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« on: Feb 02, 2009, 03:48 am »
We have been in rehearsal for a while now and I figured it was definitely time to update on this process. When I first met her, I was surprised how young she was. She was only about 28 or 29. Her translator is 23. They are both very nice people. Since the show is a world premiere, I am again charged with the fun task of script upkeep. I made copies of the script for the actors and also created my production scripts and the scripts for the designers and my ASM. About 3 days after I made the copies, the playwright told me that he was working on some major rewrites. I asked him to send me the updates so that I could distribute them to the actors. He told me that the script rewrites he was making was going to be the base script that we would work off of. So, I put the 600+ pages in the garbage and used 600+ more sheets of paper re-copying the scripts. A bit frustrating, but I just moved on and rolled with the punches.
The playwright, might have done a world premiere before, but it was definitely not with the use of a computer. He doesn't know how to do the changes so that the page numbers don't get all messed up and so that the general formatting is maintained. He has been making changes with the director and then, without my knowledge, he as been giving the changes only to the actors in that scene. I don't get the changes and my ASM doesn't either. Because of this, the actors have all different versions as I have not been allowed to do the distribution of the copies. I make new versions different colors so that they know right away if they have the right copy. I asked him to let me do the distributing of the copies. In addition to all of this, he is completely re-writing Act 2, so no one has a copy of it, including the director and the set designer and lighting designer. This has been upsetting some of the actors as well as me. We have been rehearsing for two weeks now and I just got the first 3 scenes of Act 2. The last two scenes have been deemed unacceptable by the director, so the playwright now has to re-do them again. Finally, we have a good system in place for future rewrites, although it is not what I would hope for. My system works a lot better than his, but he is the playwright...and also the head of our department.
Now to the director. We had our first production meeting and it went pretty well, but it quickly soured after that. In the individual meeting with the set designer, she gave very vague images and ideas for the set. After much persuading her to elaborate, we thought we had the general idea down. She said "Next meeting, we will do drawings." To both the set designer and me, that meant that we would do some collaborative drawing with the director at the next meeting. This is where things were lost in translation, for sure. What she meant was,"Next meeting, we will look at your drawings." So, we came in with blown up ground plans of the theatre to draw on and brainstorm. Apparently she thought that she had provided enough information for him to come up with a design. So, we told her that we were confused and we didn't know what she wanted. In Russia, apparently the set designer just creates a design and the director works with whatever is provided. Normally, for us, the director will give some kind of an idea of what he is looking for and the set designer creates a design realizing the director's vision. They talked and finally there is some kind of design for the show.
The rehearsal process seems very wasteful with time. Typically, we will rehearse 3 hours in the evening and that's all. Well, this director has 4.5-7 hour rehearsals everyday. Since we are not a conservatory theatre school, we have classes and other things going on in our lives. She just doesn't understand that we are students first and thespians second. She expects the entire production staff to be on call 24/7 and she expects, even during school breaks and weekends for things to get done. Today, our TD/Set Designer was in working on things. Today is Sunday and he was very upset that he was being told to work this weekend. She also started asking the actors what classes they want to skip second semester so that they can rehearse during the daytime. At our school, the professors require attendance and your grade lowers when you miss a class.
The costume designer is very stressed out because she wants the costumes done NOW! We don't open the show for 4 weeks, yet. I think she wants to use the costumes during all of the rehearsals so that the actors can "live" in them. This is a problem because it means that laundry will have to be done as well as dry-cleaning. That is expensive and very time-intensive when we are still trying to get the show built. She also wants the sound designer to get all of the equipment ready now. She wants to hear how the sound will be in the theatre so that they can play with it and discover new things during the rehearsal process. What that means for me is that my ASM will spend all her time running sound during the rehearsal.
She also wants working food props throughout the entire rehearsal process, which means we are spending $5 every day on bread alone. She has also come up with a plan to
Another thing is that she doesn't block the scenes. She lets the actors move wherever they want and EVERY SINGLE TIME it is different. I have no blocking taken down for the scenes. Has anyone else had this blocking dilemma? What have you done to solve that problem?
Overall, the process isn't awful. I can deal with it, but I hate to see how much she upsets and stresses out the production staff. I just know that it's going to get worse and my grandmother instincts (my stage manager instincts) are kicking into high gear and throwing up warning signs. Any advice with all of this, especially the blocking issue?