As many of you know, I have been having significant difficulty in getting both my actors in the same room at the same time for rehearsals. Due to many, many college visits, both Calli and Nick have been and are going to be absent for several pivotal days. Our second rehearsal as a whole cast, therefore, will not take place until Monday, April 21st. Despite this setback, I've decided to not let it hinder either our progress in the rehearsal process or anyone's moral. I really want to make the most of what I have to work with in regard to time, given that there isn't much of it. So, I met with Nick individually today and will meet with him again tomorrow, and I'll meet with Calli twice on Thursday. This works very well for my cast, I think, because the most important thing for them to master is an understanding of their character. Working individually with Nick and Calli allows me to really focus on them and encourage them to develop choices that are consistent with what the script tells them about their characters.
From today's individual rehearsal with Nick, I was thoroughly impressed with his work and his ability to really engage with his character. We started off by me giving him a prompt to tell me, in character, "about his first date with Quinn." After Nick delivered, I told him to start making some specific choices about Evan himself. What Evan's nervous ticks are, how Evan walks, etc. After this, I told Nick to "tell me about the time he got accepted to MIT," and his progress was tremendous. I saw much less of Nick Papazian and much more of Evan Anderson. We had a brief discussion about Evan's personality and character, as well, and I think this particularly helped Nick with playing his character.
Then, I talked to Nick about the intended blocking I had thought of. After moving blocks and chairs around to recreate the set, we ran through the play twice, with me acting in place of Calli. One setback to these individual rehearsals is that, since I have to act in place of the missing actor, I cannot simply watch the production and really observe how the production looks or give notes to the actors. It does, however, offer me an interesting perspective into how the actor's performance looks to their scene partner, and this is a valuable thing to possess as a director. As a director, as we've discussed, it is important to understand the production inside and out, to know every intention behind every choice made in the script, and this dogma is ringing true to me throughout this process.
I would stop Nick through our run-throughs and give him some feedback about how to interpret certain lines. I'm avoiding telling him how the lines should be said, but rather asking him guiding questions that allow him to come to certain conclusions on his own. Nick, however, has some really interesting ideas about Evan's character that differ from my own and that, frankly, work better for the script. I'm thrilled that I cast Nick in my cast because he is willing to push for his own ideas for his character and the script and discuss them with me. He's not just going through the motions - he's really doing the groundwork to excel in this role, and he's thinking exactly as he should be thinking. We had a great deal of discussion about Evan's arc of change throughout the script and how his adherence to perfection and planning affects his actions and the way he feels. Overall, I would call this a tremendously successful rehearsal, and I'm not as worried about the rest of the process.
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