Getting Psyched
Jun. 10th, 2011 01:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetOpening night is tomorrow. Tonight is our dark night, a night off to sleep and get our heads out of the show, so we can come back fresh and strong for opening weekend. It's a good tradition--it's very rare that one more night of rehearsal will help more than a night off. Another month of rehearsal, sometimes...but this is not that show.
We're ready. The actors were ready a week ago. Our run last Tuesday was really strong. On Thursday I experienced something I've only hit once before (in My Boyfriend's Wife, a short play I did with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gilana, also directed by dpolicar in 2005). It was a completely different show. Apparently it wasn't evident from the outside, even to so close an observer as the director, but Adam--who plays Alan Strang--agreed, so it wasn't just me. It's a very strange and wonderful experience--even though you're saying the same lines, doing the same blocking, every line is different and new. I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to get there in rehearsal, while there was still time to incorporate what I learned. With dramatic rehearsals over, we were good to go.
Of course, then we had Tech Week. We added the lights and the sound, put on our costumes and make-up. We did cue-to-cue, which is always tedious for the actors, and then our first tech run on Monday. That one felt completely flat to me and I had a moment of worry that we'd broken the show, or over-rehearsed it. But then I reminded myself that this is the whole point of tech rehearsals--adding new elements breaks the old ones and we do it as many times as the schedule allows precisely because the re-incorporation is not an automatic process. Tuesday felt a little better, enough so that I began to be confident again. And then Wednesday night, when we had a couple of members of the press and a few other friends making up a small audience, went very well. It's always good to hear other people (besides Dave's sotto voce "Yes!") and be reminded that people will laugh and gasp and simply add their energy to the process.
One of the interesting things about this play is the silence. It's an intense play and there are points where everyone watching goes completely still. It's a little spooky--the first time it happened, with just some of the tech crew in the house and the lights on so I could see them, I worried a bit that I'd lost them. I do go on a bit in this show. But they weren't shifting and rustling, the way bored audiences do. Now that we've run the show several times, I'm getting used to it--they are completely engaged, rapt even. I've heard that one of the attractions of heroin is that it makes the hum of life, the buzz that is so omnipresent as to be unnoticeable, stop. This silence is like that and it is quite a high. If we can do to a room of a hundred people what we've done to rooms of ten, it will be an incredible feeling.
I've had the day off today. Alice and I, with my mother and sisters, interred my father's ashes and then went out for a nice lunch. I got a long nap and managed to tidy up the house in readiness for the guests coming this weekend and next. Jason had choir rehearsal, so I got to spend some more time alone with Alice and have stories and snuggles before bed. I've caught up on LJ and Facebook and I even IM'd with Dave--I was afraid he might miss me. I've read the astonishing amount of press we're getting, thanks tokissoflife.* But mostly I haven't been thinking about the show. It's been good to have a breather. Tomorrow morning when I wake up, it will be Opening Night.
*If you're curious, and want to help us out by adding clicks, check out the articles and notices about Equus in:
Wicked Local/Somerville
Somerville Patch
Bay Windows
Somerville Scout
The Somerville News
There's also an article in the Arlington Advocate this week--it hasn't made it online yet, but it should show up on Wicked Local/Arlington soon. I know about it because a clerk at the convenience store I stopped at this evening said "hey, aren't you in the paper?" which was kind of cool.
We're ready. The actors were ready a week ago. Our run last Tuesday was really strong. On Thursday I experienced something I've only hit once before (in My Boyfriend's Wife, a short play I did with
gilana, also directed by dpolicar in 2005). It was a completely different show. Apparently it wasn't evident from the outside, even to so close an observer as the director, but Adam--who plays Alan Strang--agreed, so it wasn't just me. It's a very strange and wonderful experience--even though you're saying the same lines, doing the same blocking, every line is different and new. I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to get there in rehearsal, while there was still time to incorporate what I learned. With dramatic rehearsals over, we were good to go.Of course, then we had Tech Week. We added the lights and the sound, put on our costumes and make-up. We did cue-to-cue, which is always tedious for the actors, and then our first tech run on Monday. That one felt completely flat to me and I had a moment of worry that we'd broken the show, or over-rehearsed it. But then I reminded myself that this is the whole point of tech rehearsals--adding new elements breaks the old ones and we do it as many times as the schedule allows precisely because the re-incorporation is not an automatic process. Tuesday felt a little better, enough so that I began to be confident again. And then Wednesday night, when we had a couple of members of the press and a few other friends making up a small audience, went very well. It's always good to hear other people (besides Dave's sotto voce "Yes!") and be reminded that people will laugh and gasp and simply add their energy to the process.
One of the interesting things about this play is the silence. It's an intense play and there are points where everyone watching goes completely still. It's a little spooky--the first time it happened, with just some of the tech crew in the house and the lights on so I could see them, I worried a bit that I'd lost them. I do go on a bit in this show. But they weren't shifting and rustling, the way bored audiences do. Now that we've run the show several times, I'm getting used to it--they are completely engaged, rapt even. I've heard that one of the attractions of heroin is that it makes the hum of life, the buzz that is so omnipresent as to be unnoticeable, stop. This silence is like that and it is quite a high. If we can do to a room of a hundred people what we've done to rooms of ten, it will be an incredible feeling.
I've had the day off today. Alice and I, with my mother and sisters, interred my father's ashes and then went out for a nice lunch. I got a long nap and managed to tidy up the house in readiness for the guests coming this weekend and next. Jason had choir rehearsal, so I got to spend some more time alone with Alice and have stories and snuggles before bed. I've caught up on LJ and Facebook and I even IM'd with Dave--I was afraid he might miss me. I've read the astonishing amount of press we're getting, thanks to
kissoflife.* But mostly I haven't been thinking about the show. It's been good to have a breather. Tomorrow morning when I wake up, it will be Opening Night. *If you're curious, and want to help us out by adding clicks, check out the articles and notices about Equus in:
Wicked Local/Somerville
Somerville Patch
Bay Windows
Somerville Scout
The Somerville News
There's also an article in the Arlington Advocate this week--it hasn't made it online yet, but it should show up on Wicked Local/Arlington soon. I know about it because a clerk at the convenience store I stopped at this evening said "hey, aren't you in the paper?" which was kind of cool.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 02:54 pm (UTC)Break a leg!
Date: 2011-06-10 03:57 pm (UTC)Re: Break a leg!
Date: 2011-06-10 04:34 pm (UTC)