so. readthru.
May. 20th, 2010 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluecastleFor my own record ... and because people have said they're interested ... I suppose I should talk a little bit about last night's read-through.
We're rehearsing some of the time at the church where the community theater group has their offices. So we arrive in dribs and drabs and the very young stage manager (more on this in a bit) sends us down dim hallways saying "just go down to the end." About as helpful as shoving a person in a maze and saying "just go to the center" but I followed my nose and found our very yellow rehearsal room.
There's always a bit of a weird dynamic going on at that very first meeting of any cast, and there are 17 of us in this show. So we trickle into our little room at the end of nowhere and sort of mill around the circle of empty chairs. Some of us know each other, but no one knows everyone. Some people will introduce themselves, or ask "so who are you playing?" but the shy ones just slip into chairs, or stand awkwardly outside the circle waiting.
The woman playing the lead in the show is also the group's treasurer -- thrust suddenly into the middle of running things when the group's business manager stepped down for health reasons. There have been a lot, a LOT of changes lately with the management end of the group. Anyway our leading lady/treasurer was talking to one of the summer season Producers about budget, and keys, and the like, and the costume designer was hanging around waiting for the director to arrive.
At the appointed hour we got a welcoming speech from one half of the producing team (and her 15 month old daughter) most of which I don't remember, except for the bit where she hit us over the head with a reminder that we would be miked, not because of projection issues, but because our sound system was donated a few years ago by one of the local audiologists and is set up for those people who are hard of hearing. Some consternation and grumbling, which I totally get. I hate being miked. Taping the little mike thing to your face and the back of your neck every night and finding someplace inconspicuous under your clothes to clip a little condom covered battery pack is not fun. I hate seeing them ... I hate wearing them ... but it's a case of suffering for the greater good I guess.
The director arrived in the middle of all of that, as well as the final couple of cast members straggling in. So we got a welcome from her, and a little bit about how this show is SO ridiculous that we just have to play that up ... play to type ... and treat it rather as a farce, or a piece of musical theater. So it's all Barrowman jazz hands from here on out! LOL.
She was about to launch into a tour of the set design when one of the cast members piped up and wondered if we were going to do introductions, or "do you all already know each other." Director said she was going to do that later, but that we could do it now if we wanted. So we stared off with name and character. Fortuitously we started with our leading lady who pointed out that her character's maiden name was the same as her real last name, which sort of started us off on adding some fun fact to our intros. Unplanned that, but by the time we'd gotten around the circle we had, suddenly, a couple of in-jokes already and a few facts about our fellow cast members had emerged. Worked out swell as an early bonding thing actually, and it just happened. I love moments like that.
We are actually one cast member short ... one of the women who was cast as one of my character's sisters dropped out, so the Director had to stay afterward and mine the audition forms. I hope she comes up with someone with some sense of timing as it's really important for nearly all of my lines are reactions to that character.
And for a moment of self-aggrandizement ... I got a LOT of laughs doing my lines. They're fun because they switch tone on a dime in the middle. Like:
"Belle -- you are so sweet -- PUT IT BACK MAUDE!"
If you can flip the switch in the middle like a finger-snap, it's guaranteed funny. Working it out on it's feet will be tricky tho, because Maude there, my klepto-y sister, had got to be reaching for the doily at just the right point for me to see her do it...
The whole this is over the top, and the gangster scenes are going to be hysterically funny. Think Guys and Dolls meets Little Orphan Annie.
I'll be interested to see what happens tonight when we start to put it on it's feet.
Oh, say, I never got to the useless stage manager. Suffice it to say every contact I have had with her so far has been WRONG in one way or another. Capped off by her forgetting to send the DIRECTOR a copy of the final rehearsal schedule ... culminating in us receiving a REVISED schedule along with our nightly rehearsal report email late last night.
So tonight... our first blocking rehearsal. Any bets on how many people will NOT remember to bring a pencil?!
We're rehearsing some of the time at the church where the community theater group has their offices. So we arrive in dribs and drabs and the very young stage manager (more on this in a bit) sends us down dim hallways saying "just go down to the end." About as helpful as shoving a person in a maze and saying "just go to the center" but I followed my nose and found our very yellow rehearsal room.
There's always a bit of a weird dynamic going on at that very first meeting of any cast, and there are 17 of us in this show. So we trickle into our little room at the end of nowhere and sort of mill around the circle of empty chairs. Some of us know each other, but no one knows everyone. Some people will introduce themselves, or ask "so who are you playing?" but the shy ones just slip into chairs, or stand awkwardly outside the circle waiting.
The woman playing the lead in the show is also the group's treasurer -- thrust suddenly into the middle of running things when the group's business manager stepped down for health reasons. There have been a lot, a LOT of changes lately with the management end of the group. Anyway our leading lady/treasurer was talking to one of the summer season Producers about budget, and keys, and the like, and the costume designer was hanging around waiting for the director to arrive.
At the appointed hour we got a welcoming speech from one half of the producing team (and her 15 month old daughter) most of which I don't remember, except for the bit where she hit us over the head with a reminder that we would be miked, not because of projection issues, but because our sound system was donated a few years ago by one of the local audiologists and is set up for those people who are hard of hearing. Some consternation and grumbling, which I totally get. I hate being miked. Taping the little mike thing to your face and the back of your neck every night and finding someplace inconspicuous under your clothes to clip a little condom covered battery pack is not fun. I hate seeing them ... I hate wearing them ... but it's a case of suffering for the greater good I guess.
The director arrived in the middle of all of that, as well as the final couple of cast members straggling in. So we got a welcome from her, and a little bit about how this show is SO ridiculous that we just have to play that up ... play to type ... and treat it rather as a farce, or a piece of musical theater. So it's all Barrowman jazz hands from here on out! LOL.
She was about to launch into a tour of the set design when one of the cast members piped up and wondered if we were going to do introductions, or "do you all already know each other." Director said she was going to do that later, but that we could do it now if we wanted. So we stared off with name and character. Fortuitously we started with our leading lady who pointed out that her character's maiden name was the same as her real last name, which sort of started us off on adding some fun fact to our intros. Unplanned that, but by the time we'd gotten around the circle we had, suddenly, a couple of in-jokes already and a few facts about our fellow cast members had emerged. Worked out swell as an early bonding thing actually, and it just happened. I love moments like that.
We are actually one cast member short ... one of the women who was cast as one of my character's sisters dropped out, so the Director had to stay afterward and mine the audition forms. I hope she comes up with someone with some sense of timing as it's really important for nearly all of my lines are reactions to that character.
And for a moment of self-aggrandizement ... I got a LOT of laughs doing my lines. They're fun because they switch tone on a dime in the middle. Like:
"Belle -- you are so sweet -- PUT IT BACK MAUDE!"
If you can flip the switch in the middle like a finger-snap, it's guaranteed funny. Working it out on it's feet will be tricky tho, because Maude there, my klepto-y sister, had got to be reaching for the doily at just the right point for me to see her do it...
The whole this is over the top, and the gangster scenes are going to be hysterically funny. Think Guys and Dolls meets Little Orphan Annie.
I'll be interested to see what happens tonight when we start to put it on it's feet.
Oh, say, I never got to the useless stage manager. Suffice it to say every contact I have had with her so far has been WRONG in one way or another. Capped off by her forgetting to send the DIRECTOR a copy of the final rehearsal schedule ... culminating in us receiving a REVISED schedule along with our nightly rehearsal report email late last night.
So tonight... our first blocking rehearsal. Any bets on how many people will NOT remember to bring a pencil?!
