Well, ladies and gentlemen, tonight is our second Open Rehearsal for The Long Count.
”Open rehearsal?” you ask. “What’s that?”
”Well, because the focus of this project is so much about the process of developing, cultivating, and nuturing the show, we wanted to continue that process even after we opened.”
“Wait, you’re rehearsing after you open?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re letting people watch?!”
”Yes.”
Yes, we are. And I have to admit, it’s a little scary. It’s one thing to rehearse a play, even one as personal as The Long Count has been, to prepare, refine, and then open the doors and invite an audience in. But last Thursday, we opened the doors to the process, and shared the rehearsal experience with the audience.
And it was great. We started rehearsals, as we always do, with the ensemble performing their opening ritual – a simple exercise in a circle. We revisited one of the building blocks we’d used over the course of rehearsals when Jess led the group in a Viewpoints exercise. (Some of the audience had never seen or heard of Viewpoints before, and they were kind of amazed.) About half of the audience hadn’t seen the full production yet, but since the story is so episodic, we decided that didn’t matter. We chose two scenes to focus on, and ran them with lights and sound to give our newbies a reference point. And then we got to work.
We picked apart moments, cleared up some traffic patterns, strengthened some choices, made some new discoveries. We made actual changes to blocking, to interpretation, and those changes showed up on Friday and Saturday nights.
We invited the audience to join us in our closing exercise, and they all did. And you can, too. Tonight, starting at 7 pm at the Lincoln Park Cultural Center. We’re working two different scenes, playing with movement and storytelling.
By the by (can blog posts have a p.s.?), I want to send a loud, public shout-out to Nick and Jared, who were nominated for Non-Equity Jeff Awards for their design work on Touch here at New Leaf. They’ve both been nominated before, outstanding designers that they are, but this is the first time that their work here at home has been recognized with a nomination. And we are buttons-busting proud of them. Hurray!
Crazy! I woke up last night and sent myself and email.
The subject line: What goes on behind the scenes? Find out at open rehearsal…
Has this process translated into ticket sales for you?
P.S. (if your post can have one, so can my comment)
Where are you located?
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