The Heiress

Wikipedia states that community theatre is “theatre made by, with, and for a community.”  In general, this is taken to mean the locale in which the theatre is located and in which the participants and audience live.  But there’s a different definition of community that applies to my experience here.  That definition which focuses on the shared “character; agreement; identity” of the people involved in a joint activity.  Because when I try to sum up what this experience has meant to me, it is that definition of community that most accurately describes it.

I felt like part of a community- a group of people whose shared passion for the art leads them to not only endure but to enjoy all the details of a production.  All these late nights, juggling schedules, reciting lines, examining characters and motives and events, cramming into costumes and enduring less-than-comfortable false eyelashes, joking about how weird the audience is or how crazy it was when that mini-catastrophe happened.  All of it.  It is this shared experience that defines this feeling of community- this sense of belonging.

When I think of “the acting bug” I think about that ever-elusive high that one gets from walking off stage and feeling that you have, within that moment, ‘nailed’ the performance.  I had that with this production a couple of times and it feels pretty damned groovy.  And it is that which I will be seeking out when I audition again for the next production.  I’ve got the acting bug in this regard and it had been dormant for a long while before this.

But those singular moments are only a tiny piece of the overall tapestry of emotions I got from this.  What means more, strangely enough, is all of the side effects.  The joking and talking and laughing down in the green room while getting on makeup and putting on costumes and waiting for your scene.  The energy circle before each performance during which we wished ourselves luck and reminded each other to have fun while squeezing hands for vigor.  The awkward moments when you stepped on someone else’s line or skirt or your scene went drastically differently than you anticipated just because of the audience or a technical hic-up or just messing up.  The celebratory cakes and gifts and thanks-yous.  The fact that we all make ourselves more than a little crazy with all of it and we all love it.

In community theatre- because theatre in college was just a drastically different experience- I haven’t really had a bad time of it.  I haven’t encountered challenging personalities or over-demanding directors or anything else that might make the experience less enjoyable.  But I’ve also never felt this strong of a sense of community before and I have to believe that what my other more seasoned co-stars were saying was true: that this was just a really great group of people.  Despite my one little scene I felt just as much a part of the cast as everyone else.  I was no less valuable, no less appreciated, no less important to the play.  I was a part of and I value that feeling more than anything else in the world.

My co-stars were not only great actors (and I honestly think that everyone did a pretty incredible job) but great people.  They were kind, caring, funny, passionate, laid back, enjoyable people and all of those nights joking around in the green room or changing costumes back stage meant even more to me than those miracle moments when I nailed my scene.  And the crew- the producer, director, stage manger, costume designer, set designers and even the people running the ticket booth and baking cookies for intermission- were no less incredible and overwhelmingly kind.  And my family and friends who hooted and hollered for me when I got cast, came out to see me with excitement, and showered me with praise afterwards reminded me of how incredibly lucky I am to have such an amazing support network.  I have so many fond memories of this production it’s hard for me to wrap my head around it all.

And although I’m trying to be nothing but grateful for all of it I can’t help but be more than a little sad that it’s over.  Leaving the theatre that last night was nothing short of heart breaking and I’ve had to console myself that if I’m lucky enough to get cast again I may run into these incredible people in the future.  But in the end, it's the fact that I had this experience- not that it’s over- which matters. 

The memories and the pictures and the gifts will stay with me.  I will audition again for another show in the not too-distant future.  And if I’m very lucky, I will be a part of another community- perhaps comprised of some of these same wonderful people.  And in the mean time, I will be grateful with every story I tell about my time in the Heiress.

The Play is the Thing

At some point over the years in this field I picked up a list of the most stressful events a human can go through as determined by some high-up researchers.  The thing that always struck me about the list was that positive events such as getting married ranked just as high as negative events like getting divorced.  Thus you might find yourself having a new baby- generally considered to be a blessing- and feeling more stressed out than you’ve ever been.  What we know about stress is that it leads to a variety of physical and mental health problems and what this list taught us is that regardless of the cause the outcomes tend to look the same.

This is a lesson I’ve been reminded of (or rather beaten over the head with) over the past couple of weeks.  A variety of really positive events- Buddy’s graduation from training class, the premier of the play, a work conference which would have been enjoyable under normal circumstances- have all collided to turn me into a zombie.  Like I said, these are all positive events but the stress level is high enough to lead to the same consequences as if they were negative: I’m perpetually exhausted.  I’m getting migraines way more frequently than normal.  By the time I get home every night my brain has deteriorated into the consistency of apple sauce and I’m mentally incapable of doing the things I’d like to be able to do- like reading the book I planned to finish by the end of this month or writing here. 

I’ve actually tried a couple of times over the past week to sit down and write something- about the play, about Buddy, or even to try and coherently sort through the mesh of story ideas in my head to write a new fiction piece.  And every time I’ve found myself staring at the screen, drifting out of alertness and then getting confused as to what I was supposed to be doing.  It’s like falling asleep- you lose time and then you’re confused when you wake up.

So even though I have a million things I want to say I may have to wait until everything has calmed down so I can formulate my thoughts into a narrative that will lead to something above the rambling, disjointed mess that’s currently swirling around my head.  In the mean time, suffice it to say that fun times are happening.  The play is the thing.

Put on Your Sunday Clothes

Last night at rehearsal my co-stars were trying on their dresses.  We premiere in only a scant two weeks and the technical costume details like shoes and gloves and costume changes are being considered.  One of the dresses struck me as being terribly at home in a production of Hello, Dolly when everyone starts singing about their Sunday clothes and I couldn't help but observe this out loud.  As if one cue we all started singing the tune and laughing.

Then I looked at my friend in her pretty yellow dress with a wide skirt and frills around the shoulders, laughing over how she needed a parasol to complete the outfit, and her face changed.  I realized immediately what had happened, and I said it:

“You’re gonna have that stuck in your head all night now.”  Her smile sank because she knew I was right, the chorus was already cycling through her mind.

Throughout the rest of the evening as we meandered around the lobby looking over lines or rummaging through the box of gloves I’d hear the first few words of the song sung quietly followed by a loud, abrupt “Dammit!”

I'd laugh and then step over to say "You're welcome!" with a giant grin on my face.

Cadence and Hoop Skirts

I am delighted to report that the play is really starting to blossom.  We’re off book now so there’s no more heads down in scripts and we can play off of each other in a much more organic way.  There’s facial expressions and emotional inflection where there wasn’t before.  We’re moving past the point of delivering lines and actually interacting with each other and it’s adding so many layers to the scenes that it’s making me giddy.  I walk off stage now seething over the nerve of the character I converse with and it takes me a second to step back out of my enraged character.  I can’t tell you how fun that is.

We’re also starting to get a feel for the concrete details of the set.  The play is set in 1850 so all of us ladies walk around in these giant hoop skirts and it becomes a gymnastic enterprise to negotiate the tight spaces backstage or fit two of us on the couch at the same time.  And sitting down so that the hoops don’t pop up in your face takes some practice.  It’s definitely not the norm for my life and I’m enjoying it immensely.

Plus we’re starting to get props in place so timing becomes more important and blocking makes more sense in a concrete way.  When I came in tonight there were framed pictures, ceramic lanterns and other decorations scattered about and a silver haired woman was sorting through everything with the director to pick out what we’ll use.  I’m not lifting up air when I comment on that picture, the girl who plays the maid is bringing in lamps and trays, there’s a real cord to pull for the bell. 

I wrote my bio for the program and a delightfully flighty woman took our photos for the press release as we ran our scenes this evening.  There are little postcards with the play dates and cast list to hand out to friends and family.  Our show premier is on the calendar for only a few short weeks away and I see it every time I write a reminder down on my phone.  I’m starting to train my eyes to wander over the empty seats as if there were people looking back at me when I perform.  Soon enough the director will be sitting in the back row telling us “louder!” because he can’t hear us.  We’re getting the action of the scene down and starting to tweak the performance for an audience.

The magic of theater that people talk about as if it were an addictive nectar is starting to come out for real and I can’t help but be a little awe struck.  Having been out of the loop for so long I’d forgotten how exhilarating the whole thing can be.  But I’m remembering why I loved all this so much.

My task now is to try to soak up every wonderful minute of this and not lose it in the momentum as we speed toward opening night.  To remember that the flubbed lines and missed cues are just as delicious as the perfect delivery in front of a live audience.  To squeeze every ounce of joy I can get out of it.  Easier said than done, of course.  But I think I’m doing ok at the moment.

Set Building

When I was in college I worked in the scene shop where we were tasked with building the sets for all the shows the college put up each semester.  There was a wide range of shows that we built the sets for and we had a wide range of things we needed to build for them.  A few stick out as being really eccentric and lead us to cart in garbage from a local dump, cut cars in half so we could have a junk yard scene, carry bags and bags of sand in to build a beach and go antiquing in search of avocado green refrigerators.  There were some interesting times that came out of all that.

Most of the time, however, we just did relatively simple, straight forward stuff.  Put flats together, painted them a billion times over, constructed door frames or book cases or chairs and built so many risers that I scarcely could find a pair of pants in my drawer I hadn’t left an allen wrench in.  It wasn’t complicated but damn, was it fun.  I loved being a scene shop chick.  I loved working with power tools, I loved covering t-shirt after t-shirt with paint splotches and spills, I loved coming back to my dorm smelling of sawdust and perpetually finding screws in my pocket.  It became equated with the creative spirit I so worshipped.

And I didn’t realize how much I missed it all until today when we built the set for the show.  As soon as I got there I grabbed a screw gun and handful of screws and went to work.  I loved it.  I loved the things that you wouldn’t think about loving in such a circumstance.  The smell of the smoke as you screw into the wood, the cold metal of the level as you try to even the legs on a platform, the high-pitched moaning the wood makes when you screw it into place, even the scrapes and bruises from a run away block that hit my arm when someone lost their grip on it.  It had nothing to do with aesthetics or how everything looked when we were done; it had to do with the hard labor of putting everything together.

It’s such a simple activity, a necessity of any production that most people don’t even think about.  But it brought up so many great memories for me and reminded me of how much I’ve missed this whole theatrical world I’ve been without for so long.  And even though we’ll tear down the set even quicker that we put it up as soon as the run finishes I can’t help but be a little giddy about what we built today.

First Rehearsal

As I said earlier, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually done any acting.  There’s a lot that I’ve forgotten- mainly that it’s an art form that varies just as widely in style and form as visual art- and artists- do.  Some directors like to do acting exercises before looking at the script and have you doing touch sound or physical movement for a long while before you address the play itself.  Some directors don’t even want to look at you until you’ve learned all your lines and know the play inside out.  Some directors throw stuff at you so crazy that it might seem completely unrelated to the work of producing a play.  And there’s no way to know what you’re getting when you audition.

            Perhaps that is why as an actor I have a deeply rooted need to please the director.  I’m reading every facial expression, watching every movement, hanging on their words to try and figure out if what I’m doing is “right”.  It’s a reflex, something I don’t do consciously but which dictates almost all of my reactions in rehearsal.  And I was reminded of that tonight.

            My director seems like a pretty grounded guy so far.  We started off reading the script and last night jumped right into blocking.  Blocking, for those of you not versed in theatrical lingo, is figuring out where the actors need to stand, when they need to sit, what props they need to position themselves near and what lines they’ll be saying as they do.  So last night we walked around the fold-up chairs as if they were the sofas or tables that would eventually be there and figured out where we’d need to move throughout the scene.  We read our lines but the focus was on the physicality.

            Having only read the play once and wanting to better understand my character I was full of questions about why she was acting this way or responding by saying this and therefore had a really hard time clamping my tongue down to keep from asking him.  He did a lot of thinking- looking at us as we stood there and trying to figure out where he wanted us.  I interrupted his train of thought a few times with “Should I start from my line…?” or by starting to read again when his cogs were still turning.  He had to stop and explain that this is how he works, we’d get to the character later.  And I- in classic Bev style- was over-apologizing for interrupting the process of a man that I’ve never worked with before and therefore had no way of knowing I was interrupting.  And just like in karate, my colleagues are already teasing me about it.

            I now have a pretty good idea of where I need to go and when but my mind is buzzing with all those questions I didn’t get to ask yet.  My next task is to learn all my lines so that the next time I go in there I’m ready to tweak the delivery and actually interact with the other actors instead of looking down at my script.  The rehearsal schedule itself tells me that this process is going to pick up steam really quickly starting next month so I better get ready.  It’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

First Read Through

We did our first full read through last night where all the actors sat in a circle in our green room and did a dry read through of the whole script. It’s a rough, un-produced, baby of a play in that sense, but it’s already growing into something bigger. The words themselves, and the simple sound of the actors’ voices reading them out loud, already lends itself to fledgling characters, emotions, and revelations which will rock the audience once the final production comes out. And those are just the words.

By the time we finish there will be costumes, physicality, props, a stage that has been built and lit and interacted with as if it were a real home and all of us will have spent our time and energy making that come to life. The ‘birthing’ of a production is a very real thing in this sense; it’s based on input from different sources that will lead to the creation of a unique, one-of-a-kind production. And just like real births, the basics will be the same but the quirks, characteristics and impressions will be matchless.

I’m so enthralled by all this that I’d honestly be pleased just to a be a fly on the wall and watch this thing come to life. But knowing that I’m gonna be a part of it, that one piece of it will be mine, is just that much more astounding.

The Play's the Thing

I’ve been fascinated with theater for a long time. As a child, I indulged in daydreams about becoming a famous actress. In high school I tried out for productions in school and various community theaters. I even got cast a few times. In college I took acting, playwriting, stage design and wrote papers for my social psychology classes that bordered on dramaturgical essays. I was a regular in stage shop, learning how to use all sorts of cool power tools to build the sets and tinkering in the lighting closet to build new plugs and hang lights for shows. I even had two internships in two very different kinds of theaters, learning everything from how to make Javanese shadow puppets to how set counterweights for a fly system.

When I switched majors to psych, something I thought I could practice as an actual career in the “real world”, I largely gave up on the world of theater. But I never stopped thinking about it.

So about five, maybe six years ago I tried again. I had a string of unsuccessful auditions in local community theaters. I really gave it my all- reading whatever I could about the play, sometimes even the whole script if it was available online. And each audition went the same: I’d be so nervous I could barely speak without stumbling over my own lips and in the end I’d always be told something like “great energy” or “nice spirit” which in theater terms equates to “thanks, but no thanks”. I ended up on stage crew for a production and spent most of the time thinking I could have done one or many of the parts better if I’d been cast. (I.E. preventing myself from enjoying anything about it because of my own negative thought process.) I was so disappointed by the whole thing that I swore off theater for years, focusing instead on my karate and friends to keep me occupied.

Fast forward to last week when I got a notice about auditions being held for a local community theater. (Because I’m really bad about forgetting to cancel subscriptions to things I’m no longer actively using.) Normally I’d just send such a notice to my trash folder but I wondered if perhaps all this work I’ve been doing on self acceptance would impact how I might pursue something such as community theater. If I could audition without any expectations whatsoever of being cast, no disappointment or self criticism upon that not happening, and no other cognitive distortions to prevent me from just going and having fun with it. “Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought, “If I could just go and have fun without driving myself crazy?” So I decided to give it a shot.

The audition went far more smoothly than any other audition I’ve done in the past. My nervousness was reserved only to the few moments during which I was up reading a scene- before and after was marked by an unusual calmness on my part. And sure, I left there thinking that I’d done rather poorly and assuming that this was the reason I’d only been asked to do one reading. I even told my boyfriend when I got home that there was “not a chance in hell” of me being cast. But here's the change: I didn't beat myself up for it.  Instead of going over every little thing I thought I’d done wrong, or swearing a massive amount of negative conclusions about myself, I had a perfectly enjoyable evening at home and just let it go. That- the not torturing myself thing- is a pretty big change for me.

Perhaps that is why when I checked my e-mail this morning there was a note from the director offering me a part. Granted it’s a small part, only one scene. But that’s perfect for someone like me who hasn’t done this stuff since college. Besides, I’d left there thinking that I didn’t have 'a chance in hell'. Needless to say, I was shocked.

But then I started thinking: It’s gotta be something about this new perspective thing. I must have had more confidence cause I knew I had nothing to lose. I must have sounded like I knew what I was doing because I wasn’t running through a billion negative thoughts in my head saying that I didn’t. I must have performed it differently than I would have if I was listening to that same old negative voice burying me under an avalanche of criticisms. Something must have been different.

I didn’t make up a list of goals this year like I have in the past.  This is partly because I’m trying so hard to release all expectations on my life.  But it's also partly because if this all works the way I hope it will, I won’t be able to plan for everything that will happen. I certainly hadn’t planned on auditioning in order to somehow break into community theater. And yet, when I let go of wanting that so badly, that’s exactly what happened. I have to believe that this is how it’s supposed to work. Cause it feels really good to think so.