Ferris Wheel - Rehearsal #3 & #4

Gib and Maddie on the
Ferris Wheel

4/ 17 Today’s rehearsal was great! It was the first rehearsal with the newly updated cast, having Maddie Groves play Cameron and Gabriella DiVinchenzo play Harper. Maddie Groves was chosen to play Cameron because of her playablity and her ability to have what I like to call “controlled playfulness;” she is able to utilize her skills without getting too carried away.

The first thing we did was Colombian Hypnosis. I had them play this game in order to get the new cast used to working together. They seemed to catch on very quickly. Maddie had superb commitment. Gib had good commitment too, but she tended to break at times. We then played the spaceship game, which was a great game that they both committed to, except at times they both seemed distant. We then played the alley game, where the two would face each other and walk back and forth and respond physically to the other person. Gib was very committed in this game—she seemed somewhat reluctant compared to what happened the last time she played ;)

            We then read the script, and Maddie and Gib finally kissed just to clear the air and address the elephant in the room (the other elephant; not me). We then talked about intention and justification. One thing that they came up with was the line, “do ya park ya cah in Hahvahd Yahd?” in order to better justify Harper finding out where Cameron was from, which has now been inserted in the script. We then went over specific elements and lines, and then ended a successful and inspiring rehearsal.

4/18     

Philip in protective headgear to direct
his new cast

   Today was the next rehearsal with Maddie. We had rehearsal on the roof because of the nice day that we had been having. We started with the spaceship game, but this time, the centerpiece was me, which meant that it was a moving spaceship—that way, they had to both balance and move simultaneously. After that, we played “Yes! And…” so that the two could practice bouncing ideas off of one another and the ability to think quickly. We then played the alley game again, and the two were able to identify more concrete themes and were more cognizant of what they were doing.

            I then had the two improv being on a Ferris Wheel, where they successfully ended up rehearsing with one another the first two pages of their scripts. I then had them to legitimate improv, where they would improvise and I would tell them to change something. For example, they would start with being a couple that has dated for years, to awkward first date, to old couple that’s been married for fifty years, etc. We then ended rehearsal with running through the script and practicing what it would feel like to legitimately be on a Ferris Wheel.