My first post

Well since our intrepid leader leapt into the fray I suppose the first mate should follow (I couldn’t think of any fitting KKK metaphors so I simply went with that one) and make his own post on the process of one act piece number 3, Southern Firelight. (BTW my punctuation sucks but I’m at peace with that)

So, anyway, yeah I have actually learned a ton through every rehearsal about the theatrical process, so I may as well start with the first one, which was a simple read through. This was actually the last rehearsal where I still had the position of writer for my show as oppose to stage manager and I say this because of the fact that I realized there was way more work to do on the script. Especially scene five. Okay, really just scene five. Ignoring several irritating typos and one rather annoying instance of hearing James refer to Abram as ‘James’ the only things that were still bugging the crap out of me about my script were pretty much all found in that scene. There were several moments when my two actors were reading that I realized I had shoved in superfluous phrasing andsuch that simply didn’t help the scene (although I’m sure when I wrote it I felt differently [or maybe not who knows {Actually I think I disliked them when I wrote them anyway….regardless}]) I refer to these moments in my head as ‘Electro-Cranial Tonsom’ moments or ECTs. Thus, being the cowardly and indecisive prick that I am I began a rewrite to scene five that lasted for a bit longer than I had hoped…several weeks longer. Luckily Rowan had not yet reached working on the scene and I was able to hand off the new version of the script before any real work was done with it (I think a week after the Follies got out.) It was actually really funny because Rowan gave the actors more leniency with memorization on that scene when I had one of them confess not an hour before that he hadn’t bothered looking at it since the original read through…Small favors etc.

This isn’t to say that there haven’t been any major fuck ups. The off book date came and went and both actors were still having trouble with their lines on various places, the scenes for example, but they sorta made up for it by being on top of their blocking and showing that they really did care about not looking like a complete and utter jackass on stage. The necessity for a book actually changed scene by scene, both were reasonably good their lines for the first two scenes and the fourth one. Due to the fact that there hasn’t really been an overwhelming need to focus on the scenes with just one person scene 0 (I’m not sure what to call it), 3 and 6* have at various points fallen by the wayside. But it’s cool, they’re short and only one is more than a few lines. It was at the various moments where we had just one actor (and we have had days where one or the other is missing so it can’t be blamed on a single person) that I realized that what I thought was a major simplification to my piece as oppose to, say, Hint, was that I had very few characters and would therefore be able to pinpoint focus easier. Just two characters. Which I felt was the minimum acceptable amount after the last time I tried a one-man script. As it turns out, I am a dipshit with poor foresight and did not realize that there was a massive trade off. Despite the fact that it is easier to work four schedules as oppose to eight or ten if someone happens to miss or be late to a rehearsal for whatever reason we’re fucked because it is very hard to work a two-person scene with one person. Admittedly it’s easier to work around this with James but still it is a complication that didn’t occur to me as I was writing my script. That’s me though, always thinking ahead. But overall I’m extremely happy with the way rehearsals have gone so far and barring a catastrophic Macbeth-type fiasco (the play not the quad production) I have every confidence that this will turn out well on stage. I will probably write more on previous moments that I missed later. Or I may just dwell on newer rehearsals. Both are possible but regardless, catch ya later!

* Fun fact/Easter egg: I wrote six scenes as a private little joke to myself about six-ish-ness cause I’m like that. We all know what bad luck six is. But in my own sneaky underhanded way I added a prologue, which technically brings the scene count to seven. So I made something really negative that turns out to be something positive when one thinks about it. I also had twenty three pages but I got sick of that and after the rewrite wound up with twenty four. Which I’m cool with. Smiles! :)