My last entry was on acting, but that is in no way where I've spent the majority of my time here at the Barter the past couple of weeks.
I am on the run crew for Disney's Beauty and the Beast. For those of you who don't know what a "run crew" is, they are the people who run the show backstage. I've never been on run crew, and the trust, the friendships, the responsibility required from us is so great. It's probably one of the most character building jobs I've ever had to do. Not only am I learning a whole different skill set, one I've been aware of though never fully appreciated until now, but I'm learning responsibility, and most importantly, how to treat everyone working in the theatre with respect.
The show is technically difficult. So much magic; it took us 3 hours to get through the prologue. For three days, we went scene shift to scene shift, cue to cue trying to put the show up on its feet. We were afraid the show wasn't going to get finished. By Thursday night (our second night of Tech) we hadn't even gotten to the 2nd act. The show opened Saturday. We actually did it. It was tough, but we did it.
Since then, the show has gotten smoother and smoother, but, sometimes, really terrifying things happen. Like things that can kill people. It's terrifying. Going into detail would take too long to explain, but I can say this, I've apologized many times.
As far as my daily schedule, I get up at 8:30 for my 9:30 "Pigs" call, get done with the show at 11, maybe have an hour for lunch, go to our crew call for Beauty and the Beast at 12, finish with that show around 5, have maybe an hour and a half for dinner and then another call for B&B at 6:40, and finally get done with the day, after doing our post-show duties, at 11 at night. We had three days of this last week. It was exhausting.
Luckily, for our sanity and health, they are teching the other Mainstage show this week, for which we are not a part of. So my days are pretty chill, a "Pigs"show in the morning, "Princess and the Pea," our new play, rehearsal in the afternoon, and working on my player project or doing laundry at night.
I've been here a month, and though Abingdon is becoming a home, I still get homesick.
I miss and love you all.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
It's been a while since I've posted...
So I'm going to split up these next few entries. We'll start first with our acting.
We Tech'd and opened our Player show "Three Little Pigs" last week. It was fun to do a less stressful tech (as opposed to Beauty and the Beast, more on that later). All throughout the week before I "rehearsed the play" during tech. Now "rehearsing the play" is reading through the script and really delving into what the character is doing. I probably spent at least an hour during each of our Tech days for Beauty rehearsing, reading, jumping into this imaginary world where Wolves crave pork and pigs are architects. It helped so much. By the time "Pigs" tech came around, I was discovering new things and totally giving myself up to the character. So much so, my director didn't yell at me, but actually complimented me! It was awesome.
Our first performance went well. We've rehearsed this play for 3 weeks, yet performing for a bunch of tiny people who's feet can't touch the ground from the theater seats. For one, some jokes are for the adults; the kids don't quite get everything. Another thing, kids love falling, running, slapping, dancing, basically anything physical and most of them laugh for the sake of laughing. Babies cry, a lot, and often when you aren't delving deep enough into the play. This is when you really kick it into Piggy gear. And the last thing that's majorly different, there are bodies soo close to you (it's in a thrust theater). One performance we've had, a girl kept stroking the arm of one Pig who was "handcuffed."
The hardest part of putting the show up on it's feet, is trying to keep the "actor" out and the character in. It's been so long since I've done a show for more than just a couple of runs, and keeping the world of the play alive is a constant struggle. Our director was giving notes after our 3rd show, and he said to me "wasn't your best work, huh?" I knew he was going to say that exactly. You see, the things I discovered while "rehearsing the play" during Tech became stale and old and I was expecting those discoveries to work every time. But that never works out. You constantly need to push those this-is-how-I-did-it-last-time thoughts out of your brain so new discoveries can be made.
Another hard thing about doing the shows is our directors aren't always there to gauge our progress or call us out if we weren't bringing our best. We have to take the responsibility for ourselves to push ourselves towards the unknown. It's up to us to put on the best show possible.
One of my favorite part of doing the shows are the meet and greets we get to do with the kids. They are so cute! Friday, an entire school came with pig t-shirts with pig faces on the front and tails on the back and pig noses!
All right, I'm exhausted. We start rehearsing for our next Player show, The Princess and the Pea, tomorrow. :)
We Tech'd and opened our Player show "Three Little Pigs" last week. It was fun to do a less stressful tech (as opposed to Beauty and the Beast, more on that later). All throughout the week before I "rehearsed the play" during tech. Now "rehearsing the play" is reading through the script and really delving into what the character is doing. I probably spent at least an hour during each of our Tech days for Beauty rehearsing, reading, jumping into this imaginary world where Wolves crave pork and pigs are architects. It helped so much. By the time "Pigs" tech came around, I was discovering new things and totally giving myself up to the character. So much so, my director didn't yell at me, but actually complimented me! It was awesome.
Our first performance went well. We've rehearsed this play for 3 weeks, yet performing for a bunch of tiny people who's feet can't touch the ground from the theater seats. For one, some jokes are for the adults; the kids don't quite get everything. Another thing, kids love falling, running, slapping, dancing, basically anything physical and most of them laugh for the sake of laughing. Babies cry, a lot, and often when you aren't delving deep enough into the play. This is when you really kick it into Piggy gear. And the last thing that's majorly different, there are bodies soo close to you (it's in a thrust theater). One performance we've had, a girl kept stroking the arm of one Pig who was "handcuffed."
The hardest part of putting the show up on it's feet, is trying to keep the "actor" out and the character in. It's been so long since I've done a show for more than just a couple of runs, and keeping the world of the play alive is a constant struggle. Our director was giving notes after our 3rd show, and he said to me "wasn't your best work, huh?" I knew he was going to say that exactly. You see, the things I discovered while "rehearsing the play" during Tech became stale and old and I was expecting those discoveries to work every time. But that never works out. You constantly need to push those this-is-how-I-did-it-last-time thoughts out of your brain so new discoveries can be made.
Another hard thing about doing the shows is our directors aren't always there to gauge our progress or call us out if we weren't bringing our best. We have to take the responsibility for ourselves to push ourselves towards the unknown. It's up to us to put on the best show possible.
One of my favorite part of doing the shows are the meet and greets we get to do with the kids. They are so cute! Friday, an entire school came with pig t-shirts with pig faces on the front and tails on the back and pig noses!
All right, I'm exhausted. We start rehearsing for our next Player show, The Princess and the Pea, tomorrow. :)
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