The other night Rob and I were at a party with some of his friends.  One of them remembered Rob had just made his stage debut in the short scene I wrote for the latest Me and Them production and asked, “So, how did the play go?  What was it about?”   Rob started talking about the experience while I remained quiet.  He beams when he talks about it and I enjoy watching him and letting him have the spotlight.  Of course, he gets details wrong, and he doesn’t articulate the themes of the play the way I would, but that’s okay.  I’m usually close enough by to jump in add my own side to the story; correct him when he says we did the play on Flatbush Ave…

The one thing I never add is the true origin of the scene.  I tell people the half-truth and I leave out the truly mushy stuff; that the scene that I wrote and performed with my husband was written as a gift to him.  I was inspired, in a way, by our wedding vows.  In them, I told Rob that one of the reasons I was marrying him was because he makes every day, ordinary things sublime.  I really believe that’s what makes a marriage worthwhile.  It’s not a romantic idyll – don’t let yourself get fooled.  Your soul-mate will never put his dishes in the dishwasher even if the sink is completely full and you will have vicious fights about it.  Your sensitive lover will not write you songs each day on his acoustic guitar but will shave in the sink and never clean it out and you will wonder, “Why am I here again?”   But if you’re like the couple in Landscape of Marriage you get something better.  You get the freedom to be yourself and be totally accepted and loved for who you are.

It was an honor sharing this with my husband.  We had the easiest time rehearsing and developing our performance together.  It was my first time doing live theater in over 10 years and having Rob by my side gave me confidence.  In fact, I will keep collaborating with my husband in different ways as I continue to write and work with Me and Them. 

And really, it gets a little lonely being the only married-over-30 in the group.  I need to keep that guy around for company at the very least!

The show last night was a massive success.  Thank you to all those who attended in person and tuned in to watch it online.*  We had a great time and hope you did too. Thank you also to all the actors, directors and writers who worked extremely hard to make this happen. We have some fantastic photos by Hannah as well as taped footage of the pieces and will post them all shortly.

We are already mulling what next.  For Natalya and I the aim of the collective was always to take it to a new level each time, to add an element of experimentation or to try something new.  For us, this is a space not for perfectionism but a rough and ready one, a place to play and try things out  – so we are at an exciting turning point right now and considering many options both creative, process and cast/crew/partner-wise.  More news soon.

* Unfortunately, as Kira consoled me after the show: “Sorry you couldn’t get it up, it happens all the time”  Being a girl this isn’t something I hear a lot!  But it’s true we failed on the livestream front.  Lesson learnt?  Don’t rely on just one platform (Mogulus in this case) when working with new types of technology, they are all buggy and all in beta.  Next time, I’ll have Ustream, Justin TV and Kyte accounts set up as back-ups so that we can switch straight over to another option.

Hi all, event is about to start but no livestream is available – we had some difficulties at the venue.  We are recording the show though and will post it soon.  Thanks for checking in!

Post rehearsal last night I interviewed Natalya and Amy on their characters in Getting Sam.  Here are the results below.  Read the play.

I met my new Lori -one of my two leads – for the first time at dress rehearsal.  In an ideal world obviously this wouldn’t have been the case but schedules and timing conspired against us.

As I mentioned previously Natalya and I’d worked on Getting Sam before, with her as Melly and me directing.  However, the lead then was an actress called Jacqueline Rose.

Jackie did a fantastic job in the role, but when I started thinking about shooting the play as a short (as it was originally written) back in July I felt we needed someone older.  Jackie is in her early twenties, Melly in her early thirties and more reassured, worldly – something easier to carry off on stage but not so much in film.
That’s when Natalya introduced me to Elizabeth Alice Murray, a talented writer/director as well as an actress.  We met in a little café off Union Square in August and talked for an hour.  She read for the part and I cast her on the spot.

However, the combination of our three busy diaries (summer holidays, other shoots/work, traveling) meant the shoot was pushed, and soon Natalya and I were already starting work on Show Two for Me & Them.

Originally I’d written a piece called Darwin, Adam and Eve for Show Two, in which four NYC friends meet for dinner and discuss the disparities between their families’ traditional hopes for them and their actual lives, but when the writers met for script workshop we all agreed it was too long a piece for the collective.  We discussed how I might split it into two pieces instead but I wanted to save it and spin it into something more complex rather than simplify.  Rather than rush out a new piece for the sake of it, I suggested we use Getting Sam and Natalya agreed.

We went back to Elizabeth but she’d just won a webisode competition for her awesome series Café Conversations so was hard at work moving forward with that.  Step up, Amy Gironda, an actress Natalya had met in a recent class, and we had our new Lorelei.

With previous creative work I have either cast friends or gone through extensive casting sessions but Me & Them engenders a faster, hit-the-ground-running approach than more intricate film projects.  Also, I trust Natalya’s judgment so went with her casting blindly.  As such, I was on tender-hooks when it was time to see what the two of them –Amy/Lori & Natalya/Melly – had done with the piece and I was thrilled.

Though sick, at dress rehearsal Amy was a consummate professional and jumped into the role with full energy.  Seconds after dozing in a chair with flu she was battling Natalya in a dazzling array of verbosity.  I loved what they had done with the piece, which was infuse it with vigor by understanding that for the friendship to be believable and for the beats to fall in the right place, the dialogue needs to be extremely fast: the characters need to almost talk over each other, and use the words as ammunition.

An added bonus was that Amy physically looks very similar to Natalya – I’d always imagined Lori with longer hair, being the shyer of the friends – it tends to give people something to hide behind – but this mirror image presented to the group was a pleasant visual surprise and actually made sense given the script.  Natalya’s first comment on reading Getting Sam had been that she felt the two characters were the two opposites sides of me – and here they were, battling it out.

As I smiled I remembered the term “happy mistake” my fine art professor repeated to us again and again in college – that often it’s the unintentional marks on a page that lead you to a new, advanced place.

Given the chaos and speed of the event overall and Amy’s sickness I left notes for our next rehearsal – we have one scheduled between dress and performance.  Initially I’d been worried that this was not enough and too late in the day, but now I saw that it was only minor tweaks that were needed: Amy to temper Lori with more vulnerability at certain points, a few pacing variations in speed and volume and a few physical interaction notes, that’s all.   I’m excited to work with them again.

Dress rehearsal last night was…a riot.  In all (positive) connotations of the word. 

Jane had sent out two – capitalized, bold – emails stressing the importance of punctuality and surprisingly all seventeen people, arrived, at my place, on time, sets, props and costumes in hand – including the enormous dumpster Natalya had crafted out of wood – pumped up to start.

Everyone was buzzed and excited to meet their co-stars for the first time – working in five separate groups means mid-point rehearsal, or in this case dress rehearsal, is the first time a lot of us meet – except poor Amy who was starting to come down with the flu.  She slept amidst the chaos, then jumped up at the end like a true professional, killed her part, made her apologies and hobbled home.

Some members were not off-book, which is of course a worry, but I have every faith that they’ll get it down in time. 

And then there was the requisite drinking that comes with both relief, getting to know the newbies and catching up with old friends…

I’ll let the photos and video tell this one.

PRE INVASION

Manhattan view from Greenpoint apartment

PRE REHEARSAL

Rob & Christa rehearse Landscape of Marriage

Eljon & Paul in A Good Day

Talking through props

Downtime

The guys share a joke; Kira makes a call; Amy sleeps, exhausted

About to start rehearsing Getting Sam

POST REHEARSAL

Yes, that’s a crowbar amongst the scripts on the floor

DRINKS

Photos by Julie Asyrian

This weekend, we were able to secure rehearsal space at SVA, the School of  Visual Arts. I work here and rehearsal space and equipment are some of the great perks of this job.  Since I haven’t been able to go to rehearsals during the weekdays, this was my first time to really get to see Laura and the actors working.

We met for about two and a half hours on both Saturday and Sunday. It was pretty amazing to see everyone in action. Laura started rehearsals with these warm up exercises which seemed super neat to me, really interesting and fun. She did one called ”Negative Space” where one actor  made a pose with their body, and the other actor posed around them. So, they formed an intertwined body sculpture of sorts. She did other vocal exercises and body warmups as well. These all took about a half hour.

The other hour and a half was spent rehearsing the play. Laura would have Paul and Eljon start the play, and then she’d stop them when she either A) saw something that really worked well, and B) Felt a particular section could have ran better. (That’s how it seemed to me anyhow.) Laura has a very similar sensibility to me, and it was so great that she would somehow express thoughts I was having as I watched. The great thing is, that I have such confidence in her ability as a director, that I didn’t feel like I ever had to interrupt and give my opinions.

The play seems to be evolving a lot in terms of body movements, and the actors being comfortable enough being “in a relationship.” They cuddle at points now and every day seem to be more open. 

Laura is meeting with actors today for another rehearsal at Paul’s house and then our next rehearsal will be the dress rehearsal, this Wednesday.

We’ve set up a facebook events page for the night (including ical reminder). Please invite yourself, your friends, co-workers, neighbors, fellow creatives or anyone you feel might be interested in our unusual endeavor!

Come down, drink, support, introduce yourselves.  We look forward to seeing you on the night.

And if you can’t make it down to the venue, remember you can watch it right here on the site via our live stream.

Wanted to say a big thanks to the awesome Sal Dell’Aquila for our new logo.  Sal is the genius mind behind the look for HBO’s Flight of the Conchords and the Sopranos Google Map game, as well as a bunch of other great stuff.  

You can see more of his work on his site Salvation Design.  Thanks so much Sal, Me & Them loves you too!