March 20, 2012
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Miserable Night
Little substantial sleep. Hot as frickin' Summer last night and I was not about to take the time to put the air conditioner in my bedroom window. Have all the fans going but still just too hot. I'm also still waiting to get my cooling pad back. I need to call/write these people because I sent it in 6 weeks ago. How long does it take to repair?
Today is supposed to be in the low 80s. First day of Spring and it's going to be Summer temps. I'm going to run the air conditioner today with all the windows closed in the hopes it'll make my bedroom cool enough to actually get some sleep tonight.
I am a little worried about what I'm going to do this Summer - do I run the air conditioner during the day for Fazio while I'm gone at work? My electric bill will be staggering if I do. Or is it going to remain cool enough during the day that just having the fans on will be enough until I get home?
Change of subject, I am a little ticked. I only just found out yesterday that we are supposed to have a brush-up rehearsal Thursday night. I've already got a blocking rehearsal scheduled for "The Gin Game" Thursday night. And the reason I do is because I had NO idea there was a brush-up rehearsal scheduled. I have NEVER had a brush-up rehearsal for a musical EVER! You just don't do it because you don't have the band there. I've only had brush-up rehearsals for plays and let's face it, most brush-up rehearsals are a waste of time because everyone goofs off. The only sensible thing to do is have a line speed-through because then you actually get something done - you have everyone sitting in the house, concentrating on their lines instead of goofing around onstage.
But no. This director wants a brush-up rehearsal. I only found out about it because my stage manager for "The Gin Game" e-mailed me back saying, "Are you having rehearsal on Thursday? Because I'd heard you're having a brush-up rehearsal." I had to e-mail the director. He is insisting on it. I am a bit livid about this. First of all, it will be a waste of time. Secondly, who has a brush-up for a musical? Thirdly, without the band there, what's the point? Fourth - it may have "been on the schedule from the beginning", but no one - not the director, the producer or the stage manager bothered to mention it to ANYONE at any point. Fifth - and something I did NOT mention in my e-mail to him - our director was not even AT our rehearsals for "The Drowsy Chaperone" the first three weeks and I had to run the rehearsals myself for 6 rehearsals, teaching everyone the music. I may have gotten an e-mail thank you from him, but I didn't get so much as a mention in the program for it, or a thank you from him in front of the cast. He spent the first three weeks of our rehearsals directing another musical at another theatre. And I don't want to neglect the cast of "The Gin Game" in that way. However, I had to send them an e-mail yesterday, letting them know Thursday may have to be canceled.
The director sent out an e-mail which someone in the cast forwarded to me. He did not include me in this e-mail. I can only assume it's because he replied to me at my work e-mail (I did work 11 - 7:30 yesterday and was using that e-mail up until I left) and I won't see it until I get in later this morning. In the e-mail he says that he "always" has a brush-up rehearsal between the opening weekend and second weekend when he does a musical. He uses it to "clean up things" that he "didn't get a chance to touch upon." In other words, he expects to change things and give notes. I'm sorry, but in community theatre, the unwritten rule has always been "Once a show opens, it belongs to the cast." You do NOT change a thing or give notes, unless something goes so dreadfully wrong that you HAVE to change it, such as a broken set piece or something of that nature. The band is going to be there "so they can have a chance to rehearse properly since they never got the chance." You don't know how badly I want to say, "As if WE, the cast members, ever got the chance to rehearse properly."
Which brings me to another thing - directing style. I have no idea if any of you (other than *Mumsie*) reading this do any theatre, but there is a particular directing style that I can't STAND. And it's happened in two of the shows I've done in the past year. It's a director who only does one scene - in some cases only half a page - over and over and over at one rehearsal. Each rehearsal is only one scene and only the two or more actors in that scene are needed for the rehearsal and you are going to be blocked in that scene, then nit-picked to death and made to do the scene over and over and over and over until at least 2 hours have gone by. These directors claim "it's a great way to direct because you get down to the details right away and it helps the actors memorize right away." What a load of crap. Yes, it gets down to the details right away in a way that shouldn't be done because more than likely you aren't going to touch upon that scene again for about two weeks. There is no way in hell as an actor you're going to remember that level of detail in two weeks' time. And I love the directors who say, "Well you should be working on it on your own time." When? When I'm sleeping? Traveling to or from work? Or when I'm at work? Here in the real world, any remaining spare time I have is spent just memorizing the lines, not worrying about details that minute. Ri-donk-ulous.
The other thing that kind of directing style does is it keeps the actors from getting any kind of continuity. You may have a scene memorized because you ran it 38 times one night, but when you haven't run the show through once until Tech Week, you have a lot of bewildered actors with no clue what scene comes next because they've had no continuity.
BLOCK THE DAMN SHOW. Block it in the simplest of terms as quickly as possible. Then start running the show. Run it as far as you can, stopping and starting and changing/correcting as you go along. Then continue where you left off at the previous rehearsal until you get all the way through. Get to where you're doing a "stumble-through" of Act I as soon as possible. This gives the actors a chance to view the show as a whole and will help them to memorize both acting and blocking together.
Don't waste my freaking time with that drill-down crap. We'll get maybe get 4 run-throughs total and that will be tech week only when you direct it that way.
Just my opinion - but that also seemed to be the consensus of the actors in both those shows.
Comments (2)
Hear Hear.
The first director I ever worked with was brilliant. Unfortunately she had the beginning stages of Alzheimers (NOT a laughing matter when it came to directors notes let me tell you!) and we often were blocked - and at the next rehearsal we would be changed - and at the following rehearsal we would be back to Take 1 - and so on - until one night I got SO frustrated I said *But Gaye, last week you changed us from doing it this way to something different and now you want us to revert to that - which is it you want us to do?* to which I was shouted at (in a torrent of abuse) *YOU WILL DO IT THE WAY I SAY!* Uh. OK. But which way is that? LOL
I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was incredibly green, didn't understand what the hell I was doing when I was told once to change it from a to b - let alone then change it back from b to a - and then probably on to c and then back to b - all on the same night. All 'coz she couldn't remember what she'd said 5 minutes ago.
In saying that, she did block the whole thing first - and then do specifics during the remaining rehearsals.
One director I worked with spent most of his time arguing heatedly with his co-director while us actors stood about on stage, twiddling our thumbs, trying not to catch each others eyes 'coz for sure we'd have burst out laughing.
One director does the very thing u are talking about. *Hands over the show* to the stage manager on Dress Rehearsal - and while the show is running - takes notes - and gives slight tweaks to stance/placement/line/movement WHILE THE SEASON IS RUNNING!!! UGH
Scott (aka Prima Donna) used to give instruction after instruction which were NEVER clear (to anyone but him) - and then get terribly frustrated because we weren't mind readers and couldn't get what he wanted - and he'd have a hiussy fit and a total meltdown. (He's since been diagnosed with some kind of mental health issue and is currently undergoing intense therapy - while in an institution, medicated.)
Ngaire is probably the best one I've worked with.
Although she has been known to *tweak* things after openers, she's mostly pretty good.
Some shows just don't get that continuity going. And that's really sucky. Totally agree - you know each scene (or partial scene) inside out, but when you some to move from one to the next - everyone is screwed.
Sometimes we are one night out from Tech rehearsal before we put a complete show together. It's happend twice - and it scares the crap outta me!!
End of rant.
I see you've worked with all of MY directors, too! We had one director last year who quickly blocked the whole thing, but then said, "Now we're going to 'work' the show." I thought that meant starting to work on the details. No. It meant after you said EVERY SINGLE LINE, he would stop you and ask, "Now what does your character WANT here?" This was a farce of all farces. An homage and spoof of every Agatha Christie murder mystery called "Bloody Murder" (it's a fairly new play and you should definitely see if you can do it there!) It's a ridiculous over-the-top spoof where the characters begin to realize early on that they ARE characters in a murder mystery and they are stock, stereotypical characters and they are sick of being murdered in everything the author does, so they're going to rebel against the author by not playing along. It's one of the funniest plays I've been in and this director treated it as if it was deep, symbolic, meaningful stuff. Until one night, after my friend Lisa was asked yet again, "What does your character WANT here?" and she flat out said, "I don't think my character WANTS anything. I think the author had a lot of exposition to get out here and he chose my character to say it." We rebelled. 4 of the 6 of us in the cast revolted against the director because we felt he wasn't getting the material and was directing the comedy out of it and the Board had to intervene. What should have been a pleasant experience became cumbersome. But needless to say, that director isn't working at that theatre again!
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