday.  Mainly that means finding moments to place emphasis on breath, re-working the transition out of the August: Osage County scene, and blocking the ending out of the Waiting for Godot scene.  I am really looking forward to making these changes.  I believe that they will make the piece more cohesive, and adding the music to transitons will make the piece feel complete.  Obviously adding an ending will contribute to that feeling of completeness too!

It is hard to believe that we only have 2 rehearsals left before starting tech this weekend.  Next week's rehearsal spaces are still booked during the day but I have not decided yet if we will use them since we will also have Tuesday and Thursday night tech runs in the performance space.  It all depends on how smoothly things are running by this weekend!

I still need to order the costumes.  The school never wrote the check that the department requested so a second request had to be sent.  Looks like I will just have to place the order with my money, then pocket what I get from the school.  Not the preferred way to go about things, but we do need costumes as soon as possible!!!

If push comes to shove, we could always dress up as the mascot of this blog...a dog wearing glasses!!!!

Outside Eyes

Today was a very special day for "Stone to Stage"--this is the first time the piece has been seen by anyone who is not in the cast!

My amazing thesis advisor watched us run through the piece as it stands so far and took terrific notes on what she saw.  After Wes, Penny, and I had finished our whirlwind performance, I sat down with my advisor and absorbed all of her wonderful advice.  To summarize what I came away from this rehearsal with, I will use 3 points:

1.  There are underlying themes that I have unconsciously included in each scene (either through the choice of the scene or the way I have staged it).  These themes are: stone (that one was intentional), breath, and isolation.  Further emphasizing these elements where they already exist and drawing them out where they could exist will serve to unify and streamline the piece as a whole.

2.  My advisor proposed lots of little fixes, as opposed to lots of overarching fixes, which is a great indication that the piece makes sense! Yay!!!

3.  After my advisor confirmed some inklings I've had recently about certain technical elements of the piece I have decided to make two changes to my original idea:
a.) Instead of using recordings of museum noise/commentary on the sculptures during the statue moments, these moments will now be silent.
b.) Instead of using my small allocation of money on white body paint and white hair spray I am only going to buy full-leg and long sleeved unitards for the 3 actors.  I am stepping away from a literal marble look and moving more towards the representation of marble through the white unitards.  My advisor and I agreed that it will be far more important to see every bit of our expressions than to believe we're entirely made of marble.  There is nothing wrong with the audience being aware that these are actors performing this piece.  I like the idea that this performance of "Stone to Stage" is the deconstructed and simplified version (as the premiere) and that it could be developed beyond this point aesthetically.  This is, after all, an acting thesis, so my focus should be on the performance, not the tech.

My favorite part of receiving notes from my advisor was that she pushed me to go further with my ideas.  It is always encouraging to hear that people want more of what you're giving them.  I feel confident that my actors and I will be able to deliver more (especially once we stop calling for lines!) and make this piece as emotionally full as it promises to be on paper.  I want the audience to walk away from this performance thinking, "That was EVERYTHING."


Speaking of everything...let's complete this post:

Visible Progress

It is official! We have rehearsed without scripts!

There is nothing like the feeling of being unchained from the physical script in rehearsal.  I've always felt  my performance can breathe, stretch its legs, grow once I put down the script.  This can mostly be attributed to the amount of eye contact that becomes possible between scene partners once you are no longer nervously glancing down at your lines every time it is your turn to speak.

There is one scene in particular that benefits from very deliberate and prolonged eye contact between the characters, and that is the scene from Ruhl's Melancholy Play.  I remember trying to describe, in our first rehearsal, how I wanted there to be a palpable attraction across the room between the two characters, Frank and Tilly. I explained to Wes that there should be this constant connection between the two of us and, despite the physical distance I created on the stage, the audience should feel that we are very close.  Until yesterday's rehearsal of this scene we had not been achieving this feeling, having been too stuck to our scripts to reach out to each other. I received a huge boost of confidence yesterday, though, when we indulged in eye contact and employed our entire bodies in creating a connection between these characters.  Rehearsing that scene without scripts reminded me that I can accomplish what I envision with my fellow actors.  This performance can be what I want it to be, instead of being almost what I imagined.

Over the past couple of weeks I've feared that I do not have enough time left to work on what I have established thus far.  Thankfully, I'd simply forgotten how easily and quickly performances can grow once you put down the crippling crutch that is the script!

My thesis advisor is coming to watch rehearsal tomorrow and I feel confident that she will see a piece that is in a good place (considering that we are 2 weeks away from performance!), so in the spirit of optimism, here is a dog looking optimistically into the future:

Sculpting Our Bodies

On Friday Wes, Penny, and I took some time in the dance studio to work on sculpting our bodies for the performance.  Rather, we worked on looking like sculptures.  Working with mirrors and printed photos of statues we finally took the time to perfect the physical statue moments that will be occurring during the piece.  First, each of us studied a picture of the sculpture we were posing as, then whoever was not posing would critique every little detail of posture and positioning until an exact replica of each statue was achieved.  Below are photo comparisons for some of the statues:

                

                   

               

               

I am really happy that we got this time in the studio to work on these moments.  I am hoping to have at least one more day in the studio so that we can be sure we have each sculpture memorized along with our lines.  This coming week will be all about repetition, running what we have, and fixing problems along the way.

Happy April Fool's Day, and here's a puppy: