Paedon the Bear- The Play with the Stuffed Animal in it

 The more I write these blog posts the more I realize that...

The name of the play is long.

The Rehearsal process is not.

As we go further and further into blocking, into creating the visual aesthetic of the show, I am more and more thankful for the wonderful actors involved.

Seriously, the fact that they have questions and ideas for my script feels so freeing as a playwright.

Normally we let our plays go and wonder how the world looks at them. 

Yet, I have had the privilege to witness the process for myself, and my goodness it is helpful.  I look at the characters differently and the script feels like it is springing to life. 

Also being in a creative space always sparks more creativity. It is necessary to surround yourself with people who input new ideas into the world, breathing life into words that we usually use our inner reader to acknowledge. The beauty of theatre is illustrated in moments of collaboration. 

...A bit sappy, I'll admit that.

I'm always excited to see what comes next :)

Tilly- Pride

 Wow! We are halfway through finishing our show and it feels so good. It is crazy to see the play I wrote, go from paper to the stage. It is most amazing and the scariest thing I have done so far. For me, it feels as though I am revealing a part of myself. I reveal a glimpse of myself in each character. Reveal a glimpse of my world with every interaction the character’s have. But I am learning as we continue this process is seeing pieces of my creative team put pieces of themselves into it as well. Seeing the director bringing this one act to life and seeing the colors, sounds and actions being put in place with such care is exciting. Plus, the actors putting a face to the characters is so stunning because it is beyond what I imagined. Each one of us loves and respects each other's artwork. Even though the Tilly will be more or less 10 minutes, the care put in place is worth the ten minutes to watch. I can’t wait for the audience to see it and maybe see little pieces of themselves as well. 

Tilly: Time and Money

 Hi y'all,

This week was a productive and exciting week, but also the eerie reminder that theatre moves fast. In all theatre, no matter what type, there seems to never be enough time or money to accomplish all of your hopes and dreams, yet somehow the dreams still morph into a tangible real-life thing. This was the week I could feel the impending deadline coming up while still feeling the growth and magic of the show. The actors are fantastic! They are doing the work expected outside of rehearsal and always ready to roll with the punches as discoveries are made and changes happen. The run throughs have really solidified that my concept feels to be coming to life as the little moments spark responses from myself and Tess (writer/ASM extraordinaire) even with our many times of watching. 

One of the bonuses of this week was having our professor Liz Helman come and sit in on one of the run throughs. A fresh pair of eyes allowed for a problem I'd been noticing, but couldn't quite put my nose on, be brainstormed differently, adding a lovely layer to the production. The collaborative nature of theatre is just what I needed in the midst of a long pandemic, stressful end of year, and just a new adjustment time in my life. The help from Liz, the people working this show in general, and my actors remind me why I love the creative elements of production. The way to solve puzzle pieces and tell a story. There isn't more I could ask for. While the filming date seems to approach quickly, I know that we're going to do the thing and tell a pretty great story from it. Signing off similarly to my first blog I can't wait to keep making some art. 

Talk to you all next week!

Haille Lantz

Fetch- The First Off-Book Run-Through

This week started with another Withycombe rehearsal, and it was their first day off-book. I was curious to see how far they would have gotten in their lines, and they did incredibly well on being off-book and willing to work hard on their movements and character development. 

Through some discussions, we also decided to change the setting so-to-speak, of the show. Instead of the vet waiting room, the stage will be made to look like two different kennels. This is just to help make the setting make more sense, especially since the dogs can’t get close to each other. Hopefully, this will help to establish the show more. That means though, that extra sound effects are needed that I wasn’t originally envisioning- the sound of kennel doors being opened and closed. After learning how to fill out sound cues though, hopefully, it will all fit together. 

I also got to see how the costuming is coming along- all the dogs have a specific look, which I think works really well in establishing their character. They're just putting on the finishing touches, and I'm excited to see how they all look together on the stage- Taylor and Savannah are awesome! Everything is coming together, as Sunday is another run-through to get things solidified before we film in two weeks.

A Helping Hand: Week 4, Practice and Repetition.

     Hello once again! This week has been a fun twist on how theater and having a busy life gets "fun". In a number of ways. The first way was getting Off-Book. It's rough. It's always rough. Especially when we had such a phenomenal performance last week from Josh and Lane. They were just insane with being able to connect to the emotion and character. This week it was hard and frustrating for them, as I saw they were having a hard time with lines which interrupted their connection to what they were saying. In all regards they were doing really well, all things considered, at the end of the night they were barely calling line and they were getting that connection back. It was knowing what had been and wanting that exemplary performance again. I think it's a game of expectation management at that. I know they will continue to get back to that point. From what I read of acting from somewhere (I've been reading up on the subject to try and get better for my crew) that people shouldn't try to exactly replicate an emotion - which has benefits and drawbacks - but they should try to attain that feeling everytime through connection with character and their scene partner. I think that's such an important distinction: that you are creating, not copying. I think we will work towards that.

    Now the other thing that's harder. I went out of town for work this last week and wasn't able to make it to a rehearsal - something that seems, or at least feels, like a cardinal sin of theater - luckily my Ast. Stage Manager, Taylor, is freaking amazing and ran the rehearsal. Honestly she's a life saver, and from what she told me it went well. I think that this underlines something else that should be set from the beginning - trust. I trust Josh, Lane, and Taylor. They are hard working and passionate and they know what to do. They want this and I trust in them to be able to do it. Honestly they do most of the heavy lifting anyways. I feel reassured that I can go away for a day or so and come back knowing that they've been at it still - though I really want to be there.

    Looking at the weeks ahead, I think that it will be just more practice and repetition until the blocking and lines sink in to the point where the actors are feeling emotion more than remembering the aspects of mapped theater. I want to define the blocking more and develop the playfulness we have into a routine and solidify that so that we can dive into their performance. I'm excited for what is to come - as always!

Nich

Fetching the lines! - Off book day

 Off book day was Sunday, and I was pleasantly surprised with how well the actors had their lines down!

That is always one of my fears while writing, is "am I giving enough context in each of the lines to help cue the next one effectively". The last thing I want to do is have actors trying desperately to remember their lines because I wasn't clear enough. But I think I effectively wrote the script in a way where they are able to clearly move from one beat to the next, and I think that was shown through the slop through we did. 

The first slop through we had quite a few callings of line, and quite a few notes on wording/order/skipped over lines. I had debated just generally saying to look over the wording on certain pages, but figured that it would be more helpful to actually specifically point out everything despite this taking more time and being a bit tedious. But it must've worked out quite well because the next run through they had cut the amount of times line was called by more than half, and the lines said were more true to the script.  By the third and final run through of the day, they only called line a total of 4 times I believe? And I had a quarter of the line notes from the first time. I am really proud of all our actors and for how much work they're putting into this because the show is just really starting to come together nicely. Lorna and I are laughing at each run through with every new choice that is made. I mean, it really is just phenomenal.

Having Liz come into rehearsals and give advice is very helpful too. She had mentioned the idea of kennels throughout my time writing the play, but I was NEVER able to visualize how that would work in my head (I was picturing literal cages for the actors to be in and I did not want to do that ha). But now that she has clearly helped us visualize the stage in this new way, the blocking will be so much easier and won't need as much editing to make sense. Overall, the rehearsal process has just been amazing. I can't wait to film in the coming weeks. 

Rolling through Rehearsals - Fetch

 The technical challenges are arising!

With COVID, and trying to balance three actors who cannot cross the center of a split screen, blocking is not the easiest feat. We've had to be creative with entrances and exits, working to have the correct motivation for where each actor is sitting/what side of the screen they are on, and more. Our first blocking rehearsal, we spent the majority of the time just figuring out how to make the split screen work. And I think we finally did! Lorna came in with some great ideas that just needed minor tweaking.

It has been so fun to see the physicality of these characters come to life. Writing the characters as dogs, knowing they are going to be played by humans, I had a billion different ideas of what the play could look like. I am very grateful that Lorna's vision of the play was SO similar to what I had in my head from the beginning of writing the plays. There have also been some choices that pleasantly surprised me. AJ doing a southern accent, Noah rolling around the floor and climbing over the furniture, and Leah's dog mannerisms. Every rehearsal is super fun. 

The one thing that I think I preferred as a writer for Townsend when I was just passing off the script as soon as the final version was written, is that I can only listen to my own writing a few times without going crazy. This is all because of myself only. It has been alright because it is constantly developing in the theatrical aspects, but I am starting to get annoyed by my own writing.

It will be interesting to see how filming goes. I'm glad that we aren't using mics on their persons because this allows for them to have a lot of physicality without the worry of breaking a mic pack, but this also means the actors have to be really conscious of where they are directing their voice. Especially since they are so far below the camera being on all fours. I do enjoy seeing these things develop throughout the rehearsals, and all of the actors we have for this show are so talented and are making such amazing choices with the notes they are given.

Can't wait for sunday! Off book day is EVERYONE's favourite.