A director's worst nightmare!

It's not the end of the world. You said it was your first play. It won't be your last if you love theatre.

1) You can be assured by the fact that I have never been in a play where the final rehearsal went well.

BUT
2) Lessons learned: Blocking is assigned at the second rehearsal, actors are off book by the end of the first week, the rest of rehearsals are about honing both the depth of the characters and the tempo of the play.

You should be doing two run-throughs of a forty five minute play at every rehearsal for the final week. (Who said it should be 90% set in stone by the last rehearsal? That's about three weeks too late.)

One thing I learned in acting school long ago: our director stood us all up on the first day of rehearsal and said "You are not students, you are actors. If you don't believe that, please, leave now so we can start work."
We never felt so free.

3) Tomorrow, suck it up. IF they make it through the performance (If I were a department head and recognized five minutes in how bad things might be, I'd stop it and leave.) Take your lumps because you are the director.

Actors are wonderful people who need direction.

Joe(uh...line?)Nation

Jargon please. What is blocking and what does Off Book mean?

Farmerman--

Actors don't just wander around the stage as the creative spirit moves them. The director "blocks" out where they move and when they move.

"Off book" means that the actor has the lines memorized and no longer needs to carry the script.

Kit-kat--

You are not going to be 90% finished today, so you have two problems, not just one.

First, you are going to goad your actors into action. Remind them that the audience will be watching them.

Second, you are going to make a list for the Boss of All Directors (Joe Nations post should help) on exactly what you did wrong, why you were wrong to do it and how you intend to do it in the future.

Directors are not supposed to be "kind" to actors--unless the actors are in nursery school. Directors are supposed to stimulate actors to give fantastic performances. This is not done by accepting shilly-shallying and excuses.

Why were you so late with the blocking? Don't accept shilly-shallying from yourself, either.

You're not the first director to submit a Grand Mess at First Preview--this is why the First Preview exists.

Break a leg.

I gave them the last of the blocking earlier this week because according to the schedual that was the day we finished the last pages. Everything is run by a strict schedual and it just so happend that they scheduled me in for a precview this week. I have been blocking with them since day one. Where I attend school, rehearsals go somewhat differently. I am directing a peice that will be presented on a little stage called the "showcase" room. The performances that take place here are free and therefore considered to be 2nd to the actual main stage performances that take place in our big theatres. Showcase plays are student directed and student acted as well as sometimes student written. There are very strict rehearsal guidelines that all directors must follow when directing a "showcase" worthy play. First of all, rehearsals can only be at night from 10pm till 12am. I have a cast of 8 actors, two of which are also cast in a main stage play.

As for blocking, what I SHOULD have done is on day one blocked pages 1-4, on day two I should have blocked pages 1-4 and 5-8, on day three I should have blocked pages 1-4 and then 5-8 and then 9-12, and so fourth. How I did it wasn't the wrong way to do it, its just that its been so long since we did the first part of the script.

Anywho, the preview wasn't bad exactly. My "boss" stayed as long as she could and then left to go to a meeting. The good news is that my actors were at least twice as fast as yesterday so I am seeing a silver lining. I made some drastic cuts to the script that should speed up the process and I think we may still have a chance to show what we've got.

I'm glad it wasn't a disaster. I'm not sure how cutting the script is going to help at this late date. The actors are having enough trouble remembering what's supposed to be said, now they will have to remember that AND what was cut. Good luck with that.

A couple of things that you believe are out of your control are not. The first is the attitude, not yours, but of the school's, that 'student' or 'showcase' performances are somehow secondary to main stage ones. That, in my humble and completely unasked for opinion, is utter bullsh-t. Acting doesn't have levels, it's either a work of art or it isn't acting. And what does the lack of a ticket price have to do with anything? Some of the best music being made in New York City is being played in the subway.

Next time, start your actors with the attitude that you expect their performances to be brilliant, stunning, the talk of the campus for days with word reaching the playwright about how wonderful it all was.
Actors like to know what the director's expectations are, screw the secondary attitude, you are there together to create. If not, then go apply to get your MBA and let the real actors onto that little stage, that's all the space they need to shine.**

Second, the schedule, please god, doesn't say anything about breaking the play into pages, does it? If it does, flip it over and use it to make notes on, but don't adhere to any part of it (except that part about rehearsal times, that seems right).

Plays are not pages, they are a single story that a director must see as a whole and then get the actors to create it through their characters. Five or six weeks, which is what you had, seems like a really long time to work on a forty-five minute production. If I were doing it I would think I would want a maximum of four weeks, we would do read-throughs, start to finish for about a week with the cast sitting or standing on stage. Everyone stays in character for the full reading. One read through per night with notes for the actors for the first three rehearsals, then two full read-throughs with notes for the next three. (Oh, by the way, actors are expected to write down their notes on their scripts. ) If the sets are ready, they never are, use them or tables and chairs and tape, for the next three or four rehearsals with everyone still on book and you, (dat's the diwrecktah) giving them their blocking as the read-through occurs. (So they get the full blocking the first night they are on their feet)

Do one run-through on book and one run-thorough off book for the next three nights and then ---- all blocking is done and all lines are learned and you can get down to the real work of making the play happen. If I am counting this right that's about ten or eleven nights of rehearsal, at three rehearsals a week (I know they are students and can't rehearse every night) that's about three weeks, so you would have another three full rehearsals with two run throughs each before showing it to the boss.

Your goal here is to get the actors who are in the big main stage production wish to god that they could only be working on your showcase and to make the boss stay and watch even if the most important meeting of the year is happening right down the hall. yah?

Joe(**)Nation

**Fellow I knew at Emerson named Hank acted in a one-act Albee play in a 'student production', caught someone's eye because of his work and that led to a short sidetrack to the Yale School of Drama, then he got a bit part in a movie about Flatbush which caught someone else's eye who thought Hank might be able to play a bit part in a tv comedy, a tough but lovable guy. He could. The thing is, Hank's acting wasn't any different whether he was in that one-act play or when he was creating The Fonz.

Look up on that little stage, folks, no little parts, just little actors.

WOW JOE, I wanna use that speech to fire up some of my guys. Mind if I substitute geologists for actors? Itll work on a bunch of levels, even the part about the fonz.


PS-who is the fonz?

Wow, well said, Joe.

kitkat_bar, it sounds as though the cast rose above your expectations at the first preview. I hope they continue to do that - and maybe your expectations need to rise too?

I do hope you'll come back and let us know how opening nite goes.

Oh yes, you youngsters like farmerman (choke, snort, snort) don't remember Arthur Fonzerelli (the Fonz) from the Tv series Happy Days. Henry Winkler played him as a hoodlum with a heart of gold and took what should have a minor sub-plot character into a defacto leading role.
The Fonz became an American icon of cool, able to charm the chicks, schmooze his way out of trouble and magically make things like jukeboxes operate with just the right tap of his hand. It was his attitude that cool was right and knowing how to recognize it that made people love him.

My favorite shot was one from the early opening credits: Fonzie in the men's room, approachs the mirror to comb his hair, raises his comb but stops, sees that everything about him is already cool, yeah, and puts the comb away.

Joe(we all wanted that moment to be ours)Nation

The problems may not be completely of your making, but fixing those problems is your responsibility. You're the director.

Joe has given you some excellent advice. I agree.

How much rehearsal time do you have between now and the performances?

I'd advise you to plan and schedule very carefully so you don't waste any of it.

Break a leg.

Im kidding. I just never thought that Winklers character had depth :wink: . I did like him in a later movie NIGHT SHIFT where he and Michael keaton and Shelly Long(sigh) had this great hooker scam going in the morgue where Winkler was sent to be the night supervisor. Pimps and gangstas get killed and laughs ensue. . I also remember the "Jump the shark" scene from jump the shark dot com.

Im amazed at how you know all the showbiz type lingo and speak it so well ,The only show biz experience I had was in a high school play where I think I was a farmer in Oklahoma (I couldnt sing fer ****, and I already knew , from living out in New Mexico at Uncle Stash's that western people werent all running around acting gay)

Farmerman--

You are the only A2K member who was not born in a wardrobe trunk.

Think of this as a learning experience. The first thing you learned is that actors aren't always professional, especially student actors.

You have to set the time line of when things need to be done by. That means a date when actors should have their lines learned by. One week before opening is cutting it close. The day before preview is too late. Half the actors won't be completely off book whatever date you set. So give yourself time to hound them about it. You need a date when the blocking will be done and you can do a run through.

Joe has given you some great advice but every director works differently.

There are a couple of things that stay the same. You should have at least a couple of rehearsals of full run throughs before you expect an audience. Most of the time it should be 2 run throughs without the tech. One or two stumble throughs with tech. Then 2 run throughs with tech. Lines should be learned and solid before you do those run throughs. Repetition is the best form of memorization both for blocking and lines. Help your actors out by giving them that repetition. Run the show those last few rehearsals but then go back and work problem spots if you need to.

I think the first rule of any director is you have to be organized.
1.) Break the show up into French scenes and schedule rehearsals around those scenes. A French scene happens anytime someone leaves or enters the stage. By rehearsing scenes instead of pages you can eliminate calling actors for rehearsals. Be kind to your actors, don't call them if they aren't going to be rehearsed. I have seen plenty if irate people who sat around for 3-4 hours and never rehearsed. Stagger the call for actors if you can. Work 2 people in the scene then call the 3rd person who is on briefly later for rehearsal. At the college level, directors tend to not do this. It can be a learning experience for young actors to sit and watch, but in the real world most consider it a waste of time. Don't block the first few pages then expect to work them every day like you suggested. Actors should be able to go a week without working something and retain part if not most of what they did. Don't work something then not run it again for 3 weeks and expect it to be perfect.

2.) Have a rough schedule that works backward from opening with run throughs at the end and a read through at beginning. The middle schedule can change depending on what is working or not working but you should have goals of when you want parts of the play up and running. Some directors schedule every rehearsal and what will be happening before the first rehearsal. Others let people know week to week what will be happening the next week. Whatever works for you, you are the director. Try to avoid deciding one day what to work the next. A lot of directors will set 3-4 TBD dates and fill them in later with scenes that need to be worked or haven't been completed.

3.) Write down the blocking or have a stage manager that will do it. Don't expect to remember it and don't expect that all your actors will write it down. Some will write down everything. Others will not. If the blocking doesn't work, change it. It doesn't matter how many people wrote it down the first way just have them write down the new blocking.

It's not always the last rehearsal but I think every rehearsal process has a time where it seems like it will never come together. (Most of the time that horrible moment will pass.)




He likes me. He really likes me.

WOW, I must be a real loser. Everybody's an actor. I have no idea about what anybody's saying but if this is how plays get done correctly, Ill have to pay attention to the process more. We just saw a local version of "Inherit The Wind" and I was amazed at how well the main characters knew their lines. EVERYTHING was dependent upon tem and the guy who played the darrow -like character ws pulling his lines out so well, just like youd expect in a court. The guy did "follow up" type questions so damn well. Was that him or the director?
Ill bet the director was back there eating his or her shirt with anxiety.

I am WAY beyond french scene breakdowns and units. I did that MONTHS ago. I don't think I agree entirely with the "there are no pages in a play" ideal. There are most definatly scenes in a play and without it we wouldn't have scene breakdowns and page breakdowns. The reason it has taken so long to do a 45 minute play is because I only am allowed so much time with them since some of them are in other plays and that is the only time allotted to me. There is only so much you can get done in a two hour time period. But I completely agree with how stupid the system is about second class shows. We all do. All of us students hate it. It doesn't just affect us as actors but it effects every part of the production. The faculty are the ones that are behind the main stage productions and are not willing to help out lighting wise, set wise, costume wise, or make up wise for any showcase performance. If you want any or all of that done you have to find a student willing to take on the task and beg them to do it.

MONTHS ago. Sigh.

Theatre schools must have been doing this a long time. It was the way it was forty years ago (christ, how old am i?). If I remember correctly the Emersonian actors/directors/writers/technos all found ways of giving each other huge amounts of credit for any help offered on a production. Working on a student production became a way of bonding with the upper classmen and everyone was very vocal in spreading praise or bad news around. Many times it was the way someone got noticed for their good work or ended up getting shunned if they were trouble.

I loved acting and did an unheard of five student work productions AND one Director's Workshop my freshmen year along with a live TV program on folk music. It was great. I hardly ever went to class. I met all the best people in the department.


Joe(they were all sad for ten minutes when I flunked out the next year)Nation

Welcome to the world of the majority of small theaters. Begging people to do things is a way of life.

para(I've got sucker written all over me)dos


Unless you are really really good at begging for money. Then you can pay them to do things.

Mortgaged my life supporting an actor/playwright/director, whom I still believe in, of course my own choice. Thus no alimony, thus near penury (well, not only thus, but close enough).

I'll be the one to add the sour notes. (He's the one to get bored, when he inherited some money. I can't quite blame him, but resent it.)

Theater! Life! Pah!
Makes me think of endless soliloquies.

But, never mind. KitKat, good luck.

I won't say break a leg, I'm not Theater.