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.

Well, the last week of rehearsals has certainly been dramatic.

I met up with Josh, Julie and our new addition, Samantha, last Thursday to rehearse Dumpster Dive, the scene I wrote.  We had decided to rent rehearsal space because we live far too far apart to rehearse in anyone’s apartment. Josh said he would make a same-day booking (which is a lot cheaper) at the Ripley Grier Studios but, unfortunately they ended up not having anything left by the time he called.  Maybe I let my initial frustration show more than I should have.

Luckily, there was space for us at William Esper, where Josh, Julie and I are taking classes.

We began the rehearsal with some Meisner repetition exercises to get the actors in the moment and working off of each other.  Then we did a read-through of the text without movement blocking so the actors could concentrate on acting.  Both seemed to go pretty well.  Next, we set up an approximation of the set and added props, which still left a lot to the imagination.  In my view, the incompleteness of the set was a virtue: it left room for experimentation.  I tried to just let this experimentation take it’s course as much as possible, but I interrupted whenever I noticed a physical cue or glitch that we hadn’t had a chance to notice, let alone iron out, during table readings.

In general, I was happy with how everything was going.  The scene felt a little flat, but there was a lot of new material for the actors to deal with and they were still a little unsure of the lines.  I thought once we talked about raising the stakes and considering their motivations more carefully, everything would be fine.  Then, I made a comment which seemed to offend Josh and he confessed that he wasn’t comfortable with the degree of openness and lack of structure in my direction style.  He told me he thought he might need to drop the project.  This made me really nervous, but there wasn’t much I could do.

Luckily, during a break in our class the next day, he told me that he did still want to be a part of the project, but he asked if he could rehearse with Julie and Samantha alone for awhile and just have me step in at a later stage to make sure everything was OK.  It actually sounded totally fine to me.  I was trying to give the actors the space to make their own creative discoveries anyway.  I just wanted to see the scene got performed.  They rehearsed this weekend, while I was in DC with my parents.  I’m excited to see what they come up with.