Will consist of doing "It's a Wonderful Life" every single evening.
Which is fine by me, despite the fact that it will be a somewhat tiring week. I always did say my favorite part of a rehearsal process are the later, more intense stages. Well, with a show like this, that stage comes far sooner.
I am sad to report that I could not attend last night rehearsal. Weather was just terrible making for bad travel just about everywhere around here. Most of the people more local to the theatre showed up, though. However most have better vehicles then I, are more used to the roads than I, and probably are not as much of a danger to themselves or others during winter driving as I. I deeply regret it whenever I have to miss a rehearsal, (I have missed less than 5 in my whole career, mostly having to do with weather.) But I do not regret my decision. I just didn't think it was safe.
But the director did initiate an extra rehearsal for Tuesday. It was a move he reserved the right to make and he made it. His latest email to us all stated that he feels we need it, and that we cannot afford to have anybody miss any rehearsals from here on out. I have every intention to making them all from now on.
Thursday night is to be a benefit performance for something, though I am not sure what. I wasn't aware we would be performing on Thursday, but again, I don't mind this. It will technically be a performance, but it will also be one more chance to run through it before we "officially" open on Friday.
As for tomorrow, we are to have a costume parade. I went shopping for some appropriate pieces today. (They are supposed to be mainly black and white, or as close as we can get to same.) I did find a nice vest that was closer to dark gray, and a sweater that is mostly black, with some white on the front. I bought both. My big hope, however, was to find a clip on bow-tie. That really says 1940's to me, but none were to be found anywhere I looked. It seems I have run across them when I have no need for them, and now for the first time in my life I could use one, and they are nowhere. Maybe the theatre itself has one in it's collection. I will have to ask. I just think that really sells the time period. That, and my parting my hair down the middle, which I intend to do. I may even start that tomorrow as well, as it takes a few days to train it properly to lay like that. And it will give the director a full sense of what I will be looking like during the show when we have the costume parade.
Lots of hard work, but hopefully also lots of fun lay ahead of me this week. Tune in here all week for details.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
Promos and Problem Spots
Last night's rehearsal for "It's a Wonderful Life" consisted mostly of running problem spots. If they can really be called that; we have only rehearsed twice. Either way we worked specific moments.
To begin with, however, the director assigned each actor a specific seat on the set. (If you read my previous entry, you'll learn more on that.) Now all of the actors have seats on stage, without the need to have some of them backstage. My seat ended up being only one seat over to the left than what it was before. So no big change there. I am still in a secluded little corner of the set. One actress in fact who had been sitting there previously, but has not been place very near front and center lamented to me that she no longer would be sitting in the "party corner" where the luxury of being a bit more hidden is enjoyed. It's true, she and others will now have to be more "on" than us over in the corner. But I intend to stay on as much as possible anyway.
After the seating was set up, we concentrated on the entrance of the actors at the top of the show. At this point we are to mingle with one another and the audience. Breaking the 4th wall and all of that. Always a bit awkward to think about doing that. Against one's instincts. But for this play it makes total sense.
After that, we spent most of the evening working all of the crowd scenes. Having the rest of the ensemble provide noises of crowds, mobs, board meetings, bars, and celebrations. This is not as easy as it may sound at first, for several reasons.
To begin with, the temptation is great to simply glaze over these sort of moments. Actors are tempted as well as directors. There is a tendency to just suggest crowd commotion, and then move on with the specific lines by specific characters in the scene. That has never been enough for me, and it certainly would not work for a radio play. Thankfully, our director is aware of this, and has us work on such moments.
Appropriate ad-libs at such moments can be tricky. People tend to not want to begin to yell and shout as part of a crowd, until they are sure everyone else is doing it already. I guess it may be because many are reluctant to say anything that is not directly in the script. Or they fear being the only one doing anything and looking stupid. And when most of a cast thinks this at the same time, you get to a direction for "Crowd Noise" and are met with silence and a smattering of milquetoast attempts to sounds like a mob. So you have to liberate a cast's hesitance to break in with such noise.
Once that is established, you have to remind them to actually say something. Another temptation for actors when providing background noise for a crowd scene is to simply go..."arr arr arr arr ahhh" under ones breath. Again, thankfully, our director recognized that this doesn't cut it. And the reason it doesn't cut it is that the overall cacophony or low rumble one hears when listening to a crowd does not come about because 20 people are standing in a room going "arr arr arr arr." It may sound like that somethings, but obviously that is not what is happening. What is happening is that many different conversations, (or accusations, depending on the scene) are blending together, making most of the words indistinct, and the overall effect SOUND like "arr arr arr arr" or whatever. Therefore, people doing crowd scenes must think of something to actually say, or shout, that is relevant to the proceedings.
So we worked a bit on that last night.
Timing was another issue. We will be getting hand signals from the "stage manager" (Who is in fact the director portraying the fake radio stations stage manager) which will indicate when to come in, and when to fade out, as well as how quickly or gradually to do it. We definitely needed some work on the timing, and still do. Especially in scenes where a door opens onto a bustling crowd, and then immediately shuts out the noise. That will be a bit tricky. But we will get it.
On the subject of slamming doors, there were more of the foley sound effects in place last night. Not all of them, however. Still, what they were doing was fun to watch sometimes. Clanking bottles. Dropping things that sound like shattering glass. Footsteps need some work in a few places, but that will be taken care of.
We also practiced the singing of the commercials, and of Auld Lang Syne at the end of the play. The former are going fine. The latter is going to require some timing work, in order to get to a decent place in the song by the same the dialogue stops. That will only come with practice, unless they change a few things in the script. I seem to be less worried about that working out than a lot of people do. I just don't think it is going to be as difficult to coordinate as others think, I suppose.
By the time we finished all of those trouble spots, we only had time to run act one. So we did. I gave Peter Bailey a more serious bent, as requested by the director. It felt all right. I can see where I can be more serious, without losing the depth of his humanity. It works for me. Don't know yet if it worked for the director. I haven't been getting the emails with notes in them. That is also being worked on.
During our break, the gentleman from the radio station on which this play is to be broadcast came in with a hand held recorder. He asked each of us to say our name, and the roles we were playing, (along with a short holiday greeting if we wanted to). These snippets will be used for on air promotions of the program. I think he also said it would be like the audio playbill at the end of the show. I didn't mention all of my speaking roles when I did it. I have five, but not all of them are really significant enough to mention, I didn't think. Yes, I should be credited for everything, but It just seemed tedious to me to record something like,
"I'm Ty and I will be playing Peter Bailey, Ed, the Man at the Bar, Mr. Welch and the Commercial Guy."
Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I chose what, at the time, I thought were my two most memorable roles. I said;
"Happy Holidays. My Name is Ty Unglebower, and I play Peter Bailey and the Dux Cake Guy."
It wasn't until later that I thought I really should have included Mr. Welch in the promotion since that is once of my voices that is very distinctive in the play. But oh well. If I am remembered for both my biggest part (Peter) and my funniest (Dux Guy), that will be enough.
May look for some costume pieces today. They want mostly black and white stuff, without too much white showing at one time. (Because of the lights.) I have most of that stuff, but we are allowed a bit of color, I think, and I need to find that. More importantly, I need to find something to wear over the shirt that is black, as right now, I have nothing.
To begin with, however, the director assigned each actor a specific seat on the set. (If you read my previous entry, you'll learn more on that.) Now all of the actors have seats on stage, without the need to have some of them backstage. My seat ended up being only one seat over to the left than what it was before. So no big change there. I am still in a secluded little corner of the set. One actress in fact who had been sitting there previously, but has not been place very near front and center lamented to me that she no longer would be sitting in the "party corner" where the luxury of being a bit more hidden is enjoyed. It's true, she and others will now have to be more "on" than us over in the corner. But I intend to stay on as much as possible anyway.
After the seating was set up, we concentrated on the entrance of the actors at the top of the show. At this point we are to mingle with one another and the audience. Breaking the 4th wall and all of that. Always a bit awkward to think about doing that. Against one's instincts. But for this play it makes total sense.
After that, we spent most of the evening working all of the crowd scenes. Having the rest of the ensemble provide noises of crowds, mobs, board meetings, bars, and celebrations. This is not as easy as it may sound at first, for several reasons.
To begin with, the temptation is great to simply glaze over these sort of moments. Actors are tempted as well as directors. There is a tendency to just suggest crowd commotion, and then move on with the specific lines by specific characters in the scene. That has never been enough for me, and it certainly would not work for a radio play. Thankfully, our director is aware of this, and has us work on such moments.
Appropriate ad-libs at such moments can be tricky. People tend to not want to begin to yell and shout as part of a crowd, until they are sure everyone else is doing it already. I guess it may be because many are reluctant to say anything that is not directly in the script. Or they fear being the only one doing anything and looking stupid. And when most of a cast thinks this at the same time, you get to a direction for "Crowd Noise" and are met with silence and a smattering of milquetoast attempts to sounds like a mob. So you have to liberate a cast's hesitance to break in with such noise.
Once that is established, you have to remind them to actually say something. Another temptation for actors when providing background noise for a crowd scene is to simply go..."arr arr arr arr ahhh" under ones breath. Again, thankfully, our director recognized that this doesn't cut it. And the reason it doesn't cut it is that the overall cacophony or low rumble one hears when listening to a crowd does not come about because 20 people are standing in a room going "arr arr arr arr." It may sound like that somethings, but obviously that is not what is happening. What is happening is that many different conversations, (or accusations, depending on the scene) are blending together, making most of the words indistinct, and the overall effect SOUND like "arr arr arr arr" or whatever. Therefore, people doing crowd scenes must think of something to actually say, or shout, that is relevant to the proceedings.
So we worked a bit on that last night.
Timing was another issue. We will be getting hand signals from the "stage manager" (Who is in fact the director portraying the fake radio stations stage manager) which will indicate when to come in, and when to fade out, as well as how quickly or gradually to do it. We definitely needed some work on the timing, and still do. Especially in scenes where a door opens onto a bustling crowd, and then immediately shuts out the noise. That will be a bit tricky. But we will get it.
On the subject of slamming doors, there were more of the foley sound effects in place last night. Not all of them, however. Still, what they were doing was fun to watch sometimes. Clanking bottles. Dropping things that sound like shattering glass. Footsteps need some work in a few places, but that will be taken care of.
We also practiced the singing of the commercials, and of Auld Lang Syne at the end of the play. The former are going fine. The latter is going to require some timing work, in order to get to a decent place in the song by the same the dialogue stops. That will only come with practice, unless they change a few things in the script. I seem to be less worried about that working out than a lot of people do. I just don't think it is going to be as difficult to coordinate as others think, I suppose.
By the time we finished all of those trouble spots, we only had time to run act one. So we did. I gave Peter Bailey a more serious bent, as requested by the director. It felt all right. I can see where I can be more serious, without losing the depth of his humanity. It works for me. Don't know yet if it worked for the director. I haven't been getting the emails with notes in them. That is also being worked on.
During our break, the gentleman from the radio station on which this play is to be broadcast came in with a hand held recorder. He asked each of us to say our name, and the roles we were playing, (along with a short holiday greeting if we wanted to). These snippets will be used for on air promotions of the program. I think he also said it would be like the audio playbill at the end of the show. I didn't mention all of my speaking roles when I did it. I have five, but not all of them are really significant enough to mention, I didn't think. Yes, I should be credited for everything, but It just seemed tedious to me to record something like,
"I'm Ty and I will be playing Peter Bailey, Ed, the Man at the Bar, Mr. Welch and the Commercial Guy."
Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. So I chose what, at the time, I thought were my two most memorable roles. I said;
"Happy Holidays. My Name is Ty Unglebower, and I play Peter Bailey and the Dux Cake Guy."
It wasn't until later that I thought I really should have included Mr. Welch in the promotion since that is once of my voices that is very distinctive in the play. But oh well. If I am remembered for both my biggest part (Peter) and my funniest (Dux Guy), that will be enough.
May look for some costume pieces today. They want mostly black and white stuff, without too much white showing at one time. (Because of the lights.) I have most of that stuff, but we are allowed a bit of color, I think, and I need to find that. More importantly, I need to find something to wear over the shirt that is black, as right now, I have nothing.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Rough Hewing
Last night was the second rehearsal for "It's a Wonderful Life". The rudimentary elements of the set are up, so we now have an idea of what our workspace will be like.
In a word, cramped. At least for most of the cast. The actors with the three largest roles get their own chairs down stage further when they are not performing.
It will eventually look like a radio station, of course. Quasi 1940s. In the center upstage will be the table with the 4 or so foley sound people. On either side of them, on both stage right and stage left, or small rows of chairs in which actors will sit when they are not performing. (When their time comes to perform, the will contort themselves and step over fellow actors as best as they can to reach the microphones downstage.
I happen to be seated with the stage right group of actors, as I am always assigned to the stage right mike.
Rehearsal itself went well. The director is pleased with the fact that actors with multiple roles are starting to come up with distinctive voices for each role. I myself have been working on that in my free time. Some of my roles, (in fact most of them) have only one or two lines, but that makes it all the more important to find ways of making each role stand out. The worst is to sound like the same person each time. I believe I am avoiding that. I have not been told otherwise.
This whole play in fact reminds me that I have not usually been called upon to use different voices or accents in the plays I have been in. I guess either my directors are not usually worried about it, or they think my own voice is fine. But I am already taking away from this experience a desire to experiment more with different voices for future roles in standard shows.
Sometimes voices you come up with hurt your throat, and you don't want that of course. One character I play, I am playing as though he is somewhat sick, so his voice is a little gravelly. I think using that voice all night would be unwise. But since it is only for one scene and three lines, I can get away with it I believe, without hurting my real voice.
The director is also pleased with characterization. People are developing their roles, and hopefully I am as well. The role of Peter Bailey, George's father, requires most of my attention in regards to character and voice, given that it is my largest role in the production. I got a note during the break that the seriousness I gave to Peter near the end of one of my scenes was good, and that I should find a way to bring that to bear for all of Peter's lines. I will attempt to do so, of course, though I think one reason it had not shone through in earlier scenes was that I was going for warmth with anger. But perhaps righteous indignation, (a term that is a perfect for that scene) cannot mix with that sort of softness. It probably can't. I will work on it. I just don't want him to be irate.
Another change I will have to make is in regards to the physical script itself. Though he said he will not force anyone to change anything, he would prefer that all scripts be in hand, as opposed to in a binder, as I have done. I admit to preferring the binder myself, given that not having it makes the papers a bit unruly to me. But given that the director was gracious enough to leave it up to us, and that he expressed his preference, I will get rid of it. Plus, there is a gag at the end of the play wherein we, as the radio actors, toss our scripts into the air in celebration. This would not go over well with a binder.
Which brings up one final point I have been pondering about this production lately. The "base" character. The radio player that I, like everyone in the show, will be portraying, who in turns portrays the various roles in the radio play.
If this sounds familiar, check out all my entries for a year ago for "A Christmas Carol", wherein I also played a base character that in turn played other roles.
Unlike a year ago, the base character for this has no particular identity provided by the script. Not even a name. Given that we have not been instructed to do otherwise, it would be easy enough to just have Ty Unglebower mingling with the crowd before the show, and sitting on stage all night waiting for his cue. But if you read this blog regularly, you know by now that I don't usually settle for what is easy on stage. Therefore, I will be giving this random "1940's" radio talent some sort of identity. Name. History. You know the drill. I may or may not share those decisions with you here on the blog, but I will let you know when I have made them.
Next rehearsal is Thursday night.
In a word, cramped. At least for most of the cast. The actors with the three largest roles get their own chairs down stage further when they are not performing.
It will eventually look like a radio station, of course. Quasi 1940s. In the center upstage will be the table with the 4 or so foley sound people. On either side of them, on both stage right and stage left, or small rows of chairs in which actors will sit when they are not performing. (When their time comes to perform, the will contort themselves and step over fellow actors as best as they can to reach the microphones downstage.
I happen to be seated with the stage right group of actors, as I am always assigned to the stage right mike.
Rehearsal itself went well. The director is pleased with the fact that actors with multiple roles are starting to come up with distinctive voices for each role. I myself have been working on that in my free time. Some of my roles, (in fact most of them) have only one or two lines, but that makes it all the more important to find ways of making each role stand out. The worst is to sound like the same person each time. I believe I am avoiding that. I have not been told otherwise.
This whole play in fact reminds me that I have not usually been called upon to use different voices or accents in the plays I have been in. I guess either my directors are not usually worried about it, or they think my own voice is fine. But I am already taking away from this experience a desire to experiment more with different voices for future roles in standard shows.
Sometimes voices you come up with hurt your throat, and you don't want that of course. One character I play, I am playing as though he is somewhat sick, so his voice is a little gravelly. I think using that voice all night would be unwise. But since it is only for one scene and three lines, I can get away with it I believe, without hurting my real voice.
The director is also pleased with characterization. People are developing their roles, and hopefully I am as well. The role of Peter Bailey, George's father, requires most of my attention in regards to character and voice, given that it is my largest role in the production. I got a note during the break that the seriousness I gave to Peter near the end of one of my scenes was good, and that I should find a way to bring that to bear for all of Peter's lines. I will attempt to do so, of course, though I think one reason it had not shone through in earlier scenes was that I was going for warmth with anger. But perhaps righteous indignation, (a term that is a perfect for that scene) cannot mix with that sort of softness. It probably can't. I will work on it. I just don't want him to be irate.
Another change I will have to make is in regards to the physical script itself. Though he said he will not force anyone to change anything, he would prefer that all scripts be in hand, as opposed to in a binder, as I have done. I admit to preferring the binder myself, given that not having it makes the papers a bit unruly to me. But given that the director was gracious enough to leave it up to us, and that he expressed his preference, I will get rid of it. Plus, there is a gag at the end of the play wherein we, as the radio actors, toss our scripts into the air in celebration. This would not go over well with a binder.
Which brings up one final point I have been pondering about this production lately. The "base" character. The radio player that I, like everyone in the show, will be portraying, who in turns portrays the various roles in the radio play.
If this sounds familiar, check out all my entries for a year ago for "A Christmas Carol", wherein I also played a base character that in turn played other roles.
Unlike a year ago, the base character for this has no particular identity provided by the script. Not even a name. Given that we have not been instructed to do otherwise, it would be easy enough to just have Ty Unglebower mingling with the crowd before the show, and sitting on stage all night waiting for his cue. But if you read this blog regularly, you know by now that I don't usually settle for what is easy on stage. Therefore, I will be giving this random "1940's" radio talent some sort of identity. Name. History. You know the drill. I may or may not share those decisions with you here on the blog, but I will let you know when I have made them.
Next rehearsal is Thursday night.
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