With tech week quickly approaching, I've made the mission this week to run through as much as possible and codify everything that we have. That's not to say we're not still creating. The actors are still bringing big energy and big choices to the rehearsals, which is something that the show really needs.
We started today's rehearsal with some impromptu warm ups with the goal of waking people up after a long day of school and having them think creatively with improv. The first warm up was follow the leader. Jason, one of the actors from another one act who decided to drop by, was marching around the stage with a very specific gait. I thought it looked interesting, so I told everyone to follow Jason. This turned into a big game of follow the leader where everyone followed and copied the leader's movements and any noises they made. This was great mostly because it came out of nowhere and because it got people on their feet, moving about the space. Next we did a "one-up" improv game where the goal is to one-up the person who just spoke. To give the actors something physical to do I gave them a block and told them that if they wanted to speak and one-up each other, they would have to get up on the block. I was worried it would turn into a chaotic brawl, but in the end we all had a lot of fun pulling each other off the block and making each other laugh with big choices.
When we ran through, I wanted my cast to really utilize the space and play 3D. To do this I told Sabina and Sheighla to use the downstage corners at least 10 times by the end of the run through. I also told them I'd snap at them if I saw them not using the diagonals. Luckily I didn't have to snap at any of the actors. They're understanding the dynamic of the stage and the staging. I'm really proud of my cast. I can't wait to see what we make of this week and I think we'll be more than ready for tech week when it finally arrives.
No comments:
Post a Comment