Crazy story from rehearsal:
Today we had a morning matinee of Romeo and Juliet, and then began rehearsal for the second of our three shows — a development process of a new adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that will culminate essentially in a series of staged readings around the country.
After doing a read-through of the first draft, we began with some physical exploration. One of the exercises required the cast to be broken into three groups. The usual way this is achieved in such exercises is that everybody counts off numbers from 1 to 3, in a circle based on wherever they are in the room at the time the director decides to do so — creating more-or-less random groups.
When everyone had counted their numbers, and moved into a corner with their respective groups, we were amazed to discover that they were divided into the Capulets and the Montagues, with the third group being the neutral characters (Friar Laurence, the Nurse, the Prince, etc.). There was only one person out of the 13 who was out of place.
Like last year when we began rehearsing our second show, it was really fun to hear everyone that we have grown to know so well take on new roles. It’s especially refreshing because this show is very different in style than Shakespeare, and even for the actors that I did two shows with last year, I’ve never heard them perform contemporary language, so I’m experiencing part of their talents that I’ve never been able to see before. After a very early, very long day, many of the actors remarked on how good it felt to get to exercise different acting muscles.
