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!

Virginia's Point of View: A Director's Process

What a great week! It's hard to believe that the time has passed so quickly. The company got together to meet and greet on Monday, June 16th at Paul Steger and Sara Bucy's home. I'm sure there were over fifty people there, all interested in getting to know each other, excited about the process of all the collaboration to come, and happy to chow down on some great food!

I attended the first reading of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike on Monday and was pleased that the actors I had met all separately throughout the casting process actually looked and sounded great, and fit their parts. Doug Finlayson, the director, is pleased. In his second rehearsal on Tuesday, he started staging the play, or blocking, as some people call it. I call it staging because it is literally the process of putting the written play on the stage. It means putting down taped lines for walls in the rehearsal hall, adding furniture, and deciding how the characters move as they speak and act out the play. Doug works much the way I usually do. He plans the movements on a specific ground plan of the setting (in this case a room in a large home in Buck's County, PA) as a part of his preparation before rehearsals start. Then he works slowly through the play over several days of rehearsal communicating his ideas to the actors scene by scene. When that process is done, there will be a run-through, or what we more often call a "stumble-through" because usually no one is quite ready to run yet. For Vanya, that will happen today: one week after the first rehearsal. In the process of continuing to work on the play, all of the movements will be refined and often changed completely. It's like sewing pattern pieces together before fitting; so much still needs to be adjusted.

Circle Mirror Transformation takes place in a rehearsal hall with the characters going through the process of both learning to act and getting to know each other. There is nothing in the space but a big blue yoga ball and five people playing theatre games. I didn't think my usual process would work. So, we started by playing the games that the characters play in the script. This was really helpful. Playing these games teaches new actors about being in the present, focusing on each other, observing and listening closely to what is happening, establishing a safe space and learning how to express your emotions. They are also really fun and energizing, so it was a blast to spend time revisiting games each of the actors had played in the past with other groups. It is also a great way to build ensemble, something every show benefits from, but that we often skip for lack of time. For this play it's fundamental. So we played for a few hours, learned so much and developed trust and appreciation of each other as a bonus!

On to staging: the play takes place over six weeks, so it was logical to take each week as a section that we'd work over in one rehearsal. A week is also cut into more short sections, so we've been working each of those three or four times with me offering suggestions as I watch the actors play. By the end of a rehearsal we have staged that week (but loosely and with an improvisational feel). When we read it last Monday, we discovered that the play has so much movement that only parts of it actually are interesting to hear read while sitting at a table. Sometimes I will begin working on a play with several table readings. I'm not sure we really made it through one full read of this play. I also learned that one of the exciting things about staging is its relationship with the audience. (Don't worry, there is no audience participation!) But I'm finding it thrilling to be so close to what is happening. It's almost like I'm a member of the class, or maybe a curious observer watching through a curtain. We have two more days of staging before our first stumble-through Wednesday.

Have a great week!