Rehearsals start tonight.

I'm torturing myself by listening to the songs that make me remember that time in my life when I was suffering from Redboy Burn (see below) and editing the manuscript minutely. There's a line I'm working from: "I never went to Tennessee." It's complicated and I don't know if I'm adding the additional, very fantastical scene.

But one thing I've just realized, which is making me slightly sick to my stomach, is that this will be the first time I hear the play. I mean, holy sh!t! What if it sucks!?

No seriously. I am just now realizing that I have never heard the dialogue before. Never heard the monologues. I couldn't even bear to say them myself, although I've told the story/stories often enough.

Sick. I'm so full of anxiety.

It doesn't help, either, that I can't locate the person with the keys to the rehearsal space.

Oh Goddess, oh Goddess, oh Goddess.

Please, please, please let my inner critic shut up for a little while tonight. Let me still love it.


PLAYLIST: Redboy Burn
Still Ray - Raphael Saadiq
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Here Without You - Three Doors Down
Beautiful - Snoop Dog featuring Pharell
Stupid - Sarah MacLachlan
Don't Know Why - Norah Jones
Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
Men in Blue - Prince Paul
Ready for Love - India.Arie

Labels: play rehearsal playlist

I finally met my actors face to face last night at the meeting at the Long Wharf. Everyone (almost) from the festival was there. We got all sorts of information, most of it a little disappointing about the space. It's not huge, sets have to be limited and the lighting can't be too fancy. Although, from another angle, that means the focus is on the piece and not on the fantastic set design. Which makes me nervous. Another bizarre fact: my show is the VERY FIRST show to be presented for the festival. Each of the two weekends runs three plays. Three plays are run on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday shows. I'm in the first weekend, and the first play of the show. Gulp. Interesting. Very interesting.

The girl playing Ayla (Maria Isabel) is SO awesome! She's a Wicca and has all these great real-life associations to the play:
1. She wears a phoenix around her neck and Phoenix is her name in her Wiccan religion. The show opens with a phoenix monologue.
2. She dumped a man named Jamie for a man named Joe. In the show, she dates a Jamie and ends up with Joe.
3. She has a great look for the part. She's short-ish and looks "ethnic."
4. She has a mouth on her! In a good way. Not to mention she smokes.

The guy playing Kevin is so okay with dying his hair red ("Reddish or Eric Stoltz red?" he asks. "Eric Stoltz red," I answer). The girl playing Valeri/Danielle (the best friend/gorgeous girlfriend) is gorgeous and TALL. The guy we got to play the Jamie/Joe roles is named Rob Rocke. It's a porn star name, as Jeremy (playing Kevin) pointed out. Jocelyn, our stage manager, is a Co-op HS student (formerly one of Dana's students) and sixteen. She seems really cool. Apparently we are the smoking production, as Jeremy, Dana, Maria and myself are the ones outside lighting up cigs.

We (the Redboy Burn production, meaning actors, stage manager, director and writer) met after we checked out the space. Dana talked about being here to serve my vision (as long as it didn't conflict with too much with his vision for the play) and that felt great. I mean, this is just a dream. I think everyone is going to get along just fine.

Overall, I was just elated with the night. We went and had drinks together, except Lindsay who had an exam today to study for (and of course Jocelyn had to jet early and didn't have anything to drink). It was a good time and I just got to know everyone a little bit more. I really like Nick and Trisha Rose, the two running the festival. I'm just feeling really good about being a part of all this.

Well, one of our actors (who was playing Jamie and Joe) backed out last week. But being the Superman that he is, Dana (the director) found us someone else! So something that could have been a royal pain in the a$$ turned out just fine.

We have a meeting at the Long Wharf next week and I'm super-excited for that. And once that happens, we'll start having some rehearsals in December (hopefully at least a table reading). That's the best work. Hearing everything out loud, figuring out what works, what doesn't, fine-tuning, hearing the actors analyze and interpret, seeing Dana's vision...sigh. I am a theater geek. I love this stuff more than anything.