Dreaming Down to the Wire
Remember when I told you that I was too good at improv and thinking on my feet for my psyche to be able to scare me with the whole, "You have to go on stage, but you've forgotten your lines" dream? ...yeah ... I was wrong.
I was in a theater retreat, out in the woods, gorgeous, they made their own beer (I know, nice touch for me, eh?), surrounded by artists that I really admired. Only the retreat proper had been over for almost a month. I had been allowed to stay on with the people who were in charge of everything, the directors, the artistic directors, the bigwigs. I felt privileged to do so.
The strange thing was these people I admired fought all the time. There was a family there; they fought. There were co-workers there; they fought. Artistic partners; they fought. Most of my days were spent doing a rather boring lick-envelope-type task away from the others, and quite frankly I was ready to go home.
So I wake (in my dream) and it's the last day of this month extension. My father is driving up tomorrow to get me. (Wait! My father? I'm not a boy in my dream. I'm the age I am now. How weird!) If I can just make it through one more lick-envelope-type day, I'll be fine.
Oh! But I forgot! The reason they have me hanging around is they've given me the chance to be in this sort of "counselor's show" they're developing. It's by a contemporary's of Shakespeare's (which means language in verse); I've been to the previous rehearsals; was just barely off book; some how forgot/neglected it for the last couple of weeks (where there was no rehearsal for some reason); and now I'd forgotten my lines. This day was going to be final dresses and then performance in front of all the other artists who were there.
In my dream, I had a mini-breakdown, a desperate bid for help and sympathy from the people around me. I told my theatre friend, Larry Emmons (who no longer lives in C'Ville and whom I haven't seen for years), "You don't understand! I can't let down these people! I can't!" Larry picks me up, marches me through the wooden, bunkhouse hallways, past the board of directors (fighting over some horror story) and into the rehearsal room. I terrified, holding my neglected binder and script pages sprawled across my chest like a gunshot wound. And then ...
I wake up to sound of my psyche lightly saying as it fades into the distance reaches of the unconscious, "Heh Heh Heh. Gotcha!"
Last night was the final tech dress. We open tonight. Right before starting we played the Epilogue film (using the video camera as a player) and found it played in slow motion, without sound. Sam was not there, but my boss, Terry was. She pulled out the camera in her office while I called Sam. Apparently, Sam had transferred the digital file to Terry's office camera and now the supposition was that we were seeing an incompatibility between the two cameras. Terry got her camera to play the tape to our screen, and it worked.
So twenty minutes late, we started our final tech dress in which I found that almost every level for every sound cue (levels we had set just that afternoon, mind you) was wrong. My wonderful stage manager informs me that the problem is that our sound board operator is "thick". I decide it's the curse of that theater, because every play that I've ever seen done in our theater has suffered from a sound board op who is thick.
I was at the theater until 1:30 a.m. reworking one of my actors' first big monologue. Now it's much better, but we'll have to change the way we open that scene.
The actors are fine. (One my actors had a final scene moment last night that just blew us away. Her kung-fu is very powerful.) There are some very nice moments. Still overall they have yet to deliver a full performance with the energy, pace, and volume they require. I only hope that having an audience will kick start them. Now, I'm going to throw some breakfast into a bowl and head over the mountain to approve last minute costume decisions, reset the sound levels, and keep Sam from un-fixing the fix we made last night.
These woods sure are beautiful, but isn't time for my dad to come pick me up yet?
I was in a theater retreat, out in the woods, gorgeous, they made their own beer (I know, nice touch for me, eh?), surrounded by artists that I really admired. Only the retreat proper had been over for almost a month. I had been allowed to stay on with the people who were in charge of everything, the directors, the artistic directors, the bigwigs. I felt privileged to do so.
The strange thing was these people I admired fought all the time. There was a family there; they fought. There were co-workers there; they fought. Artistic partners; they fought. Most of my days were spent doing a rather boring lick-envelope-type task away from the others, and quite frankly I was ready to go home.
So I wake (in my dream) and it's the last day of this month extension. My father is driving up tomorrow to get me. (Wait! My father? I'm not a boy in my dream. I'm the age I am now. How weird!) If I can just make it through one more lick-envelope-type day, I'll be fine.
Oh! But I forgot! The reason they have me hanging around is they've given me the chance to be in this sort of "counselor's show" they're developing. It's by a contemporary's of Shakespeare's (which means language in verse); I've been to the previous rehearsals; was just barely off book; some how forgot/neglected it for the last couple of weeks (where there was no rehearsal for some reason); and now I'd forgotten my lines. This day was going to be final dresses and then performance in front of all the other artists who were there.
In my dream, I had a mini-breakdown, a desperate bid for help and sympathy from the people around me. I told my theatre friend, Larry Emmons (who no longer lives in C'Ville and whom I haven't seen for years), "You don't understand! I can't let down these people! I can't!" Larry picks me up, marches me through the wooden, bunkhouse hallways, past the board of directors (fighting over some horror story) and into the rehearsal room. I terrified, holding my neglected binder and script pages sprawled across my chest like a gunshot wound. And then ...
I wake up to sound of my psyche lightly saying as it fades into the distance reaches of the unconscious, "Heh Heh Heh. Gotcha!"
Last night was the final tech dress. We open tonight. Right before starting we played the Epilogue film (using the video camera as a player) and found it played in slow motion, without sound. Sam was not there, but my boss, Terry was. She pulled out the camera in her office while I called Sam. Apparently, Sam had transferred the digital file to Terry's office camera and now the supposition was that we were seeing an incompatibility between the two cameras. Terry got her camera to play the tape to our screen, and it worked.
So twenty minutes late, we started our final tech dress in which I found that almost every level for every sound cue (levels we had set just that afternoon, mind you) was wrong. My wonderful stage manager informs me that the problem is that our sound board operator is "thick". I decide it's the curse of that theater, because every play that I've ever seen done in our theater has suffered from a sound board op who is thick.
I was at the theater until 1:30 a.m. reworking one of my actors' first big monologue. Now it's much better, but we'll have to change the way we open that scene.
The actors are fine. (One my actors had a final scene moment last night that just blew us away. Her kung-fu is very powerful.) There are some very nice moments. Still overall they have yet to deliver a full performance with the energy, pace, and volume they require. I only hope that having an audience will kick start them. Now, I'm going to throw some breakfast into a bowl and head over the mountain to approve last minute costume decisions, reset the sound levels, and keep Sam from un-fixing the fix we made last night.
These woods sure are beautiful, but isn't time for my dad to come pick me up yet?
posted by - caj at 8:52 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home