Piecing it Together

Hello all!

Max here, coming at you again from THE OVERWHELMING rehearsal hall. We have just finished working through all the scenes for at least a second time, and everyday the show is coming together more and more. What's really exciting is that all the actors are off-book and have now formed a very intimate kinship with the text, allowing us to really delve into the story of the play. In addition, whereas before when we were working and running individual scenes, we are now starting to piece numerous consecutive scenes together and even running large chunks of the play at one time. With this, we are now really starting to see how the story of the play as a whole will unfold in our production. The challenge now for the actors and for the director is to find the overall arc and pace of the play. Earlier in the rehearsal process, we focused our attention on the arc of each individual scene. The actors were required to examine where their characters were in the beginning of a scene, where they were at the end of that scene and, most importantly, how they got there. Now, the real challenge is taking all these small arcs and bringing them together to create the arc for the whole play. A big component of this, for the actors at least, is figuring out how to shift emotionally from one scene to the next. In this play, with each scene comes a new time, place, and situation, and the actors must be able to bring their characters along with that, some even having to change into entirely different characters in a matter of only moments. It's a tall order, but our actors are already attacking the challenge head-on.

Another exciting part of our current stage in the rehearsal process is that we've begun to include some technical elements, including sound, props, and set pieces, into scene work. With a show as complicated as this one with regard to the story and technical demands, it's really important to bring in these elements as early as possible, so that the actors and creative team can get a feeling for what will work and what won't. What's always interested me is how even the most seemingly inconsequential prop can be the catalyst for lengthy deliberation among the actors, director, and stage management. An audience member might think that the fact that an actor has a wine glass in one scene is not really a big deal. Yet, much thought goes into how that prop will get on stage, how it will be used, and how it will get off stage in time for when the scene shifts to an entirely new location and time in which that prop is no longer appropriate. Of course, in the end, these technical shifts occur seamlessly, their difficult nature never unveiled to the audience. Some of my favorite memories in theatre are being backstage during a show, when the audience is watching what seems like a simple and easy transition, and yet backstage countless stage hands are running around in a fury in order to maintain that the audience is always none the wiser.

That's about all for now. This week we are going to be running the show the whole way through, and we'll really see what we have on our hands. No doubt it'll be exciting!

Over and Out,
Max