Friday, June 20, 2008

Day 13 - Wait, people are actually going to see this?

Howdy,

In preparation of sharing the 'rehearsal' process with the public tomorrow and Saturday. We spent three hours 'teching' - really that means setting levels, and timing on sound cues - specifying the lighting cues. And for the first time when watching you start to question shit that never bothered you before - and wouldn't in a rehearsal. For example - they wear white, white nightgown, white t-shirt, white boxers...maybe the bed shouldn't be all white?
Getting the shout outs out of the way: In order for people to be able to see this forever Tom came and took pictures for us. Thank you for doing this. We're going to want to look at these pictures later. Trevor stopped by, confirmed some people are reading this blog - which is nice because yesterday, I actually wrote something smart. I hope to duplicate that later in this blog - if not smart, at least, honest.
Big ups to all designers - Lea, Martin, Betsy, and Sarah. Thanks Marieke, Nola, Scout, and Kpoe for being around - making sure all things ran smoothly. Lauren was not feeling well in the first half of the day and Becky stepped in admirably. Both were operating at full capacity by the run through in the evening. Carly, thanks - and Danny not enough appreciation can go to having an actual production meeting. Things are going smooth, remarkably so, I believe the absence of the need of the production meeting is caused by the fact that we were having a production meeting.
Okay...Big ups to all.
Here are the signs that people were suddenly aware we were going to have an audience tomorrow: Playwright totally questioning the performances during 'tech'. or questioning his writing during 'tech'. Or all of a sudden you, the director, is thinkin - I can't stop the run through when one of the actors completely lost their character behavior because the actors - and designers have to see how thier work is supporting the story in real time....oh bullshit everyone would go with it, I feel like we need to get through it, as rough as it is, so that the first time in front of the audience - isn't our first time through it. The purity of the experience - always shifts when you invite people in. Immediately the joy of process gets challenged by the awareness that others are only going to see this once...and you want them to see the best version of your work. Especially if the play only gets presented three times over two days. We want you to see the best play we can do...two days ago...we wanted to explore and grow as much as possible. It took ten minutes after the run through to clean up one tech moment - and for the actor to reexperience and own her or his character behavior. Not playing the obstacle - but the hope. Faith is restored. But it is important that an audience see the work because that is the most important part of the development. It can 'feel' good to us - but our obligation is to tell the story. And we want to tell the story to you. Hope you will all check out the play. Thanks to those who stopped by to check out our run through tonight.
Final big ups to David Jackson - keeping tabs on all that needs tabs kept on, and to Jessica for running it all smooth and getting two, three, nine things done when I'm focusing on one. Today ran wonderfully smooth.

Goodnight,

Padraic

1 comment:

TSP said...

Hello! We met during EPAs for Sweet Storm. Why is the show going on for three days only??! :-( Is it up for a longer production??
Tatiana Suarez-Pico