"How can I get gentle in a hurry?"
Jun. 8th, 2010 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluecastleYes. Theater has eaten my life. Its good at that. So as I sit here and fret about tonight's opening ... let me do a quick recap of the last couple of days.
Saturday's Q2Q (or in otherwords ... our Cue to Cue) was the most relaxed rehearsal for me, as my character is almost never onstage when there are any light or sound cues. So for the better part of three and a half hours I just sat and watched the mechanics of theater. We were supposed to run through from cue to cue, and then run the show. But it took until 10 pm to get through the script once (hello LD who has never worked in the space...). So after a mostly relaxing night the cast/crew went off to a nearby dining/drinking establishment and spent the next three hours whooping it up. Far ranging discussions including slash fiction, gender identity, and the perils of honeymoon cruises!
Was somewhat shocked/surprised to find out that the woman playing one of my sisters in the show is a rampant slash reader. Who loves her some Data prOn. Huh. Wow. Okay. Fellow broad-minded, sometime cross-dressing cast member HORRIFIED by the idea of taking characters who do not have a sexual relationship in the canon work and giving them sexy tiems. He seems freaked out by the concept. Just made me realize how far I've come since I started poking around ff.net some years ago looking for fan fic. LOLs.
We had drinks ... we had laughs ... and it was a very nice night all around.
And then came DRESS REHEARSAL. (cue ominous music)
Since we'd had Friday off ... and didn't get anything done Saturday ... Sunday night was our first run in three days... and it was NOT, SO NOT a success. Take a bunch of insecure actors (ALL actors are insecure, actually) and put them in ill-fitting and ugly clothes and it does not help their state of mind. I try to be conscious of this when I costume. Sometimes you cannot help it... but our clothes for this show are uniformly ill fitting. And ugly. And polyester.
So we limped along, interrupted every so often by the Directors "HOLD!" as she noted the many cues that weren't occurring correctly. We got through it, but not without some ugly, dead pauses where people scrambled desperately to remember what they were supposed to be saying.
It was so horrifying that the BFF and I rendezvoused at the Sheetz afterwords and stocked up on binge-worthy food for a midnight pigfest. Cheese fries ... pizza ... snack pie ... yeah... I ate it all.
Then in the morning I called my boss, told him I had a migraine, and went back to bed until about 1 pm.
Sleep, glorious sleep, with a warm and cozy kitty buddy. Sometimes that the best part of my day!
But I got up eventually and then Torchwood exploded and I spent my afternoon alternating between twitter and my lines.
The night before we open is traditionally a preview night. There is marginally some control so that people don't feel they can just show up then, and not buy a ticket. But we also invite the local Sight Loss Support Group to come. The local audio describers come along and whisper in their headsets giving the sightless (or sight impaired) a feel for the visual elements of the show. As someone with very bad eyesight, I have a bit of an affinity for this particular group.
As previews go, I suppose it wasn't entirely disastrous. We got through it. My first scene got screwed up, and I'm still not entirely sure it was my fault. Some of it was. And man was I pissed at myself. I do not know why four pages of lines should be to terribly hard to poke into my brain. I think we just haven't run it enough. We girls are going to meet early tonight and run lines. We have GOT to nail that bit down. Everyone LOVES the gangsters. As I predicted they are stealing the show.
One of them was a bit traumatized last night. The costumer made him cut his hair... and his ponytail was down to his butt! He doesn't even look like himself now. He just kept saying "It hasn't been this short since I got out of the Navy." Naturally we broke into song after that and razzed him a bit trying to bring him out of his state of shock. I didn't mind the pony tail... or his facial hair which she also made him shave off ... but c'est la vie. Let's just hope the "Streetcar" director didn't WANT the ponytail!
Oh, let's see... what else... the girl playing the boy wiped out TWICE as her shoes are too damn slippery on the painted stage floor (this is actually a widespread problem with the men's shoes). Poor things knees are all banged up now. She's doing a great job ... and looks pretty great in her boy clothes actually (it's a bit like baby Victor/Victoria!) ... but the show for her is a whirlwind back and forth, in and out of three different costumes!!! I'm not sure how she keeps up, but she's a trouper!
So... we've come at last to Opening Night. I'm sort of low-key terrified. I am pretty much always a basket case on opening nights. And my Studio pals are all coming tonight to cheer ME on. I cannot let Director Cee and the gang down. Also I am a bit freaked out to have people coming especially to cheer me on. Been a long time since I had actual in person supportive friends. Sometimes the BFF would come, although usually accompanied by the ex-girlfriend. And my parents are planning to come Thursday night (after I buy them tickets). But this feels different somehow, and kind of overwhelming for me.
But I've got to put that all aside and just REMEMBER MY GODDAMN LINES.
Whew. Performance 1 of 10 begins tonight. Hold on to your fedoras, gang!!!!
Saturday's Q2Q (or in otherwords ... our Cue to Cue) was the most relaxed rehearsal for me, as my character is almost never onstage when there are any light or sound cues. So for the better part of three and a half hours I just sat and watched the mechanics of theater. We were supposed to run through from cue to cue, and then run the show. But it took until 10 pm to get through the script once (hello LD who has never worked in the space...). So after a mostly relaxing night the cast/crew went off to a nearby dining/drinking establishment and spent the next three hours whooping it up. Far ranging discussions including slash fiction, gender identity, and the perils of honeymoon cruises!
Was somewhat shocked/surprised to find out that the woman playing one of my sisters in the show is a rampant slash reader. Who loves her some Data prOn. Huh. Wow. Okay. Fellow broad-minded, sometime cross-dressing cast member HORRIFIED by the idea of taking characters who do not have a sexual relationship in the canon work and giving them sexy tiems. He seems freaked out by the concept. Just made me realize how far I've come since I started poking around ff.net some years ago looking for fan fic. LOLs.
We had drinks ... we had laughs ... and it was a very nice night all around.
And then came DRESS REHEARSAL. (cue ominous music)
Since we'd had Friday off ... and didn't get anything done Saturday ... Sunday night was our first run in three days... and it was NOT, SO NOT a success. Take a bunch of insecure actors (ALL actors are insecure, actually) and put them in ill-fitting and ugly clothes and it does not help their state of mind. I try to be conscious of this when I costume. Sometimes you cannot help it... but our clothes for this show are uniformly ill fitting. And ugly. And polyester.
So we limped along, interrupted every so often by the Directors "HOLD!" as she noted the many cues that weren't occurring correctly. We got through it, but not without some ugly, dead pauses where people scrambled desperately to remember what they were supposed to be saying.
It was so horrifying that the BFF and I rendezvoused at the Sheetz afterwords and stocked up on binge-worthy food for a midnight pigfest. Cheese fries ... pizza ... snack pie ... yeah... I ate it all.
Then in the morning I called my boss, told him I had a migraine, and went back to bed until about 1 pm.
Sleep, glorious sleep, with a warm and cozy kitty buddy. Sometimes that the best part of my day!
But I got up eventually and then Torchwood exploded and I spent my afternoon alternating between twitter and my lines.
The night before we open is traditionally a preview night. There is marginally some control so that people don't feel they can just show up then, and not buy a ticket. But we also invite the local Sight Loss Support Group to come. The local audio describers come along and whisper in their headsets giving the sightless (or sight impaired) a feel for the visual elements of the show. As someone with very bad eyesight, I have a bit of an affinity for this particular group.
As previews go, I suppose it wasn't entirely disastrous. We got through it. My first scene got screwed up, and I'm still not entirely sure it was my fault. Some of it was. And man was I pissed at myself. I do not know why four pages of lines should be to terribly hard to poke into my brain. I think we just haven't run it enough. We girls are going to meet early tonight and run lines. We have GOT to nail that bit down. Everyone LOVES the gangsters. As I predicted they are stealing the show.
One of them was a bit traumatized last night. The costumer made him cut his hair... and his ponytail was down to his butt! He doesn't even look like himself now. He just kept saying "It hasn't been this short since I got out of the Navy." Naturally we broke into song after that and razzed him a bit trying to bring him out of his state of shock. I didn't mind the pony tail... or his facial hair which she also made him shave off ... but c'est la vie. Let's just hope the "Streetcar" director didn't WANT the ponytail!
Oh, let's see... what else... the girl playing the boy wiped out TWICE as her shoes are too damn slippery on the painted stage floor (this is actually a widespread problem with the men's shoes). Poor things knees are all banged up now. She's doing a great job ... and looks pretty great in her boy clothes actually (it's a bit like baby Victor/Victoria!) ... but the show for her is a whirlwind back and forth, in and out of three different costumes!!! I'm not sure how she keeps up, but she's a trouper!
So... we've come at last to Opening Night. I'm sort of low-key terrified. I am pretty much always a basket case on opening nights. And my Studio pals are all coming tonight to cheer ME on. I cannot let Director Cee and the gang down. Also I am a bit freaked out to have people coming especially to cheer me on. Been a long time since I had actual in person supportive friends. Sometimes the BFF would come, although usually accompanied by the ex-girlfriend. And my parents are planning to come Thursday night (after I buy them tickets). But this feels different somehow, and kind of overwhelming for me.
But I've got to put that all aside and just REMEMBER MY GODDAMN LINES.
Whew. Performance 1 of 10 begins tonight. Hold on to your fedoras, gang!!!!
