Tag Archives: Winthrop Playmakers

An Open Letter to New England

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Dear New England,

We seriously need to talk.

Now, I know you have your quirks and I have mine.  And I will grant, I am not always the easiest person to live with.  But this passive-aggressive behavior has got to stop.

You run so hot and cold these days, I just don’t know what to do to please you.  One moment, I’m enjoying a run outside, the next moment I’m bundled in all manner of winter gear and trying to stay dry because you can’t decide whether you want to rain or snow.  I will admit that there is a certain beauty to you once you’ve had done with your tantrums; when the snow rests peacefully on the trees and icicles hang sparkling from the eaves.  I will also say that in your milder moments, there’s nowhere in the world I would rather be.

a pretty moment I caught on campus yesterday

a pretty moment I caught on campus yesterday

The colors you wear in your fall wardrobe are unmatched, and your beautiful springtime airs are really all that a girl can ask for.

But then it becomes winter.  And your mercurial side simply won’t allow for any reasonable moderate discourse.  I’m always walking on thin (or sometimes thick) ice with you.  I can’t make any firm plans because I don’t know how you’ll behave on a given day.  You make it impossible to go out sometimes because you throw these tantrums that I’ve never seen anything like before in my life.

You know how much I hate shoveling.  I’ve complained enough about it that I can’t imagine you would have missed this fact about me.  And I will admit that everyone needs to make compromises; if I didn’t agree to some small amount of shoveling, I wouldn’t be able to see you in your autumn splendor.  But this promise of something warmer and then yanking it away before my eyes has simply got to stop.

I thought I was done with winter.  I thought I was done with the hoisting, the hefting, the cold sweats.  I thought I was done with the aching back and the chapped face.

But you couldn’t even give me that.

And, as though to add insult to injury, you decide that on the day my brand new theatre company debuts its brand new production that you know I’ve been working hard on and losing sleep over, you’re going to upstage it by making your own scene.  So you huff and you puff and you blow parking regulations down, and we have no recourse but to cancel.  This night, this night I’ve been looking forward to, this night I’ve been working so hard for, is now taken away from me.  Lost into the swirling white of your raging temper.

I really don’t know what else to say to you.  I don’t think that there’s a way you can make this up to me.  It’s time for some serious re-evaluation of our relationship, New England.  Let me recommend that you start groveling.  Right now.  I’m sad and disappointed at the moment, but this will quickly dissolve into rage.  And really, trust me, you won’t like me when I’m angry.

Regards,

Danielle

In case you couldn’t gather from this: due to a weather-induced parking ban in Winthrop, we’ve had to cancel Twelfth Night for this evening.  We will be back tomorrow full-force and hungry, though, so don’t give up on us!  Come and support our efforts as we bring you our experiment in communal theatre for the very first time!

Super-Secret Mystery Project: Revealed!

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It was officially made official last week so I can now officially tell you what all this hulla-ba-loo about my super secret project is about:

I’m working on Twelfth Night.

And it’s not just any Twelfth Night.

 When we finished As You Like It, a few of the cast members and I felt like-mindedly that A) we didn’t want to stop working on Shakespeare, B) we had learned a lot from this process and we wanted to continue learning from each other, and C) we had some ideas about how to create theatre that existing companies may not be comfortable with.

One idea that I have been kicking around for many years is this: can you create theatre without a director?  Do you need a single guiding vision in the room, or is a roomful of smart, talented people a viable alternative?  Can you collaborate one what should be a truly collaborative process?

Apparently, I’m not the only one.  My cohorts felt similarly; too long oppressed by the

Myself and my best gay will be playing old friends once more; he's taking on Feste amongst other roles

Myself and my best gay will be playing old friends once more; he’s taking on Feste amongst other roles

tyranny of ego-driven directors, we struck out on our own to try an experiment.  We wanted to create a dynamic company driven by a mutual passion for Shakespeare and a burning desire to produce his work.  We wanted to create an environment where we could learn from each other equally and where one voice wasn’t necessarily the presiding one.

A few networking connections later and we had begun rehearsal.  Due to the brilliance of one of my compatriots, the show’s been cut to two hours and is being performed with (get this) eight actors.  We’re all doubling roles in one way or another and this has led to a rollicking good time at rehearsal.  Twelfth Night is already a fun show, but pile on top of the innate humor some great ensemble work and meta-theatrics and you’ve got yourself a real winner.  I always leave rehearsal more excited than I was when I walked in, more energized than I was when I walked in, and more impatient to see the end produce than I was when I walked in.

In short: you should come see our little experiment in action!  We’re calling ourselves (at least for now) the “What you Will Players” and we hope to be taking the Boston theatre scene by storm.  Our guiding values are community, engagement (with the audience and the text), enlightenment (of ourselves, each other, and our audiences), and simple performance done simply.  We’re not into bells and whistles and Twelfth Night will be performed largely using costumes and props that we found in our basements and closets.  We’re hoping to show that good Shakespeare doesn’t need the trappings of theatrics

the last time I was in Twelfth Night I played Antonio/the Sea Captain... you know... coz I'm a big scary pirate.

the last time I was in Twelfth Night I played Antonio/the Sea Captain… you know… coz I’m a big scary pirate.

layered on top if it, but rather (simply) a genuine emotional connection.

I’ve worked on Twelfth Night before.  I’ve done monologues, scenes, and even the entire show.  This is the first time that I’ve really felt connected to it, however, rather than distanced from it.  In fact, the last production of Twelfth Night that I was in was the one that made me run screaming from the theatre due to an awful director, his ego-driven antics, and his inability to communicate with me as an actor.  My current rehearsal process is slowly curing me of my Twelfth Night phobia and I can honestly say that this show is going to be a real treat to see.

…so who am I playing, you ask?  Through some exceedingly clever script cutting and some crazy quick changing, I’ll be appearing as both Maria and Olivia.  Can you already tell how much fun this is?

Updates to follow in the coming months!  We will be performing March 8th and 9th at 8PM and 10th at 3PM at the Winthrop Under-Playhouse Blackbox (60 Hermon St., Winthrop MA) so mark your calendars.  Ticket info will be available very soon!

The Rosalind Diaries: Entry Nine; Leaving Arden

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Well, that was fun.

The curtain has fallen for the last time in Arden and, I have to say, I well and truly miss it.

Begging Celia to tell me who hung the verses on the trees. “ORLANDO!?”

There are things that I had forgotten about being an actor. Things that I worked to remove from my memory (didn’t have to try very hard as I tend to forget negativity nearly instantaneously). One of those things is that awful feeling of emptiness you get as you leave the theatre for the last time after a show.

I’ve been living with this show since July. I got the happy phone call at the beginning of the summer and, ever since, Rosalind has been a presence at the back of my mind. She’s been part of my identity. The elation at having the opportunity to play her after a lifetime of wanting to and never thinking I’d get the chance, the thrill of falling in love every night, the knowledge that I’m speaking and working with words I’ve so long desired to resound in a roomful of audience members, it’s all been part of me.

And of course you become reliant upon the cast members and you forge relationships with these people with whom you’ve worked closely over the past several months. And the routine of going to rehearsal patterns your life. And the things you have to do to keep yourself going through the process are an ever-present factor in your day.

And, just like that, it’s all over. You strike the magnificent set down to bare stage, walk out of the theatre, and suddenly this world is gone and lives only in memory and archive. It’s an emptiness, a loneliness, and a feeling of utter hopelessness. Like, for a few brief moments, you just don’t know who you are anymore because this show has become part of you and, without it, some vital piece of your identity is missing.

As I told my cast-mate via text on Sunday: “Theatre is ephemeral. Each show is its own creature that lives and dies every night. I’d be pretty hard-hearted not to mourn a little creature that I loved”.

The only hope is in the next project; another bundle that will, inevitably, worm its way into your heart and stay there for a few months before the universe forcibly ejects it into the ether.

And then there’s the nature of acting in general. It’s one thing to conceptualize of the protean nature of the actor from a purely ideological standpoint, it’s another to live that nature. The constant shifting and changing, re-arranging and re-thinking of the self that an actor must do in order to fully commit to a role is utterly astounding. I marvel at the tenacity of spirit that it requires to constantly be doing this. In order to fully act a role, you really need to build yourself around that role and, when the show ends, rip yourself apart again. Imagine the emotional integrity required to do this (well) without going absolutely insane.

requisite “I’m a Shakespearean Actor speaking” shot.

Oh yes, I was an actor in my younger years, but I really don’t think I understood acting until this production. Good actors require three things: some innate sense of natural talent, a vast amount of life experience, and training. Before this year, I had one and three, but was distinctly lacking in two. It’s truly unfortunate that acting is, for the most part, a young person’s field and yet, to become a great actor, you really require a lifetime of banked experience.

It’s why you see so many thirty-year-old Hamlets. The emotional maturity required for the role simply out-stripes the role itself.

I’ll admit it. I’m hooked again. The course of this production has made me recall the things I did love about theatre; and the things I didn’t love about theatre can (for the most part) be avoided by doing it as a hobby rather than a profession. It churns my stomach to think about auditioning as a lifestyle (again). I would rather not ever hear the words “type”, “marketability”, or “Equity Principle Auditions”. For that, there are shows I would like to perform and roles I would love to play. There are things I want to bring to the stage that I feel I am qualified to do.

And more than that, the joy that the rehearsal process brought me really added a layer to my life that went missing in my fondly-dubbed “retirement”. It’s not enough just to study theatre. To truly understand it, we have to live it. Theatre’s a lifestyle, not a field of purely academic discipline.

So, with that in mind, I’ve got some projects up my sleeve. I’ve got some willing cohorts. I may even have a willing venue.

Let’s see what we can make. You’d best keep your eye on that first folio, because the bitch is back.

List, List!

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This is another end-of-week drive-by sandwiched between a marathon research session, some much-needed laundry (especially considering I was laundering bits of my costume for tonight) and a visit with my family before I get my stuff together to go to the theatre (to be honest, I wasn’t certain I’d find time at all to post again this week).

As such, have a list!

 1)    I promise that sometime in the near future I will write a piece on the nature of

my family! …we are all making the most flattering faces in the land.

stage fright.  Because I have been extremely public about my stage fright, many many people have asked me about it over the course of the past week or so and that has revealed a few misconceptions about the nature of stage fright.  Briefly: stage fright has nothing to do with talent, or even experience.  Anyone, from the first-time actor to the seasoned professional, can be victim of stage fright for different reasons.  Mine tends to stem from the fact that I’m a) a perfectionist and b) my biggest critic (in other words: an artist).

2)    The middle of the semester has hit and, between the mountain of unread books that need to be worked into a presentation by the following Monday, the vast world of undone research that needs doing, the stacks of grading that continually accumulate no matter how bravely I beat them back, and the reading that just keeps coming, I’m absolutely swamped.

3)    Headed into the final weekend of As You Like It.  If you haven’t seen us yet, what’s your excuse?  Come on out, see some Shakespeare, remind me that there are people in this world who love me.

4)    My family (and a dear old friend) are in town to see the show this weekend.  How awesome!

5)    I hope your weekend is less stress-inducing than mine is.

The Rosalind Diaries: Entry Eight; The Show Must Go On

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So, we opened this weekend.  The following is an account of my weekend as I progressed through it; my inner monologue is conveniently denoted by text in italics.

Friday Night: Opening Night

I was worried going into this because I wasn’t feeling well, which meant low energy, which did not bode well for performing Shakespeare (much less a show that relies a great deal upon my ability to carry it on my shoulders).  Knowing this, I tried to apply as much comfort as possible to my state and let the rest of life roll off my back.  Upside: I did not have the spare energy for my normally-crippling stage fright to sink in.

 God, I forgot what it was like to be at rehearsal all week and not really have a life outside of it.  Also, right, I need to remember to pack the correct makeup… not that the lighting is horribly intense.

 The house was small, but I knew that I had some personal friends coming to see the show (one of whom being my aforementioned partner in crime who, due to cruel twists of fate and the fact that I considered myself fondly retired before this production, had never before seen me onstage).

Are all my costume changes going to work?  They worked last night… maybe that was a fluke…

Me and Orlando… hanging out in the woods… dressed as a boy… you know, like you do.

 There’s a horrifying moment, as you sit getting ready and you thank the stage manager for the fifteen call (“Fifteen!” “Thank you, fifteen!”) wherein your mind goes blank.  You forget everything.  You are awash in a sea of white and the only thing you can do is stare dumbfounded at yourself in the mirror, lipstick in hand, and wonder what the hell your first line is.

What is my first line?  No, really, what is my first line?

 The performance gets rolling and you find the ways of it.  The groves, the curves, the things you need to do to give yourself the energy to spring-board into the next scene.  I know when I need to rendezvous backstage with my partner to squeeze her hand, or take a moment to smile at him, or check in with her, or pre-set costume change C.  And finding that rhythm is comforting, but you can’t get too comfortable because then the entire thing becomes stale.

Okay, intermission, let’s just keep pushing through…

 This show, for me, is mostly about hitting the midpoint.  Act one in the court is rough; it’s hard to inject those scenes with energy and they contain a great deal of exposition which the already-reeling audience is struggling to keep up with.  Things don’t get fun until we hit the forest, and I don’t really get to play in the forest until act two.  But once I hit that stage at the top of the act, I almost don’t leave it until the end of the show.  So; you push the snowball up hill in act one, and spend act two pumping more energy into it, bouncing off your scene partners, and just letting it roll on home.

Oh good god they skipped ahead in the scene that covers my quick change.  I may die.  Or come onstage half dressed.  Or do one then the other.

 Luckily, neither happened.

Saturday; Night Two

Again, we played to an intimate but receptive house, and having those voices ring back at us in laughter, exclamations, etc. really helped to keep us going.  Unfortunately, my illness got worse rather than better and even a day of rest couldn’t curtail the disgustingness that was the way I felt.

You know what I would like?  I would like to do a performance in which I’m on top of my game… I wonder how quickly I can bust this whatever-it-is.

 Hit act one like an inferno and we finally found the energy we needed for those first few scenes.  Tapping into my darker emotions is generally easier for me to do when I’m not feeling well, tired, or a combination of both.  As such, I didn’t have to work too hard to get the melancholy rolling at the plays’ start.

I would really like to die now please…

I do not recommend binding down to anyone who has any semblance of a curvy figure.  I especially do not recommend it when your chest is congested and you are already at a less-than-optimal lung capacity.  I spent the majority of this performance feeling like I was going to pass out.

I wonder if it would be better to faint onstage or offstage… at least if I did it onstage I’m reasonably certain that I would be able to recite the lines as I went along and may even be able to pick up where I left off when I came to.

 Despite my terminal lack of energy, my scene partners advised me that I put on a solid performance and they didn’t notice a difference.  Phew.

Please don’t let me drip gross things from my nose on Orlando’s shoulder during the wedding scene.

 I didn’t.

Sunday: Matinee

Despite the fear that we would be playing to an empty house given our previously poorly attended performances and the fact that it was Sunday of a holiday weekend, we had a

my dressing room station at the top of the show tonight.

fair sized audience! And a few dear friends of ours even surprised us by appearing without telling us they were coming (…leading to an incident which can only be described as “frantic fact-checking while simultaneously making a quick-change”).

Unfortunately, my cold has escalated to something much more closely resembling bronchitis so my energy wasn’t anywhere near where I want it to be.  I have again been assured that neither the audience nor my scene partners could tell, but I certainly knew as I tried to keep my coughing fits contained backstage and took a near-nap on the dressing room floor at intermission.

Well, at least I won’t have to push to find tears.

And I didn’t.  Or to find new moments, of which there were a surprising amount during this performance.  As much as I would like to think that it is because I am feeling cruddy and, thereby, I should always be feeling cruddy when playing Rosalind, I’m really looking forward to getting well over the week and hitting it hard next weekend.

During 3.2 (a scene which took some very tedious tolls during rehearsal), I was rewarded when, after a bit I do with my hands to demonstrate monsters eating each other, an older lady cooed from the audience “she’s so cute!”.  Glowy actor time.

On the whole, we had a very satisfying set of performances this weekend, and I’m very much looking forward to the second half of the run.  The only thing missing right now is you and I encourage you, advise you, well near implore you to make an attempt to come see what I think is one of the better shows to hit Boston this year (though I well may be just a touch biased). Tickets and show info can be found here!

Today’s Regular Post Has Been Cancelled

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Brain muzzy from inevitable cast plague.  Show opens in six hours and forty five minutes.  Trying to get my regular work done.  Unable to provide sufficient fodder for blog post.

In lieu of something deep or academic, here’s a picture I took at dress yesterday.  I call it, “Ganymede: A Still Life”.

Come see my show!

The Rosalind Diaries: Entry Seven; Putting it Together

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Last night, for the first time, we ran the entire show.  We stopped for a five-minute intermission, but other than that we just kept going.

And last night, for the first time, it really felt like it worked.

We didn’t have the full set, we didn’t have lights, and most people didn’t use their

Touchstone finds Rosalind reading Orlando’s poems in the forest

costumes (I did to try and make sure my changes work – they should; though my quick-change at the end is going to be a bit of a bitch).  But we did it.

Coming off the heels of a rehearsal in which I felt like nothing worked, it was pretty spectacular to leave last night feeling like something fell into place.  I wasn’t word perfect, and I know that the other actors weren’t either.  There were some few calm calls for line, but I know I could have fought through them if I had wanted to.  The pace still needs to be picked up before performance.  But those things aside, we did it.  We stumbled through.

And let me tell you, it can only go up from here, and it’s really going to be good.

Orlando and I have been in deep conversation about how to make 3.2 work.  We’ve been trying to feed things in; ideas, notions, impulses, anything to get a different reading than just something flat.  Last night, for the first time, we had a spark of something.  We were engaged with each other, we listened, and something worked.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to my dear friend Angelo who took time out of his busy schedule to run lines with me and coach me through this scene particularly when we realized how much it wasn’t working.  With his help, and with the support of my fellow cast-mates, something happened.

So; what worked?

I kept coming back to the idea that this was Rosalind’s first time really speaking with Orlando at any length.  Her disguise, the mask she wears in the forest, really frees her to say whatever she wants without consequence.  Her honor is only at stake if he discovers that she’s a woman, so so long as she can continue the charade of being Ganymede everything else will sort itself.  This scene is a desperate attempt to engage Orlando, an attempt to find a way to spend time with him in a situation that’s mediated and in which she makes the rules.  If she is teaching him courtship, then she has all the power (a situation which never would have been allowed at court).  Rosalind is a woman completely abandoned and betrayed by all the men in her life; her father was exiled, her uncle then exiles her; it makes sense that she would be wary around the guy she wishes would become her husband.  By making the rules herself, she takes a hand in her own fate and so setting up the Ganymede/Rosalind role-play concession is a vital step in ensuring a strong future for herself.

So what does a girl who likes a guy but is dressed like a guy say to that guy when she knows he kinda likes her back but she can’t reveal that she’s the one he’s in love with?

The answer is: she has a really hard time coming up with things to say.

Rosalind is a master of wit and she’s extremely good at entertaining people with it.  But when she sees Orlando in the forest and decides to speak with him, the best thing she can come up with to say is “What time is it?”

….stupid, stupid, stupid.

Once I was able to feed that nervous energy into the scene, it gave us somewhere to

Rosalind and Celia come upon Orlando carving Rosalind’s name into the poor trees of Arden

bounce from.  Orlando had to figure out why I could sometimes engage with him and sometimes not, which meant he was interested in what I was saying.  But I can’t let him get too physically close to me because, if I do, he may recognize me.  But at the same time, his eyes are really pretty and I really want to touch him, but it’s probably a bad idea.

The rubber-band action gives us something to play with, and makes sure that we keep moving (a MUST on a proscenium stage).

Another thing which really helped was a suggestion by our director to “earn the touch”.  There’s no way that Rosalind would touch Orlando casually (even if casual touching is something that I do rather frequently).  Every touch should be important, magical, and something we work up to.  Once we were able to emphasize the importance of the touch, we were able to really plug into the “I want to, but I can’t”, which in turn fed that nervous energy which the entire scene hinges upon.

So we did some solid work last night.  It’s only going to get better as we build, grow, and prepare because we open in a scant nine days (and it’s only eight days before our invited dress with talk-back).

Curious about seeing us in our full glory?  Tickets available here!

Hey, Hey and Away we Go

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Well, that was a long day.  Thursdays, it turns out, are going to be doozies for a while.

I begin with Directing (the class I TA).  After an hour and a half, I have approximately an hour to myself.  An hour, by the by, turns out to be just enough time that it makes you feel like you should be doing something, but not long enough to truly accomplish anything.  In other words, just long enough to make you anxious without the substance to do anything about this anxiety.  Today, my netbook proved angry at me for failing to turn it on more than once this summer.  It is a small bit of technology with a small brain and, for a cheap computer, rather advanced in years, so I can’t say that I blame it for wanting more attention; it figures that it would be today of all days that the darn thing decided to act up.

After this time, I whisk my way down to my own class (Theory).  Today was particularly

yup. My job.

exciting because it was the first class of my semester that I am actually taking.  This also meant that I got to meet the new crop of first years.

We had a veritable deluge of first years this year.  There are a lot of new faces, new voices, and new people about the department.  Since the department is very small, this means a lot of new things to get used to.  What it also means is that class sizes are larger.  This year, our classes cap out at seventeen.  Last year, my largest class had ten.  These seemingly similar numbers are in actuality vastly different in the context of discussion-based courses (especially those held in small seminar rooms).  It feels different; rather than a round-table, we feel like a motley hoard.  I’m going to be interested to see what this hoard shapes up to in terms of actual class discussion.

Unfortunately, my experience with larger classes is that the strong voices remain strong and the weak fade into the background.  Those who are aggressive fight, those who are more inclined to sit back and let thing wash over them have the security to do so.  This makes the conversation imbalanced and, often, repetitive.  I look forward to seeing how the professors (whom I have the utmost respect for) solve this particular teaching dilemma and help to retain order within the seminar room.

One of the most exciting things about meeting the first years is understanding the new classroom dynamic.  Who is going to speak with a loud voice?  What will be the timbre of that voice?  What opinions do these people have, how hard are they willing to fight, and how are they going to bring their vast array of different knowledges/experiences to the table?

One of my favorite parts about academia is the argument.  One of my colleagues made the apt observation just the other day that “it’s always a fight with you”.  Preparing for class, for me, is donning armor and honing my blade.  Having a roomful of new opponents is the most tantalizing thing I could be presented with.  I was hard pressed not to lick my lips with a knowing grin as we went around introducing ourselves; lots of new and different specialties.  Plenty of fodder.  Let the bloodbath begin.

I rounded out my day at rehearsal.  We’re really getting into the thick of things now and

I also nearly finished the sock I was working on while at rehearsal today!

we’re at that point where most folks are mostly off book.  I myself am off book (though, again, I do need to call “LINE!” particularly when I get caught up in something).  This is a weird place to be.  While the words are in your head, you haven’t quite gotten them in your body yet.  You reach and strive for them and, though some layering comes naturally, often the most intense moments are still evasive.  For me, today, tackling 3.2 proved extremely frustrating.  This is the first scene in which Rosalind speaks with Orlando at any length, and she does so under the guise of Ganymede.  It’s almost specifically in prose (a challenge in itself) and I spend the scene giving speeches which mostly consist of lists.  As if that weren’t enough, capturing some sense of genuine emotion is a roller coaster.  The scene begins, for me, giddy in love and playing around with Celia and Touchstone about Orlando’s bad poetry.  After being ribbed good and hard, I have a few moments with Celia before I have to don the guise of Ganymede and play real, serious, and convincing.

The rhetoric bounces wildly, the mood changes drastically, and I’m still trying to remember all the gosh darn lists that Rosalind uses.

Suffice to say I didn’t quite hit the emotion that we need to drive this scene tonight.  But I have hope.  My scene partners, luckily, are fantastic.  With some more work, I have confidence that we can get there.

…and now, officially, to tackle my real job: reading.  I think I was sorely mistaken when I held the belief that second year would be easier than first year.

Ah, well, back into the fray.

The Rosalind Diaries; Entry Two: First Rehearsal

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So we had our first “real” rehearsal last night.  By “real” rehearsal, I mean we were up, on our feet, with text, doing things and playing around.

We worked I.ii, I.iii, and a little bit of IV.iii.  What this meant was a lot of work with my Celia.

There are several keystones of a good As you Like it and one of them is the relationship between Rosalind and Celia.  These two ladies rack a great deal of stage time, and almost all of it is together.  If their relationship is off, it can throw the entire play off kilter.  Suddenly, the plan to go into the forest no longer makes sense.  Suddenly, the cross-dressing is just a hackneyed attempt at a laugh.  Suddenly, the play lacks real heart.

So it was really important to me that I do my best to make this relationship work.  Luckily, I didn’t have to work too hard since my Celia is spectacular.

Her name is Ashley, and she is a tiny tiny woman.  This is great because it makes me look “more than common tall” (which the texts demands that Rosalind be and which, at 5’5”, I most certainly am not).  She’s also a fire cracker; feisty and sassy one minute, and soothing and lovely the next.  She brings real heart to Celia while still bringing the fire that so often can get lost in a wash of dumb blonde.  I’m really enjoying working with her.

Another great thing about this production is that we are actually getting to work in the space from day one.  Since the Winthrop playmakers own the theatre, and since we are the only show they are producing right now, we have the run of the place.  This is an extremely uncommon arrangement.  One of the most expensive things about producing is renting space and, as such, space is rented for as little time as possible.  Time in the actual theatre is generally limited to a week’s of rehearsals before the show goes up (if you’re lucky; if you’re unlucky you may only get a day or two).

This is the first time I’ve been in a show since my high school days that I’ve actually gotten to work on the stage starting day one.

I can already tell some of the challenges we are going to face.  It’s a proscenium house,

The outside of the theatre. Told ya it was a church.

which is automatically limiting since it means that any stage picture we create will be two-dimensional.  Luckily, there are some nice roomy aisles in the house and convenient steps for us to use, so the house itself becomes viable playspace.  Still, making dynamic scenes that don’t pattern and re-pattern themselves is going to prove challenging.

The acoustics in this house are particularly good since it’s relatively small and a converted chapel.  In my experience, converted holy spaces tend to have the best acoustic resonance since the only thing that makes a Latin sermon more snooze-worthy is not being able to hear half of it.

My line-learning efforts have proved fruitful and I’m off book for three acts now.  I’m beginning to delve into Act III which is extremely challenging since I’m onstage for most of it, and driving the action of most of it.  The good news is that I’ve seen many of the scenes from this act done before, so I have some sense memory of them.  Learning the first half of III.ii was like coming home to embrace an old friend.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen this scene done in classes and workshops and wanted to be part of it; it’s just so fun and light-hearted.  There’s so much joy in it.  I’m extremely excited to rehearse it.

 

Since we did play with IV.iii tonight, I was again reminded of the importance of a Stage Combatant in the cast of a show like this.  “Violence” onstage is not limited to sword fighting; stage violence is any moment in which an actor comes into physical contact with another actor.  If you know the play, you will know that in IV.iii Rosalind faints.  When we arrived at that point in rehearsal, I received no instruction on how to do so and was expected to pull something out of my bag of tricks.  Luckily, I have the training to accomplish a vast array of faints and falls without injuring myself, but there’s the very real possibility that a Rosalind might not know how to fall.  It’s harder than it looks, trust me.  And making it look convincing without the “ow” takes practice and a mat for your first few tries.

In any case, there was a bouquet of options I was able to offer my director: straight or silly?  Prat fall or Victorian Lady faint?  A little more thud, or a silent fall?  All things which must be carefully considered in crafting what turns out to be a pretty comical moment in the scene.

 

My good friend Angelo (Oliver) and I decided to take a swing before rehearsal.

I’m also lucky in that my Oliver is a dear old friend, and so we were able to work the physical portions together and add to them as we go along.  And Celia was along for the ride, just like a pro.

On the whole, I’m very happy with how things went last evening and I’m very much looking forward to more.

…except it means I need to learn more of this darned prose…

…drat.

The Rosalind Diaries: Entry 1

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So I had my first rehearsal yesterday.

Boy oh boy am I rusty on being an actor.

First things first: It’s been approximately four years since I have taken the stage, and much longer than that since I’ve played a role of any particular note (my last role was Antonio/the Captain in Twelfth Night).  I’ve only played a leading role once or twice and at least one of those times was when I was young enough that my age registered in the single digits.

My current directors had requested that we make an attempt to be off book by the first rehearsal.  An attempt was made, but I only accomplished two fifths of the goal.

The process of line learning is an arduous business made even more arduous when you are learning Shakespeare for a few reasons.  Reason one: you need to be word perfect.  Reason two: the strange sentence structure will mess with your head and cause you to add/subtract random words that you think should go in there but in actuality have no business with the bard.  Reason three: because of aforementioned bizarro sentence structure, there exists no parallel structure in what you are saying and, since the human brain likes patterns, you can easily find yourself falling into the trap of creating parallel structure (see reason one).  Reason four applicable to Rosalind: so much of what she says is in Prose.  Prose is approximately ten times more difficult to learn than Verse.

Today’s brief lesson in Shakespeare: knowing the difference between Prose and Verse.

Verse is the more familiar poetic form that we often affiliate with

my script all marked up. It will be more marked up before this is all over.

Shakespeare.  It’s written in meter, sometimes written in rhyme.  Identifying Verse is extremely easy as each line will begin with a capital letter, and the lines themselves will be shorter since they have to conform to the structure of poetic meter. Here’s what verse looks like:

ROSALIND:

 My father loved Sir Rowland as his soul,
And all the world was of my father’s mind:
Had I before known this young man his son,
I should have given him tears unto entreaties,
Ere he should thus have ventured.

(As You Like It, 1.2)

In the case of Shakespeare, the poetic meter used more often than note is Iambic Pentameter.  Iambic Pentameter refers to a line which contains five (Pent) Iambs.  An iamb is a series of two syllables – the first unstressed, the second stressed.  Like this:

ROSALIND:

I pray / you, do / not fall / in love / with me,
For I / am fal / ser than / vows made / in wine…

(As You Like It, 3.5)

What this means is that the line has a heartbeat.  Da-DUM.  When you are speaking a line written in Verse, you can feel when you’re adding or subtracting words because the line has a natural cadence and rhythm to it.

Prose, on the other hand, is a completely different story.  Prose is written like modern sentences; flowing together one after the other.  Like this:

ROSALIND:

 No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person,
videlicit, in a love-cause.

(As You Like It, 4.1)

“Rosalind” by Robert Walker Macbeth, 1888

Prose has no set rhythm (though, it is Shakespeare, he often plays word tricks with his lines).  Since Prose isn’t spoken under the pressure of iambic pentameter, it doesn’t conform to anything by way of regularity.

Guess which form most of Rosalind’s lines are in?

Now, Verse is a form of speech most often used by courtly characters, learned characters, characters who are in love, characters who speak directly from the soul, or characters who need to express something complicated.  Because Rosalind spends the majority of the play in disguise, she also dumbs down her speech to Prose – the form used by clowns (not fools, fools generally speak in Verse), commoners, and normal people.  Rosalind is capable of speaking in Verse, and does so when she is in the court and when she is dealing with Phebe (a mark of her inextricable snobbery), but 85% of her lines are Prose.

This has made her a ridiculously difficult part to learn.  Compound this trouble with the fact that I learn best on my feet and tend to prefer learning my lines while doing scenes rather than in a vacuum at home, and this endeavor has been immensely challenging for me.

But I’m getting there.

Rehearsals go into full swing next week and I can’t be more excited.  It’s a talented lot we have, and I’m extremely happy to be able to have the chance to work with them.

Stay tuned!