We moved into the theatre last night. Feels like home.
Ink Diaries: Heading to the Stage
A new focus begins.
Tonight we head to the stage for our produciton of James Graham’s Ink at Playhouse on the Square. We finished our work in the rehearsal room last night and everything begins to finally take shape tonight.
The pace will begin to quicken. The show will begin to breathe differently. Stage pictures will begin to come into focus. And we’ll find out just what we really have as we get to use the different levels of the set and larger scale.
I’m looking forward to seeing the show with a different eye tonight and have a few days before we add the other technical elements to really dig in with the actors. Because once projections, lighting, sound, and costumes jump into the fray later this week the final picture will begin to emerge after we go through the usual “fuck it all up with tech” period.
Leaving the rehearsal room I think we’re telling a good story. It’s certainly different in some aspects from the one we started out telling and we’re about to find out how much different.
While the scale increases so does the scrutiny. Each move, each line, and each moment gain weight and feel like they’re viewed under a microscope. It’s easier to see when something isn’t hitting just right and simultaneously more difficult to make sure the eye is in just the right place to do so.
Onward.
Apparently I’m Dead According to OpenAI
The world is continuing to rush headlong into a new universe of Artificial Intelligence but apparently I died before the gold rush began.
At least that’s what WatchGPT an OpenAI based app for the Apple Watch thinks. I decided to give it a try and asked it a simple question: Who is Warner Crocker?
After explaining it wasn’t a search engine it spit out some “facts” including that I died on Christmas Day 2020. I must have missed that.
Although my demise sounds pretty factual I’m still hanging around as far as I know. And sure the years since December of 2020 were kinda sketchy due to the pandemic, so far I have avoided COVID and other life threatening adventures. The cast for my current gig seem to respond to me as if I’m alive and kicking. My family and friends still treat me like I’m walking around and causing trouble.
Granted most of these AI products let you know that they’re still in development. Still, I can imagine quite a few scenarios where folks input a query and get death notices that then get reported as facts in whatever vehicle they’re looking the fact up for.
Let’s list a few flights of fancy here:
- A school paper on a contemporary figure.
- Checking out info on someone you might want to date.
- Running a check on a perspective employee or employer.
And to think, big companies are jumping into this pool feet first assuming they will be able to save money by cutting their workforce.
I’m wondering if my wife can use this to make an insurance claim?
Ink Diaries: First Run Pain and Gain
Last night we had the first run-thru of the show. As is typical there was some good and some not so good. Typically on a first run you loose about 30% of what you’ve been doing well. Our score? We fell back about 45%.
Not to worry. We’ll get that back and more as we prepare to head to the stage for spacing rehearsals this Sunday.
It’s an all too familar part of the process and the ritual of rehearsals. Each cast member is moving at their own pace, not necessarily yet at the show’s pace, or not necessarily with each other. Quite a few dropped the script for the first time last night. And that always features pain and gain before the text actually takes root in their brains and bodies.
From a director’s point of view it’s both enlightening and a bit infuriating. The story starts talking but only in fits and starts. But it starts talking. You watch some of your actors struggle without the crutch of the script (look Ma, I’ve got hands!) It’s also assessment time about what works, what’s going to work, and what might not work and need to be changed. We’re repeating, refining as we continue to explore.
The words aren’t really their’s yet. The words are still things they see on that page in their mind that they’re no longer holding onto for dear life. The ritual always reveals just how much of a crutch the script pages becomes. An actor will struggle with a sequence of lines and then choose to pick up the script again. The minute they pick it up the text comes back to life within them. And in most instances without them actually looking at those pages in their hands.
You have to take that neceessary step before you can really get your feet under you and we took some of those necessary steps last night even with the stumbles and bumbles.
The biggest takeaway? Today’s another day. Take some things apart and put them back together again for the next run on Saturday, our last day in the rehearsal space.
Ink Diaries: The Promotion Wheel Starts Turning
Check out this video interview on Bluff City Live about our production of James Graham’s Ink at Playhouse on the Square featuring cast memember Stephanie Almeida. Stephanie plays Stephanie Rahn, the first Page 3 girl in The Sun after Rupert Murdoch’s buys the paper.
I’d embed the interview here, but that doesn’t seem possible so if you’ll need to click on this link to go to station’s webpage and view it there. Enjoy!
Ink Diaries: Thanks Rupert Murdoch and Friends
Dear Rupert Murdoch and Friends,
I have to express my appreciation for the way you and your team diligently communicated throughout the presidential election crisis of 2020. I’m also grateful for those communications now becoming public through court proceedings in the Dominion lawsuit you now face. You and your team manged to document so well how you kept the circus going in 2020. The fact that it is all tumbling out now more than makes up for the COVID 19 caused delay in producing James Graham’s play Ink at PlayHouse on the Square in Memphis. It helps our rescheduled presentation seem even more timely and I dare say, fun.
My gratitude is for how well it is providing fodder for discussion in our rehearsal process. Allowing things to keep bouncing in the news as we near our performances beginning on March 24 is fantastic. No one knows if it will help our sales or have the opposite effect. That remains to be seen. But you sure are giving this collection of artists assembled to tell this story more imptetus to dig in and keeping honing our efforts as we go about our merry elite way.
Of course no one with half a brain is suprised at the things we’re reading and hearing. Although some of the details spill out like the juicy tabloid twaddle you love so much, and in turn are reported by other news organizations with breathless velocity, we’ve all known how Fox News operates for some time now. You’ve taught us all so well. We use your fabulous statement “It’s not red or blue, it is green” in every rehearsal each day.
Especially fun is the fact that your news organization has been revealed to be no different than your entertainment evening headlineers. That certainly is not much of a surprise to us working on the play. The fact that you’ve been able to keep it going since the 1969/70 dates of our play is an astounding display of business acumen and insight that must delight you with how easy it was to con so many easy marks.
Oh, and that Tucker Carlson fellow? I sure hope he keeps on digging deeper holes for you and your organization to dig out of. At least for the next few weeks. The only thing better would be for you to fire him before we open because the headlines that would generate would only help our publicity efforts. Although I’m not sure you can run enough pillow ads to cover the attorney fees that would generate.
As you can surmise, we’re rooting for you to keep on fighting through our run that closes on April 16th. We know it’s painful when the media and others reveal secrets and pile on folks who think they’ve done nothing wrong in advancing their own economic interests. I’d like to say we feel your pain but that would be a lie. I don’t think any of us involved have experienced such a historic comeuppance.
Best wishes in your efforts and as you know so well, it’s not red or blue, it is green.
Sincerely,
Warner Crocker
Director, Ink at Playhouse on the Square
March 24-April 16th
Ink Diaries: Life on the Road
Doing a gig in another town offers challenges running right alongside new adventures. The challenges have to do with the simple acts of living: food, laundry, where to get prescriptions, etc… The new adventures include discovering things in a new place and making it feel like a temporary home.
I don’t require much when I’m on the road directing a show. I’m ususally tunnel focused on the work and the time away from home is typically of short duration. I’m long since past my post-rehearsal hit the bar days. Don’t much have the energy or stamina for that anymore. Not quite sure how I used to pull that routine off anymore. And while directing is a job that requires building a team around you, I enjoy and need the moments of solitude to keep the work focused.
This gig in Memphis at Playhouse on the Square is a bit longer than most rounding out to five weeks, so there’s more time to explore and accommodate although that usually only happens on off days. And since I’ve done gigs with this great theatre before it’s a combination of discovering the new while touching base with the familiar.
The weather in Memphis is certainly warmer than Chicago this time of year so that’s a plus.
I’m in the Midtown section of Memphis in an area called Overton Square and it’s brimming with arts activity. That’s a glorious bonus. Playhouse operates three theatres, Ballet Memphis is just down the street and directly across the street from POTS is the Hatilloo Theatre. It’s a joy and a bit of inspiration to walk to work and see those arts facilities regardless of whether I turn my head left or right.
But it’s back to work today with production concerns and an afternoon and evening of rehearsals.
Spring is Trying.
Spring is trying to show up.
Ink Diaries: Day Off Day O
There’s really no such thing as a day off when you’re directing a show. But today, Monday, is our day off. The actors do very much need down time to deal with the realities of life and also process a bit. And yeah, I’ll do a grocery run, throw some stuff in the laundry and some other personal stuff. But it’s also a breath when I prep for the week ahead. Sure is nice to be able to get away from all of those other screens and sit on the porch swing with just an iPad to do that.
Makes it almost feel like a day off.
Ink Diaries: Screens, Screens and More Screens
We’ve reached that point in rehearsals. Scenes are being strung together into acts which will eventually be strung together as a play. We’re two weeks away from technical rehearsals and the story we’re telling with our staging of James Graham’s play Ink is coming into shape nicely. We’re still in the rehearsal room for another week and by the time we leave it, the actors will be telling a tight story.
And then we’ll tear it all apart in technical rehearsals. Those technical elements of our story-telling are coming more into focus in the little theatre in my mind as I watch the actors put chunks of the show together. But they have to get out of my mind, into the designers’ and then onto the stage. Clear communication and direction is the key.
Lighting, music, and in this show a voluminous series of projections that will play on multiple screens on the stage offer a full menu. It’s one thing to visualize them as pieces of the puzzle in the little theatre in my mind and discussions around the production table. it’s another to begin charting them out as assets for discussions with the designers so they can go and build those assets.
Over the years my toolkit is always evolving and changing as technology advances, always offering new options (and the opportunites to play with new toys.) For my prep work to flow on this show I am using several screens to keep track of spreadsheets, notes and of course the script as I chart out the assets cue to cue.
Back in my digs the M2 Macbook Air is the anchor. Hanging off it is an ESR Portable Kickstand Monitor. Sitting adjacent is an 11 inch iPad Pro with the script, sometimes connected via Universal Control depending on the work I’m doing.
When it’s time for rehearsal the iPad Pro becomes the anchor and travels with, bringing it all back home for the next prep session. For someone who loves both the making of live theatre and playing with gadgets it’s a dream world.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 