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December 14, 2009

Rehearsal Update

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 12:13 am

I know I haven’t blogged much this week. Believe me, with the Guthrie’s most famous blogger sitting next to me 8 hours a day, I get reminded when I’m slacking.

The Meet & Greet

This week we began with our Meet & Greet. Traditionally this would be done on the first day, but it was postponed to allow for a date when the artistic directors of the Guthrie and The Acting Company — Joe Dowling and Margot Harley — could both be present to speak at the ceremonial beginning of the rehearsal process. They both spoke of the great collaboration between the two companies that was started with last year’s Henry V, and how they were looking forward to keeping up the partnership with this production and others to come. Joe introduced our actors individually, who stood for applause from those Guthrie staff members gathered. They then introduced our director, Penny Metropulos, who introduced the production team (myself, Nick, our choreographer Marcela Lorca, and our voice and text consultants, Andrew Wade and Sara Phillips). Penny gave a basic overview of the concept for the show, the set and costume design, and the period the show is set in (roughly 1912), and why these choices were made. She gave a very moving talk about why the show is important and timeless to audiences.

Week Sort-Of-1 (Staging)

Once these festivities were done, we took a five, and crossed the doorway back into our usual rehearsal room, where we began staging from the top of the show. Now that the week is over, we are staged up to the first part of Act V, Scene 1 (Benvolio comes to tell Romeo that Juliet is “dead”). I think it would be safe to say we are about 4/5ths of the way through the show. We also spent the end of today’s rehearsal doing a stumble-through of Part I (i.e. the part of the show before intermission). We have also run other large chunks of the show, which provides a good perspective on how the whole thing fits together. There is still much that needs to be worked in more detail, so we are far from done, but we have a solid structure after little more than a week. Our cast is off book for a surprising amount of the show, and I think we’re all pretty pleased with how much we’ve accomplished so far.

Outside of Rehearsal Room 2, we have had costume measurements, some costume fittings, and a consultation for facial hair provided by the Guthrie’s hair department. Next week we have more fittings, and we begin sessions with our actors and voice/text consultants, where they will get one-on-one work on the text.

Outside of rehearsal hours, we had two conference calls this week. Navigating the schedules of about 20 people in three time zones, and trying to get all of them in the presence of a telephone at the same time has had my head close to exploding for much of the week, but we managed to get a lot hashed out. We had a small call on Wednesday between our set designer, lighting designer, director, staff director, and stage management team. Our designers (one in New York, one in San Francisco) only had 15 minutes each before they had to go to appointments for other shows they’re doing, so we very quickly went through the most pressing questions — new dimensions for our infamous platform (named Fred), and clarification of how the masking allows traffic on and off stage, and access behind the set. Our real production meeting involved a larger selection of Guthrie and Acting Company staff, where we checked in on a number of issues, and I accomplished my main goal of getting everyone to agree to a schedule for the actors’ call times for tech/preview week.

The Database

In technology news, our stage management database has really come into its own this week. I know I always talk about it and never actually explain it in depth. It’s still very much in development so the idea of stopping to blog in depth about it always seems premature. Features get added to it sometimes in the middle of rehearsal when the need for them is discovered.

With Nick and I on the same network, I open the FileMaker file on my computer, and create a local server. Nick opens FileMaker and loads the file that my computer is serving, so we’re both working on the same copy of the database. As long as we’re not trying to work on the same record simultaneously, we can each make independent changes at the same time, which has proven to be very helpful.

The database has a lot of different parts, but the one we’re using most in the context of blocking rehearsals is what I call “tracking.” It’s a chronological log of basically everything that happens in the show: entrances, exits, prop moves, sound cues, costume changes, etc. Initially, it was just filled with entrances and exits based on what is indicated in the script. As we have been rehearsing, that gets filled out and altered to reflect the actual staging, as well as provided with details like where a character enters from. Nick, like most ASMs, is in charge of props, so he primarily deals with adding props to the tracking sheet, as well as to a related sheet which is more for the purposes of prop shopping — it notes whether we have the prop (a rehearsal version, the final show version, something that might become the show version, or none at all), and if we have it, where it came from (so we know who it belongs to when we’re done with it), as well as any design notes, and the date the prop was added to the show (that part came from my good friend Josh, who likes recording dates, and helped me develop and test this part of the database while working on Inventing Avi Off-Broadway this fall).

So since I’m taking blocking, and Nick is tracking props, a lot of the time I fill in the entries related to entrances and exits, and he fills in the props. But sometimes one of us is busy working on something else, so we cross over a lot. And sometimes we neglect to whisper to each other “I got that,” and then we both create a record for the same thing, or both try to edit the same record. But it’s really cool to see the tracking table get filled out by both of us at once.

My favorite part of the database right now is a new one, that didn’t exist at all during Avi: the daily schedule and rehearsal report. The daily schedule has some fun features that inform you of conflicts for the date in question, does some basic math to stop you from breaking the basic Equity rules, and allows for the construction of a work list for the day that then automatically is added to the rehearsal report. The report is basically a bunch of text boxes, but it tells me with color if I’ve left something blank that can’t be left blank, or if I’ve marked it with my customary “(?)” sign, indicating that I need to come back and review something.

The true beauty of the report is what happens after it’s done: I press one button, labled “email,” and it creates a PDF of the rehearsal report, attached to an email addressed to the distribution list (determined by a checkbox on each person’s contact file). It also includes in the body of the email a plain text version of the report — not an exact copy of what’s in the PDF, but a bunch of code that includes exactly what I want, in the format I want. At the same time it creates a PDF of the daily schedule, and a plain text version, addressed to the cast. Filemaker could send these emails with no interaction if I wanted it to, but I prefer to use this opportunity to proof them before hitting “send.” The new little trick I added a few days ago reminds me to update the company Google calendar with the upcoming day’s schedule. It doesn’t do anything automatically, it just prevents me from forgetting by opening Safari to the calendar address. So far I’ve had that step in the script for two days, and both times I would have otherwise forgotten, so I’m very excited about that feature!

Moving On

The rehearsal process is interesting, but I also can’t wait to get to tech. I find rehearsal far more stressful, especially in this coast-to-coast environment. With the parties all spread out, I have to be the switchboard for everyone else on the production, making sure that everyone is in possession of all the knowledge they should have. That’s true in any production, but it’s easier when everyone is in one building, one city, or one time zone. Once we get to tech, we start to have more of the people we need on the scene in real time. We won’t have everyone in Minneapolis with us at once, but the collaboration becomes more and more in-person, until finally the show is frozen and we, the traveling company, will have everything and everyone we need to make the show happen each night, wherever we go. I am excited for all aspects of the process, but I’m trying not to get too much ahead of myself. First we still have a bit of staging and a couple more weeks of exploration to get through!


December 8, 2009

Day Off

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 12:53 am

I’ve come to a realization about my days off. I don’t actually do things. When I do things, they’re generally work, but they feel less like work because the day off allows me time to get things done that will otherwise make my work days more difficult if I don’t.

For instance, my day:

9AM – Woke up

10AM – Went to the Guthrie for the grocery run

11:30AM – While waiting for van, answer emails on prop construction, production meeting, and travel plans of lighting designer

12PM – Return with groceries, have lunch, return 1 or 2 emails, get tired

1PM – Do laundry, take nap while laundry is going

4PM – Wake up, put laundry away

4:30PM – Return to emails. Find out tour performance date needs to be changed by the venue, check Equity rule book to make sure new date doesn’t violate any rules, report that to the GM. Brief email chat with Nick about what this means for us.

5:30PM – Respond to earlier email from costume designer, confirming that we can accomplish all his requested fittings next week, giving prospective schedule.

6:00PM – Exchange several emails with director about tomorrow’s meet and greet.

6:30PM – Realize I had intended to call my parents. Video chat with parents for 1 hr.

8:00PM – Receive email asking about the approximate run time of our partially-completed read/walk-through of Act II. Figure this is the time to fix what’s broken on the database run time summary, since the data is in there, but the report is not working. Added features to the report so that you can quickly search for specific criteria (such as an act) and see the run time just for that part. It turns out really cool, and tells me that the answer I’m looking for is 42 minutes, 17 seconds.

8:30PM – Realize I’m missing Monday Night Football, turn on TV. While watching football, check my to-do lists in OmniFocus. I notice that one of my topics for the upcoming production meeting is to decide on a schedule for the actors in tech week. And I don’t have a plan. So I make a list of the Equity rules regarding that week, and then enter a proposed schedule into my personal Google calendar (using iCal), which is where I put things about the show that I need to know, but I don’t want to clutter up the official R&J production calendar with.

Even though I think I’m relaxing by watching the game and poking around on places like Twitter, Facebook, and Fark.com, without even realizing it, I’m still kind of working. I’m cleaning up my inbox, checking off little tasks, backing up my files, cleaning up my desktop.

I’m not sure where exactly the time goes, but there are very few times when I’m not doing something in some way related to work, and I wonder if that’s a problem. I think it’s pretty much confined to sleeping, showering, going to the bathroom, and spending the occasional 10 minutes playing a couple songs on Rock Band for iPhone. And maybe blogging, except that this post reminded me that I should share my personal tour calendar with Nick, so I took a minute to do that. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m supposed to be entering all our vendors into the database so my contact sheet will be able to fully replace the old one. Good night!


December 7, 2009

End of Mini-Week 1

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 1:34 am

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After three days, our first half-week of rehearsal is done.

I told you about Day 1. Day 2 and 3 featured a continuation of table work. Basically after the initial read-through and some general discussion of the play and production as a whole, we began back at the top, working slowly through each scene, discussing plot points, character development, and any other insights people have. It’s also the time for actors to ask questions about meaning or pronunciation, which sometimes has no right answer, but we can decide to standardize — for instance today featured a debate on whether we should use the written “corse” or the more contemporary “corpse” to make it clearer for our audiences.

The thing about Shakespeare is that there isn’t just one script. Often there are multiple versions of the dialogue based on various texts from the period, so companies are free to mix and match text that makes the most sense to them. Also, due to time constraints, most productions cut quite a bit of text. We are using a version of the script prepared specifically for this production by Dakin Matthews, in collaboration with our director. This is the text that the cast began rehearsal with. Over the course of our table work, as we pass through each scene, the actors, director, staff director, and vocal/text coaches are free to call attention to cuts or alternate text that they would like to consider including in the show. Many of our actors are familiar with other versions either because they have done the show before, or from their own research prior to rehearsal. There are also a number of different reference books on the table with notes on the various known versions of R&J for the group to use to clarify questions. After discussing the matter, we then decide whether to change the text. We have made a lot of small alterations of words here and there, put a few lines back in, taken a few lines out, or traded one couplet for another. As the changes get made, I have been marking them and flagging pages in my script while Nick is making changes in our Word document. We will then cross-check them to make sure we got everything, and send out the revised script to the team. In one case we reprinted a page for an actor who had a pretty sizable chunk of text changed.

After we finished working through the show we took our meal break and cleared the tables. When we reconvened, I led the cast on a two-dimensional tour through our set taped out on the floor (with the detachable staircase from the model in my hand, because the pillars are kind of hard to explain in two dimensions). The speed with which that was able to be accomplished was a good sign. I was surprised when I quickly ran out of things to say — I guess the set is simpler than most I’ve worked on, though that’s not to say it isn’t big. Just not a lot of doors, tricks, or nooks and crannies.

The purpose of all this was to prepare the cast for our next exercise. They were immediately turned lose on another read-through, with instructions to get on their feet and use the space however they saw fit — not to worry about what proper blocking would be for the stage, just to focus on relating to the other characters.

It was a lot of fun. Our cast continues to impress me with their talent, inventiveness and sense of humor. Sonny and Laura gave a great early view of Romeo and Juliet’s romantic scenes. I can only imagine what an audience of a thousand 9th graders is going to think about all the smooching! Well you can’t say it’s not accessible! In all seriousness, this cast is already developing a sense as an ensemble of the line where heightened language meets the relaxed way that people speak in real life, while at the same time coming off as honest, rather than intentionally “modern”. I think it will be a real eye-opener for the kids (and adults!) who have never seen Shakespeare acted well, to realize that the words in those dusty old books actually do say the same things that we would say today, they just use slightly different words or syntax.

Tomorrow is our first day off, concluding our short week. On Tuesday we will have our official meet & greet, which would normally be held on the first day, but was pushed back to allow the artistic directors of The Acting Company and the Guthrie — Margot Harley and Joe Dowling — to lead the festivities. That will kick off the day, and once the invited guests have departed, it will be back to work for us!


December 4, 2009

First Day of Rehearsal

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 11:06 pm

4159527044_5fdba1ff4b_bWe began our day with the Equity meeting. Nick and I had met most of the cast the day before, when they happened to arrive from the airport at the time we were working in the rehearsal studio. At the meeting we introduced ourselves to everyone else and talked very briefly about the basic structure of the company before launching into the four votes we needed to take about rehearsal hours. We have a relatively large number of new or almost-new Equity members on this show, which is kind of fun. I actually did some paraphrasing of the spiel that we’re supposed to give about the deputy election, and the duties and importance of the Equity deputy. I was still bumbling through the conclusion of this speech, wondering if by mentioning what it entailed, I was discouraging anyone from doing it, when we suddenly had a volunteer! Everyone quickly consented, and thus concluded our Equity business.

Once we opened our secret chamber, we were joined by our director, Penny, our vocal coaches Andrew and Sara, and our prop master, Scotty, who was bearing some boxes of things vaguely weapon-looking. We spent about an hour doing basic introductions, going around the table giving our name, role, and something interesting about ourselves, and quickly got to know each other and build up a rapport.

We then began our first read-through, which was also attended by our sound designer and composer. On this show I really wanted to be caught up on everything to be free to pay attention to the table work, just for my own interest because I love table work. I had to respond to a couple emails and arrange a last-minute costume meeting before our designer left for the airport, but for the most part I was able to sit and just listen and take the occasional note when something interesting was said.

There are very few shows other than R&J which could begin with the type of table work that we did today — maybe no other. Once the read-through was complete and we reconvened after lunch, Penny began by asking everyone in the room — everyone, not just the actors — a group of questions:
1. How many productions of R&J have you worked on? (answers varied from none to eight)
2. What was your first experience of the play ever? (most people credited their 9th grade English teachers)
3. What are your feelings about the play itself? (everything, ranging from cynicism about love to it being the reason that people wanted to do theatre).

I can’t imagine another work where you could ask a room of 20 people these questions, and be sure that every one of them would have some prior experience to work with. In some ways it’s even more interesting, because this play is so well known that any production has to deal with the fact that both artists and audience will have their preconceived notions of how it should be done, and what they think of it, before they ever set foot in the theatre. We also discussed how we, as a company who will often be performing for students, have the pleasure of maybe being the first live production — or the first experience of the play ever — for some of these kids.

We continued to discuss the play, characters, and period until the end of our day, and I could tell everybody is eager for tomorrow to continue the discussion we had going.

After rehearsal, the Guthrie had arranged a reception for us at the bar, which was a great way to celebrate the end of our first day. We have a really great company — very talented, and it seems like a good group of personalities, which is especially important given how closely we will be living and working together for the next five months. I always appreciate a process that actually makes me look forward to getting out of bed in the morning, to go to work, no less!

And in meteorological news, the honeymoon is over here in Minneapolis. When we arrived (four days ago) it was in the 40s with a wind chill in the 30s. Today it was in the teens with a wind chill in the negative numbers, and snowing lightly but steadily all day. Which is already a lot milder than it was last year, for which I am grateful.


December 3, 2009

Groundplan Stickers

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:43 pm

Everybody’s got their own thing when it comes to how they set up their script for blocking, especially as it pertains to having a shortcut for drawing blocking on top of a premade groundplan of the set.

I don’t generally bother with having big pages with a large groundplan on them once or twice. I have a template for that in the database, and will print some out because I know our lighting designer likes them, and in case I need to draw a really big stage picture for some reason, but the way I handle my groundplan drawing needs is with stickers.

I buy some label paper (Avery 5164 usually, although it doesn’t have to be), and print a bunch of mini groundplans on it. With the paper I use, there are six stickers per page. I fit two groundplans on each sticker and then cut them up, so I get a total of 12 per page. But that’s totally up to your preference for how big you want or need them to be. The really low-maintenance way is to pick a label size that’s exactly how big you want your picture to be, but I stick to this size because it gives me the flexibility to make bigger ones if I want.

I like to keep most of my facing page of the script free for blocking, and then have a tiny diagram only where I need it. This way I don’t have to bother printing lots of sheets with groundplans on them for every page. When I come across some complicated blocking that requires a picture, I peel off a sticker and place it exactly where in the script I want it.

Depending on what kind of show you’re doing, the amount of work and expense to make all the stickers might be worse than just printing the groundplan a couple times on all the back pages of your script, but I find it very flexible. I can have no groundplans on a page or 10, and they can be wherever I want to indicate exactly where in the text they relate to.


December 2, 2009

(Waves to Guthrie Fans)

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:48 pm

i_heart_mnGreetings to new readers from the Guthrie website!

As you probably know because you’re here, I’m the Production Stage Manager for the Acting Company / Guthrie production of Romeo and Juliet, opening in January.

First I’ve got a little backstory for you: I’ve been writing a blog/website about stage management, and the application of technology to enhance theatre management for about two-and-a-half years.

So last year, making my debut with The Acting Company as PSM of Henry V, I hired this guy Nick to be my assistant. Nick decided to create a blog about his experiences on tour, too. And one morning we came to rehearsal and discovered that Nick’s blog was all over the front page of the Guthrie website, and suddenly everybody was reading it! Our actors’ parents would come to the show and be more excited to meet Nick than to see their kids perform! Well Nick thought this was awesome, and indeed it was.

So the other day as we were waiting at JFK for our flight to Minneapolis, we somehow got on the subject of our blogging rivalry. Nick declared that once again he was sure to be the darling of the Guthrie homepage. Having significantly expanded my blog and website since last year, I retorted that I was just as likely, if not more so, to attract their attention. So we began googling terms like, “Romeo and Juliet Guthrie” to see what came up. Unfortunately we got through about 100 results and neither of us was listed. That put a temporary stop to the discussion.

Today as we were locking up our rehearsal room, we heard someone at the other end of the hall exclaim, “It’s Karen and Nick!” We didn’t recognize these people, so we were a little surprised. As they came closer, I think the first thing the young lady said was, to Nick, “I read your blog!” Which sent Nick up and down the halls doing a happy dance, of course! Once Nick had contained himself and returned, they introduced themselves as James Scott, the General Manager, and his assistant Lauren. After much continued discussion about how popular Nick’s blog is with the Guthrie staff, I asked what the hell a webmaster has to do to get some love around here. Nick will characterize this as begging. Perhaps it was. But you must understand, I’m desperate at this point. Lauren took down the name of my website, and then we talked a bit about some work stuff she needed to tell me.

Nick and I were on our way upstairs to see Faith Healer, and by intermission I had an email from Lauren saying that both our blogs were now linked on the website, under the title “Blogging Stage Managers Return to Minneapolis!” which I think is an awesome title. I also submit Blogging Stage Managers for your consideration should you be looking for a band name.

So welcome, and now you know how much it means to me to be acknowledged as the other half of the Blogging Stage Managers! Look for us to continue our tales of Romeo and Juliet as we create it here in Minneapolis and tour it around the country.

And if you’re interested in stage management or technical theatre, or computers, I especially encourage you to take a look at the rest of the site as well!


Day 1 of Preproduction at the “G”

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 7:18 pm

Checking In

First day of work at the Guthrie (yesterday). We arrived a little before our announced arrival time of 11am, to get our security badges, and hopefully have our pictures retaken, because we arrived last year unaware that there would be pictures, and coming off our travel, looked a little rough. Well of course in typical Guthrie efficiency, they just typed in our names and reprinted our badges from last year. So so much for that. I didn’t really mind. I’ve taken worse pictures, it might not have been worth the gamble. Nick also discovered when they couldn’t find him in the computer, that his name was misspelled on his badge all last year. That was pretty funny.

The important thing about the badge is that there are electronic sensors all over the building, and without one you won’t get very far before a door or an elevator blocks your passage to the non-public parts of the building. So with our access granted, we then proceeded upstairs to the 2nd floor production office.

In the Office

We were there to see Russell, who is the Guthrie’s PSM, and our direct liaison to our host theatre. Russell had stepped out, but in poking our heads into his office, we were noticed by Trevor, the Assistant Production Director, who was also very helpful to us going into our tech last year.

We learned a lot last year about the challenges of creating a show with creative and production people sprawled out between New York and Minneapolis. The collaboration begun last year between The Acting Company and the Guthrie was very successful, but behind the scenes there is also a lot of planning that goes into figuring out how the two sets of personnel work together and where the handoff of responsibility occurs for each of the countless tasks that have to be accomplished to put on a show. This year my goal, and I assume everyone’s, is to use what we learned last year to build a tighter, more efficient collaboration between the two companies. I, for one, feel so much more prepared, knowing how things work here, and how to integrate our process into it smoothly.

So with that in mind, we immediately went into Trevor’s office and began looking over calendars, schedules, and ground plans, and shared as much information as we had, until Russell arrived. Then we hopped over to his office, and met our new intern (absolute best thing about working here — a 3-person stage management team is actually not 1.5 times better than a 2-person team, it’s like a billion times better, believe me, I’ve done the math!). We were very glad to learn we would have the help of this year’s stage management intern, after our fantastic experience with Meghan last year. This year we have Ashley, who is also fantastic! And the only thing better than an extra person on your team is an extra highly qualified person on your team! While waiting for our flight the day before, we had been exchanging emails with Russell and Ashley, so we had made our introductions, and had asked for her help to set up the rehearsal room on our first day.

But before that, we sat in Russell’s office for a while having some really productive discussions. I can’t even remember all that was said, but we covered a variety of topics, from our plans for rehearsal hours, to the availability of other studios, to how the new production of A Christmas Carol was doing. We also made plans to see Faith Healer together, which inhabits our future theatre until the end of this week, so that we could get a feel for the space as an audience member, and to see Artistic Director Joe Dowling live on stage! Having just returned from that outing, it was a very helpful experience, and a great show to boot!

The Theatre

Anyway, after our meeting I was most of all anxious to get an opportunity to tour our theatre. I knew a little bit about the backstage layout of the main stages, but had never been in either theatre, mostly because last year was so jam-packed with shows, there was always a show performing or in tech. So Russell, Trevor and Ashley took us to the theatre, where we walked around the cavernous wingspace, and spent a long time on stage. We had some discussions about the orchestra pit, whether it would be raised or lowered, or used as a playing space or not. This brought up some lingering questions, and by morning things had been bounced around between all the parties and a new drawing was waiting for us when we got in today. So that alone was a productive visit.

I asked if there was a possibility of calling from backstage. I’m not convinced I want to, just because once we get on the road it will be my responsibility to make sure the show looks the same in each venue as it does here. Staring at the show every night for a month will lock that in. If I call from backstage, I will be working only from dim memories of the tech process, and whatever it looks like on a video monitor. Later in the tour it would be fun to call from backstage (which I did get to do last year in New York), but our goal as a touring company, from a technical perspective, is that every audience should see the show exactly as it will be set by our designers here, to the best of our ability given the time, equipment, and facilities available at each venue. And although I won’t have to hang a light, lay down the show deck, or play a sound cue, I’m the one who’s supposed to know when it’s right, and I’d like to be as familiar with it as possible.

Continuing on, we left the stage and got another tour through the backstage hallways. We saw most of this on the grand tour of the building on the day we arrived last year, but back then it was more in the context of, “And over here are the dressing rooms where the grown-ups put on plays.” This year we’re all grown up and now we’re being asked to think about how we want to assign those dressing rooms.

My favorite part of this tour was visiting the third floor star dressing rooms. As we walked, Russell told us that they only hold four, but if we really needed the extra space we might be able to use them. So he opens one of them, and we step into the largest four-person dressing room I’ve ever seen. I said, “Yeah, see we would call this a 10.” Seriously. If that’s their four, I can only imagine that the six-person room we didn’t get to see probably would hold all 10 of our guys! I don’t think we’ll have any problems!

On our travels we passed the wardrobe and hair area, which has giant windows overlooking the main entrance. We ran into our old friend Susan, who’s the wardrobe supervisor for the theatre, and was instrumental in making sense of the wardrobe tracks as they wrangled the amazing zipping, transforming costumes we had last year in Henry V. Susan explained that this is the area where everybody hangs out at half hour. I said, “I know, I used to see them when I’d pass by here before a show or at intermission, on my way to slink back to the 9th floor. They always had candy.” That area in a theatre, wherever it may be, where everybody hangs out is always a magical place. I must admit I was a little jealous of not being a part of that camaraderie last year. It will be very nice to be in the middle of the action this time!

Anyway, our tour was pretty much at an end, so we returned to the production office to pick up the dilapidated box of our supplies that had made its way from New York (and from the looks of it, might have traveled around the world a few times underneath a FedEx truck!). We carted the box down to our rehearsal room, where we were happy to discover that nothing was broken, not even our printer/scanner.

Setting up the Room

We set about getting some tables up, approximating where the director and staff director would sit, with the director’s chair on the centerline, and then made a very long table for us. My spot, across the aisle from the director, followed by Nick, and then closest to the door, Ashley will have the second table, which holds the printer and I anticipate will be used for displaying things for the actors to pick up (new paperwork, for instance) or to put a plate of cookies somebody’s grandmother sent. We distributed basic supplies across the tables — pencils, staplers, tissues and sanitizer.

Then we really got down to business and flattened out our groundplan on one of the tables. I took the measurements on it before we left New York, so I had a basic idea of how we would tape the floor. We took our time choosing where we would mark the edge of the stage, because the last thing I wanted was to decide after we were done that it should have moved a little bit. So we made some careful measurements and considerations of how we might use the space, and then placed our downstage center mark. It didn’t take all that long to tape out the set, at least not considering that there are quite a few stairs. Stairs are the worst!

Here’s a picture of our room with the floor taped out. It’s a panorama, so the perspective is a little weird. I assure you the walls are flat!

photo

We spent the remaining time making a list of supplies we still needed, which Ashley was able to procure from the Guthrie’s supply, and then Ashley took my reformatted script file and went to make 25 copies for our first rehearsal scripts. By default they bind them with these nice simple black covers, which we liked a lot, and once they were done, proceeded to decorate them as we did last year. This was Nick’s idea, and very successful, I think — we took our postcard and with black gaff tape, affixed one to the cover of each script, and then wrote the actors’ name on it with silver pen. We actually packed a handful of postcards in our hapless box before we left the office just for that purpose.

We selected a wall of the studio to use to display design images. We put up the ground plan and another drawing showing the main wall of the set. I printed the photograph of the set model, and hung that up as well. Before the first rehearsal we’ll also be getting costume sketches to go up there.

While we were doing that, Scott Edwards, our sound designer, came in to set up some instruments that will be used by our composer, Victor Zupanc, to explore what kind of music will go into the show. Last year I had a great time seeing how Victor works — I had never been part of a process where the composer was truly a member of the everyday rehearsal team. He was there all the time, playing with various instruments and improvised items, accompanying each time we worked a scene, and I think it was evident in the final product how closely tied he was to the rehearsal process. I got a lot of questions from people who saw the show wanting to know how the sound was developed, because it really stood out for feeling like an integral part of the show. From my perspective, it was also really fun to call the show, because Victor had such a crystal-clear idea of how each sound reflected the action of the play, so the bar was set very high for me, to translate that into telling a guy to push the spacebar on a laptop, and to hopefully get exactly the artistic impact that the composer and designer intended. I’ve met lots of great collaborators here, so I’m very excited to get to continue working with them.

That pretty much concluded our first day. We accomplished basically everything we needed to do in the studio before the first rehearsal. We will need to set up the tables for the first read-through, but I want to talk to Penny about how she would prefer them to be arranged.

Homework

Besides the on-site stuff, the number of emails and phone calls has been increasing this week. I’m working with our costume designer, Matt Lefebvre, to find time in the schedule for actors’ measurements to be taken and for a flurry of costume fittings for our ladies. The costumes are being built by a shop in Pittsburg this year, not at the Guthrie, so the scheduling will need to be a bit tighter to accommodate people coming in from out of town.

I am still very much at work on our new stage management database, which should make our lives much easier, after it’s done keeping me up all night! Nick and I are planning to have a working dinner and/or drinks tonight with our prop master, Scotty, who has just arrived in town. It will be great to see him again, too!


November 30, 2009

Travel Day – NYC to Minneapolis

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 8:28 am

The time has come! The Acting Company 2010 tour is kicking off, at least for me and Nick today.

If the WordPress 2.0 client for iPhone doesn’t suck as much as 1.x, and doesn’t eat posts anymore (which in my experience it does not), I will be blogging intermittently throughout our travel.

8:20am

I am now all packed up, and just waiting for 8:45am when I have scheduled my ride to the airport. While waiting, and sweating, I was thinking how unfortunate it is to have to choose between dressing for 50 degrees or 30 degrees. Then I was like, “Well, the natural solution would be to dress for 40 degrees.” And then I was like, “Huh!” So I unlocked my suitcase and swapped out which shirt I was wearing. And now I’m back to waiting. Stay tuned for more shocking discoveries.

8:46am

In car. Much more successful pickup than last year.

10:05am

At JFK with Nick, sitting at our gate.

11:06am

Still waiting to board. Nick and I are having a friendly competition to see whose blog may get on the Guthrie’s homepage during our stay there. So we started googling appropriate search terms, and neither of us came up in the first 100 results. This will require some work.

2:06pm, Central Time

We have been picked up at the airport. We didn’t know which company manager to expect, and as it turns out we got both – making a 1:1 ratio of company management to arriving guests. We feel special.

2:28pm

Dropping our stuff at the apartments. I’m in my old apartment, so it really feels like coming home.

5:30pm

Groceries unpacked, had a little to eat. Suitcase partially unpacked. Nick is going to cook us dinner. I have my usual Minneapolis sinus headache, so I’m gonna lie down until then.


November 29, 2009

A Cautionary Tale of Laundry Miscalculation

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:32 pm

Today is the day before I leave, and is also laundry day.

I have planned my departure in minute detail for about a month. I thought I had a brilliant plan. Here it is:

1. Pick which clothes are going on the road
2. Stop wearing those clothes as much as possible
3. Neatly pile clothes on couch
4. Wear other clothes that are not going on the road
5. On the day before departure, wash all dirty clothes, the few that are going on the road can then be packed, the rest are nice and clean to be put away
6. Profit

I realized today that this plan is TERRIBLE!

There are two essential flaws:

1. Some of my clothes that are going on the road (nicer shirts, silk underwear) can’t or shouldn’t be put in the dryer. Washing them 18 hours before departure doesn’t leave them much time to dry.

2. Why am I paying $3 and going up and down 5 flights of stairs all day? I have done this ass-backwards. All this week I should have been wearing the clothes that are going on the road, then packing the dirty ones in the expansive dirty laundry compartment of my suitcase, and then doing them for free in the laundry room adjacent to my bedroom in Minneapolis.

I am a damn fool, that’s why.


November 28, 2009

Departure

I call this: On the Road Again,theatre — Posted by KP @ 5:24 pm

I find myself trying to make a weird mental shift today. My big task for the day is basically to tie up my loose ends: to mail my completed contract and paperwork to The Acting Company office, to mail that contract and a couple others to Equity, to drop off a friend’s borrowed belongings at his theatre, and to pick up my last Phantom paycheck and say goodbye to the folks there.

When these things are complete, I will have done all the tasks that need to be done before I can leave (short of actually packing my suitcase and locking it for the trip).

My Sunday will involve a final half-load of laundry, and then packing my suitcase with everything except the things I need to use overnight. The remainder of the day will be spent on more work on the stage management database (priorities are the wallet cards, and a layout where you tell it which actors you have and it provides a list of all the scenes you can rehearse.). I want to arrive with as much work done as possible, but that’s not something that depends on which city I’m in, and there are still four days in Minneapolis to complete that kind of work.

So the mental shift that’s happening started out as a kind of detachment. What I think it is is my mind’s attempt to begin seeing New York as another stop on the road, one that has an end date, and just like any other, gives way to a new city waiting to be explored. So trying to see New York not as home base, but as a place that must be left because there’s a show to be done elsewhere is part of that mental leap into touring. I’ve had a pay-per-ride MetroCard for a week now, which always makes me feel like an outsider, so that’s been a subconscious part of the transition. I scheduled my car service pickup today. That was a little weird, too. But I felt good when the lady asked if I needed to schedule a return pickup, and I said, “No.” Off the top of my head, I couldn’t even tell you the date I’ll be back, and it won’t be on a plane.

No matter how much I enjoy any city on tour, I am always looking forward to the next one because it’s a whole new set of experiences. I’m starting to feel that urge of, “OK, let’s just get going!” and I guess that’s a good thing.


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