Virginia's Point of View: Trust the Process

I have always enjoyed watching each of the various cycles that are a part of what I do. I love the beginnings of a project when it's all mapped out, but with only a little specific detail added. I love the hard work that is a process of constantly finding problems and solving them, and then solving them once more to make things work just a little better. I like endings. I like the doing of everything as fully and as beautifully as it can be done, because my work is ephemera, and will be held only in our memories. I like that too.

Last week we began the cycle of opening each play. Seeing its first time on the finished set, adding lights, sound, costumes, and finally, an audience. It's an odd three weeks. Long days and nights in the theatre, meals at unusual times, wearing warm clothes to survive the arctic air conditioning needed to counter the heat from the lights. But it is also invariably taking a show that has been rehearsed, a kind of intricate structure of words, pictures, ideas and actions that all sort of work on their own– and breathing life into it. The technical elements help, the actor's internal clocks are about to launch them into show energy, and the director starts running out of suggestions and starts repeating over and over that "what this show needs is an audience!" I'm not sure how, but a heart starts to beat within the production, and it takes on the life it will share with whoever comes to meet it. I'm not as sure that it's a time I love. It makes me focus on the world in the dark of the theatre so intensely that the milk spoils, the bird feeder hangs empty, the fuel light stays on... but I am intensely interested in what is happening in that pool of light onstage, which leads me from one call to the next, right on till opening night and that crowd of expectant patrons. It doesn't always work, but trying to make it so it is the most serious play I ever do. When it does work, the result is remarkable for the performers and audience alike, and the effort to get there... inconsequential.

Today I have a call at 10AM and we'll run the show. After the run, we'll work any trouble spots. We'll break for lunch at 1:30 and resume work at 3. This will be our first time on the set, which brings a new list of problems and delights. We'll run the show and work on problems until 6:30. Then the actors will go home for some hard-earned rest and I'll go to a "paper tech" which gives the tech areas line-by-line timing for their work. Tuesday we'll run at 11, break from 4 to 6, run at 6:30 and break at 11. Wednesday will be the same, except for small preview audience at 7:30. It's a kind of twilight zone from which I will emerge on Thursday at 7:30, dressed up, and ready to share what we've made together, and then party. With luck I'll stay home on Friday and buy some milk and gas before we begin again on Saturday with tech for Unnecessary Farce.

Wish me luck!

Virginia's Point of View: Thespians, Stumble-Throughs, and Photoshoots, Oh My!

Last week the University of Nebraska-Lincoln hosted the International Thespian Festival for the twentieth year. This means 3,400 high school kids and their teachers and chaperones descended on The Lied Center, the Temple Building, Kimball Hall, the Student Union and every hotel and restaurant in the area, not to mention several dorms. It's an awesome event that includes multiple shows, workshops, competitions, parties, auditions, and hard work for lots of people. What it means for us is that personnel in the scene shop and electrics virtually stop working on our shows and get busy making all those festival productions and workshops possible. It also means we have a single rehearsal room to do all our rehearsals. Vanya rehearses there in the morning and Farce in the afternoon, which left Circle hunting for a home. We found it in St. Mark's On-Campus Episcopal Church, just steps from the Ross on Q Street. It has been a nice change as the room is flooded with sunlight and not a festival venue.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, being the first to open, is completely staged and off-book. I saw a run-through on Saturday morning and it's going to be delightful. All the real props are being used, selected costume pieces as well, and the music between scenes has been added. The highest priority next week will be getting the set out of the scene shop and on to the Howell stage. They have a little over a week in the rehearsal hall before technical rehearsals and the addition of all the other elements.

Alan Knoll arrived on Monday, so Unnecessary Farce rehearsals have begun. I can't sit in because my rehearsals for Circle are at exactly the same time. My spies say it's going well. Staging went very quickly so they had a stumble-through on Saturday. Alan says he is delighted that the actors are so willing to try anything! The crazy bits, sight gags, and all things farcical are popping up everywhere!

I'm working Circle Mirror Transformation scene-by-scene, asking the actors to be off-book as we tackle each, doing it multiple times to set lines, adjust staging and make decisions about the transitions between scenes. Megan, my stage manager, cues the actors by saying what will happen ultimately when we have lights and sound. "Black out." "Lights up." "Lights shift." "Music, music, music, music... out," is what we hear from her. We'll do another run-through on Thursday, and will add sound cues for that run.

Last Thursday was also the crazy day we call publicity day. It is the day the Journal Star comes to take the publicity photos they use in the newspaper. I look on this as the only opportunity to give our audiences a peek into each of the plays by showing some of the characters in costume in a situation from the play. Julie and I decide what story we want to tell with the shots and choose who is in each one. This year Vanya, Masha, and Spike represent their show in costumes they wear to a costume party dressed as Snow White, Prince Charming and a dwarf, Doc. This is action that happens offstage, but gives insight into some of the relationship in the play. Eric and Billie, the cops in Unnecessary Farce, are tied up with a phone cord and being threatened by one of the crooks. I don't think this actually happens in the play, but it sure could. For Circle Mirror Transformation, we show Theresa hooping (remember hula hoops?) while two of the other characters look on in admiration and envy. This moment happens in the play, and it represents how each central action is always reflected in how each character perceives it. On publicity day we also do a whole day of interviews for the podcasts we produce every year. Our podcasts are five three-four minute videos, one for each show, one for the Destinations, and one that summarizes all of the other four. They contain a synopsis of the play, shots of rehearsals and selected interviews with directors, designers and actors. The podcasts will soon be available on our web site, www.unl.edu/rep, to whet your appetite for the season. Shooting the podcasts is a scheduling nightmare, but Julie's staff of students is wonderful, and it came off without a hitch. (I was pooped.)

It was a great week. We accomplished everything we needed to and are ready to hit the ground running for week three!

Talk to you in a week!