Last week I asked directors Joe Haj and Tom Quaintance to submit new posts from their perspective, as we rapidly approached first rehearsal (10/6). Tom has promised us something for next week, and Joe was gracious enough to fight through a nasty cold to deliver the piece below.
So here I am, lying in bed, cold medicine (both of the pharmaceutical and witch-doctor variety), thermometer, tea, water, etc at hand. And the novel of NN in my lap, thinking—“I cannot be sick, I cannot be sick”, but alas I am. We start rehearsals in ten days, with trips to NY and Miami in between. I cannot be sick.
I am no longer anxious, but eager to start. To get in the room with Tom, David Edgar and the actors. The point has been reached where there is nothing left to do but to do it. To quote my daughter’s horseback riding instructor: “it’s time to put your big-girl panties on” and do this thing.
The piece is logistically complex, and it is almost incomprehensibly difficult to figure out how to rehearse it all (thanks to Tom, and Mike Donahue--our Asst. Dir. who is rapidly proving himself indispensable- for working out the schedule), but the scenes themselves are not hard—and when I say that I mean that each of the many scenes are fairly straight ahead in the writing and very clear in what they demand from the playing. So I think we focus on one small part at a time and allow the piece to grow and knit together as we move forward.
Can’t wait to get started!
