Standby at C-Minus 12

If you can figure out how I came up with the title for this entry, well done. I'll mail you a fruit basket.

By the way, this entry will be dated as the 9th, though its contents refer to the night of the 8th. It's the middle of the night, insomniac that I am. I am still going to say "tonight" though, so get over it.

Pursuant to that, "tonight" was not a very active rehearsal for me. We did work out the placement for the very final scene. 12 people were missing, however, and needless to say it was not ideal. We muddled through though, as we often do when people are missing. (Which, let's face it, is every night so far.)

That scene I mentioned is for me one of those wherein you stretch the acting muscles which belong to the silent group. It's a whole separate skill to look motivated and involved in the action when you have no lines for ten minutes. It is not more difficult per se, but the temptation to space out during such scenes can be greater if one is not careful. This can lead to missing the one line an actor may have in said scene. So I always try to be in the moment. I make an effort to respond to or observe something during every second of such a scene.

After we ran that a few times, the director sent all but three people home. ( I was to stay.) We three were going to block the scene that comes before the finale. As the others were filing out, one of my cast mates approached me. He asked if I would like to try out for a show he was directing in the fall at the Apollo Civic Theatre. I had never heard of the show before, but it sounded interesting, and I said as it stands now, I would be willing. I have the better part of the year to think it over, which is nice. He mentioned he likes to plan ahead on such things. I can understand that, as I often have the same tendency.

Once everyone had shuffled out that was no longer needed, the pace was quiet almost to the point of eerie. It would not have been as noticeable if not for the fact that 3 minutes previous, the rest of the group and all of their accompanying noise filled the building. Then, all of the sudden, they were gone. 12 people may have been missing, but there were still plenty of people engaged in plenty of talking.

Those few of us who were left took a short break before we ran the little scene in question. (Act 2, scene 2 for those of you keeping score.) In that scene, as written, a character (Bonnie) hangs upside down and looks into a window in the brig, where two characters are waiting. (Billy and Moon). A discussion was taking place on stage as to how we might pull that off, when the time came. No decisions were made, and as I am not tech savvy, I made no comments. If we cannot do it on our budget and with our resources, that will be too bad, because I think it would make a cool visual. Due to the nature of our set, it is presenting some problems though.

If anyone who reads this out there has ever been in this show somewhere and pulled that stunt off successfully, I would be curious to hear about how it was done. I am not saying we could do it that way, but I would find it interesting to read about nonetheless. Plus, who knows, maybe it will spark some kind of idea for us. You will have then had influence on a production that is potentially thousands of miles away from you.

That would be kind of cool, don't you think?