Blocking notation for a mobile rehearsal

[bex]

I am starting rehearsals this week for a site-specific audience-integrative piece and I'm wondering if anyone has some advice. I've done audience-integrative theater before but not like this. The show is basically a walking tour with 2 actors and 10 audience members. We'll be rehearsing in the venue, thank goodness, but I'm a bit at a loss for how to physically take blocking notes. I have a map of the venue that I've turned into a slip sheet, that's not the issue.

My problem is that I'm literally going to be following these actors/director around a public space during rehearsal, dodging random people, going up stairs, through doors, etc. as we set blocking. I'm imagining juggling a binder and a notepad and it's just not going to work. Laptop is out of the question, obviously. Has anyone else ever run a mobile rehearsal? How did you take notes? How did you stay on book while you were en route?

The script is only 13 pages long, so I may just bite the bullet, say forget about my slip sheets, and put the whole thing on a clipboard, but I'd really like to be able to mark on the map of the venue where we are when we pause for each section of dialogue, which direction they're facing, etc. The venue is also INCREDIBLY humid (we're performing in a botanical garden) so I'm also a little worried about my script just basically turning into mush, but I'm not sure there's anything I'll be able to do about that.

[loebtmc]

Old school paperwork. A clipboard or the script in a small binder. Use the individual floor maps as your set for the groundplan you take blocking on. And find shorthands for the most common movements. Look up those on the site who've done environmental/site specific pieces cuz that's what this is.

[EFMcMullen]

I've never done site specific, but with a 13 page script could you turn the script so the page is running horizontally, put the script on one half of the page, diagram on the other half of the page?  Then use sheet protectors for humidity, write with Sharpie,  (It can be erased by a dry erase marker) and clipped to a clipboard?

[bex]

I've never done site specific, but with a 13 page script could you turn the script so the page is running horizontally, put the script on one half of the page, diagram on the other half of the page?  Then use sheet protectors for humidity, write with Sharpie,  (It can be erased by a dry erase marker) and clipped to a clipboard?

Turning the script sideways might work! That way I would have script and slip sheet on one page instead of 2, and could just use a clipboard. I'm worried about pages falling out of a binder as I'm walking, having to balance it one-handed to write, etc.

[megf]

The landscape page orientation sounds like a great solution!

Some additional ideas:

-Can you video portions of rehearsal, and cull necessary details from the footage?

-Can you get a legal-size clipboard (keep using letter size paper, though), and slap a big post-it pad on the far edge of the board? Seems like fast and messy notes will be your friend, here

Sounds like fun!

[PSMKay]

Maybe one of those contractors' clipboards with the added compartment for papers might be of use here. Tape one of those silica gel packets that come with new shoes to the inside to help absorb the humidity.

[BenTheStageMan]

It might be too much work, but you could take mobile, messy notes, and later transfer them into a standard script.  One that can be referenced outside of the space, if needed, safe from the humidity.  I love the contractor clipboard too.

[bex]

Maybe one of those contractors' clipboards with the added compartment for papers might be of use here. Tape one of those silica gel packets that come with new shoes to the inside to help absorb the humidity.

I already have a contractors'-style clipboard, adding a silica gel packet makes sense!

[KMC]

How about wearing a GoPro to record the rehearsal and reference with your notes?  Looks like there are some used ones on eBay for under $100.

[bex]

Now that the show is open, after a whirlwind 2 weeks of rehearsal including "tech," I guess I'll let you all know how my blocking went-
I went with EFMcMullen's suggestion of putting the script and slip sheet onto one page, landscape oriented, and putting that on a contractor's clipboard. It worked pretty brilliantly! I had enough space to take the loose blocking this show requires (it's so difficult to explain... basically a walking tour/scavenger hunt of a botanic garden with 2 actors & 12 audience members? and it's about time travel? and for children?) and it wasn't too bulky to carry around with me.

The humidity wasn't as much of an issue as I had thought it would be. I did not use sheet protectors, and my pages are... more wrinkled than I would prefer, but ultimately fine and totally legible.

Rehearsing on your feet is exhausting, and it is HOT inside a greenhouse (thanks Captain Obvious). It is as hot, if not hotter, than it is outside, plus literally 100% humidity at all times, which is not exactly pleasant when it's 90 degrees outside. We would all troop en masse back to the one air-conditioned room in the building during breaks, which meant we essentially couldn't take a 5- the break would be over by the time we got there. I just wish it had been easier to lug my water bottle around with me; investing in one of those dorky straps might have been the way to go.

And now we're in performances with 9 shows a day (weekends only, praise be to Dionysus)! It's a theater marathon!