Saturday, March 1, 2014

Ingredients Mixing Together to Surprise the Chef.

You move them around like pieces on a chessboard.

It's really no time to talk about the why's and such; it's simply time to put the actors on their feet and see if you can see everything you need to see from every angle. 

The rest, they say, are details.

So, it takes eighteen or so hours to block a three act classic play.  Eighteen hours of arranging slight alterations in the schedule to accommodate real lives; eighteen hours of slightly tardy; eighteen hours to include the audition of children to play in and out of each of the three acts.

Two hours (accumulative) of silently cursing when a picture in your head doesn't fit into the reality of the situation. 

Half an hour to bemoan the sleep deprivation.

Fifteen minutes out of eighteen hours thinking that there are a few moments that physically work.

AND THEN.

You get this....moment.

Working through what you've blueprinted; listening and watching.

Actors with books in hand; some of them thinking three or four moves ahead; some thinking about the mistakes they made last night; some thinking that they could really use a cheeseburger and a beer.  One freely admitting that they have not a single clue.

And you guide.  You cajole.  You encourage.  You charge and retreat and share your experience both personal and professional in order to bring them all together under the same umbrella of situation.  You laugh and you shout and you listen and you admit that some things haven't occurred to you, but are more than willing to accept interpretation....because interpretation indicates thought and THOUGHT is the pinnacle.

And you call it "Collaborative Genius."

And when you run up the aisle of the house to stand and observe a pivotal moment, and you see the build beginning and the you feel the rise in energy and tempo and volume and that which was flat on the page is fully fleshed out, even with a book in hand.....

And you just can't seem to stop doing an interpretive dance dedicated to joy.

(I think it's become a kind of contest to see who can get me to do the dance.)

And finally, the spontaneous outburst:

"Oh my God, I love this play."

But that's not quite true.

I like what this is becoming.  And I'm happy to have contributed a bit.

And I'm soooo looking forward to see it taken away from me to take on its life.

You're NOT going to want to miss this.