Act Two took two nights to block, and one night to run through. Act Three took one night to block, and one night to run through.
On October 27th, the plans for rehearsal were to run through Act Two. Blocking had been completed the night before. This night proved to be a good example of how flawed live theater can be, even in the rehearsal stage.
First off, Dave, who plays Nick in the show, managed to leave his script in his car, which so happened to be at the car dealership for repairs.
Then, Phil, the director, arrived in the theater parking lot complaining of a stomach ailment. He handed me the keys, along with his script, and informed me that I was to run rehearsal for the night.
Dave ended up using Phil's script for rehearsal.
One rule to theater has proved to be true on many occasions. "Any performance can become an improvisation".
In rehearsals, and often times performances, situations arise that cause conflicts during the show. It could be that an actor misses a line, an actor doesn't up on stage at the right time, or even that a prop goes missing. Any little mistake can affect the rest of the show. This is the magic of live theater though; one never knows what could happen next.
This is fun to read, Jayme. You are right. The excitement of theater is that is a living entity. This can be exciting and fearful. Every performance has mistakes, it never fails that there is human error. What makes a good cast is a group that can pick each other up when one makes a slip. The trust factor is important. With Jim and Nerissa I feel complete trust because we are friends and we have been on stage together many times.
ReplyDeleteTo ease our fear, we always say "the audience dosen't have a copy of the script." But in this case we are dealing with one of the most famous and significant plays of the past century. I feel a lot of pressure to it well. It is in my top 5 plays ever written list and I will be bringing my A game. It will be interesting because I am certainly not the expected guy for this role. I wouldn't cast me as Nick. But I do hope to rise to the challenge.