We are well into rehearsals now and the stress of being a student is starting to show. We are supposed to be completely “off-book” meaning we should know all of our lines already, but a few of the newer actors who have lead roles are having a rough time memorizing everything. This causes the actor to have to call “line” and the stage manager to read for them until they can pick it up. This slows the scenes and causes rehearsal to drag along. It also breaks the mood of the rehearsal making it difficult to work on character development. That is fine for the rest of this week, but starting September 22, we are no longer allowed to call “line” and will be met with complete silence if we do.
With only two more weeks of rehearsal, it is our job now to keep the scenes moving whether people forget lines or not. This means that if there is more than a beat of silence, because someone missed a line cue, the actor should be prepared to and expect to have their line skipped. It will be interesting to see how everyone deals with these challenges, but it will be even more interesting to watch everyone’s character fully develop for the actual performances.
Some behind the scene tidbits: Costumes are being expertly crafted and altered by our costume designer, Lovena DeCamp, and they are really fun. They are fancy period style French designs and I cannot wait to dress up and play pretend.
Also, the cast is beginning to spend more time together now that we are moving from rehearsing one act a night to running the whole play every night. We begin our night with warm-ups then we all head to the Green Room to wait for our scenes where we run lines with each other and share our histories. I am in acts one, three, and five so I am only in the Green Room for acts two and four, but I have already made some new friends and I can, already, not wait until next year’s play because I know this one will be over before we know it.
Here is a video clip of the first week of rehearsal and a virtual tour video of the theater and of the cast.
My name is Aaron Thomas Leonard Piccirillo. I was born in Jamestown, NY, but I grew up in Homer City, PA. I have been living in California for about 12 years and I am working on my fifth AA (anthropology, song writing, English, art, and general education). I love swimming, biking, hiking, reading, writing, traveling,and home cooking. Mostly, I love to write about arts and entertainment, but I also like to write investigative stories.
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