Pardon the rude title: lately, I've been working on rhapsodizing Shakespearean insults, since I need to be adept it at for the opening fight. I'll see thee hang'd, thou paunchy, fat-kidneyed Montague!
I think I'm getting pretty good.
"Romeo and Juliet" is now completely blocked, and towards the end of its work-through period. The last two weeks or so have been mostly about character, defining and refining our (the actors') motivations and distinguishing characteristics, and working towards creating the world of R&J onstage.
Michael, Liz, and Jared work on a scene together.
The production is now halfway over its first major hurdle: the off-book deadline has come and gone. This week has been all about trudging through scenes sans script, and it has not been that difficult. After a minor set-back with the staging of some scenes (due to the length of our stage, a lot of scenes had to be shifted towards center to benefit both sides of the audience), we've now successfully run through nearly the entire show.
Bill works a scene--notice the lack of scripts in the actors' hands!
Off-book time is always a somewhat terrifying time for actors. The prospect of getting into a scene and having to call, "Line!" tends to instill a bit of fear into casts. But thankfully, just in time to reply to our helpless cries ("Peace LINE, Mercutio, LINE, Peace LINE, thou talkst LINE of nothing LINE!") Brian Chaitin has arrived to be the ASM for both R&J and Bluest Water. Besides pulling actors out of their misery, Brian's also been bringing rehearsal props to the R&J rehearsals, so that we can all get an idea of how things are really going to work before we go into run-throughs of the entire show.
Brian, Maria, and JD Stallings assemble to form the Tech Triumvirate.
"Romeo and Juliet" is in what I consider to be the most interesting phase of a production. Right now, we teeter on that brink of excitement and nervousness. We are not quite in the full swing of things, but no longer lounging around and solely enjoying rehearsal. We are working. Now is when problems get thrown at us in nearly every rehearsal--an entrance no longer works, or a prop needs to be obtained earlier, or a character choice doesn't quite fit--and the director and the actors must fix everything so that it can flow together (hopefully) seamlessly. Starting Sunday, the cast begins running through the entire show and fine-tuning everything to a performance level. Though I won't be there for it, I have no doubts the R&J cast will pull it all together.
Kirin McCrory
Endstation Blogger
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