Tag: acting

Lehamn Trilogy Diaries: Moving to the Stage

Last night was our final rehearsal for The Lehman Trilogy in the rehearsal room. Rehearsal rooms are often not sufficiently matched to the space a show will occupy on stage which means the first few rehearsals on stage turn into what is called “spacing.” Simply put that means you transfer the staging from a smaller space to a larger one and adjust a few things.

Often that requires quite a few adjustments. This show should require less than most as we gain more space, because our scenic anchors for the action, though somewhat different, have set our parameters and those parameters will be largely intact. It’s also an opportunity to actually stage some moments that just couldn’t be achieved in the confines of a rehearsal room with no ceiling height. This show has an overabundnce of those. That will be what today’s work will be about.

Things will feel different. Things will feel out of sorts. Things will get corrected to find their sorts. And some things will actually take on new meaning as the stage provides new opportunities. What I’ve been seeing in the “little theatre in my mind” that we’ve been rehearsing in the smaller rehearsal room, will now get its chance to take real and actual steps instead of imagined ones.

I’ll also get a chance to get some proper perspective on the story as I simulataneously get closer to it by stepping farther back. In the rehearsal room staff is literally on top of the actors. In the theatre we get to finally take the seats the audience will in viewing the story. Being able to see the big picture focuses things tighter as the aperture widens.

Most importantly, the story will get a chance to breathe. As we adjust, the wings will spread a bit.

Looking forward to this day. But I have to say I’ll miss the intimacy of the work this team has accomplished in that smaller space. There was indeed a palpable tinge of sadness as we wrapped last night.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Expanding the Team

We’ve been hacking away at The Lehman Trilogy for a few weeks now. Three cast members, a director, and a stage manager in a rehearsal room, collectively working through an extremely fun, yet densely challenging script, beat by beat, moment by moment. I can speak for that small cadre that we feel very good about our work so far, and a bit terrified by the work ahead. Tonight we do a run-thru for the design team and the production staff and the inner circle expands.

The designers and production folks have had their brains on this for awhile now, but tonight is the first time they will be in the room where it happens, exposed to more than just my words and rehearsal notes about what is exactly is happening with the story we’re trying to tell.

I have a love and hate relationship with designer run-thrus. First, they are a necessary part of the process. Challenges become more real and collaboration becomes more possible. On the other hand, it also kicks things into another gear for the actors. All of a sudden they feel ike they’re performing instead of just advancing the work reherarsal to rehearsal. The atmosphere becomes less safe. Not in any dangerous way, but in a way that usually invovles a step or two backwards before allowing things to begin moving forward again.

We’re still in the rehearsal room, safely tucked away on the 5th floor, anxious to get to the stage. But we’re not done here yet. As inhibited as this room is compared to the actual less confining confines we’ll be inhabiting soon, it’s become home, familiar and comfortable, yet growing tired and small as the cast’s work is begging for the space the stage will provide.

As an example, a good portion of the staging features actors standing on a conference room table, and we don’t have the ceiling height to make that possible in the rehearsal room without the actors crashing their heads into the drop ceiling tiles.  We’ve come up with some interesting, occasionally humorous alternatives for those moments, yet they yearn to play in the full height and freedom of the stage.

So, embracing both the love and hate, we’ll grow the team tonight as we prepare for the next steps. Should be fun. Should be scary. Should be quite a show…er…um…rehearsal.