Two weeks have flown by! And by flown by I mean I've acquired at least ten new bruises, run Shrew almost eleven times, officially opened Shrew to the public, and experienced two great acting lessons!
Greenstage has two weeks of tech for their Shakespeare in the Park, purely so the company can visit as many parks as possible to adjust to space and volume levels. Normally, there's one week of tech for a show--quick and dirty. Two weeks was a long time of running the show consecutively, but it definitely taught us all a lot.
We had to adjust to fecal matter on the stage, murderous and drunken audience members who threatened the cast, blood-sucking insects that only travel in packs of fifty, stages covered in pine cones and rocks instead of grass, and spaces with terrible acoustics and too much wing visibility. All in all, I'd say it was great practice and we all felt prepared last night to go on stage and give it our all.
Last night was opening night in Seward Park. It was really exciting to finally be playing for the public and get the audience reaction we've been craving. We had a terrible final dress rehearsal, which is supposed to be good luck--and it was! Opening went fantastically! We had a great crowd! Some left, some more trickled in. It's interesting because doing a free park show means that:
A. Small children who come with their families generally leave early because they have a short attention span and it's a two hour long show.
B. More families with small children come by part way through and watch because it's family friendly.
C. People don't feel obligated to stay because they didn't pay money to attend.
D. There are always those that cross by unexpectedly and end up staying because you held their attention.
It's so different from playing inside a theatre. For one thing, it's incredibly hot/humid outside some days, and we're not only wearing long sleeves and many layers, but we're also running around on stage and behind the stage to make it to our next entrance. You sometimes have to be much louder than you think is possible without hurting your voice, and be very conscious of the spaces where you must cheat out or all your sound will be lost. Sometimes audiences don't leave aisles for you to travel through and you have to reevaluate an entrance. Sometimes planes, or frisbees, or scared animals will interrupt your show--in which case you have to make sure to not let it interrupt the show.
I find it to be a great exercise in immediacy. Every performance is something new. It keeps you on your toes, it makes the play fresh, and it keeps you in the moment as an actor. Now, at the same time, I think of it as a completely different style of theatre. It's over the top, not always concise, and not at all the way a show would be performed in doors.
I think what I've taken away from the experience so far is that outdoor theatre is great with the right cast (like mine, lucky me), and that you have to buy into every single cheesy second of it to make it worth anyone's while. It took me a while to become accustomed to it, but I love it. Would I want to do it all the time? No way.
Next up, I have auditions on Tuesday night for a local theatre company I've heard a lot about. There's some other auditions coming up soon that I hope to nab as well. Once August hits the auditions are supposed to pick back up, so I'm doubly excited to not only have a couple weeks to recuperate, but to know that there's exciting things up ahead as well.
Last acting lesson I performed my Pygmalion piece for the third week in a row and finally nailed it. It took me a long time to figure out where I should go with that monologue. I finally took it too a much lighter/funnier place and it worked so much better. Acting Coach then gave me a monologue from Saint Joan by Shaw to work on, and I've been loving every second of it. Because things were so crazy this past week with tech going on, I took the time this lesson to talk about grad schools, seeking local representation, and the direction we needed to take me in the next year or so. It was really nice to discuss where I'm wanting my career to lead me currently, and know that Acting Coach was interested in helping me get there.
Acting Coach has a masters in Directing from one of the top schools in the country and has been working professionally as an actor, director, and instructor for many years. All of our lessons are graduate level lessons, which is great for me because I'm constantly pushing myself and knowing that each lesson is worth every penny. I think the more comfortable I get in my career here, the less I'll think about grad school. However, grad school is something I'm incredibly interested in doing because I want that solid technique behind me, and great connections can be made from all the top schools. Of course, the tops schools are very difficult to get into, so I'm working my way up to that.
Next up on my list this year: Agency Representation.
For now I have nineteen more shows of Taming of the Shrew to perform, and it's going to be an incredible ride!
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