Down the Stretch We Come

March 1st 2007

 2 comments

Down the Stretch We Come…

 

My production of Tartuffe is currently making its final turn and preparing for the stretch run to opening night, next Friday, March 9.  We have our first audience on Wednesday March 7 with our Pay-What-You-Can preview (7:30, generously sponsored by National City, I hope to see you there!!), so the production is in this interesting place all shows find themselves in a week before we open.  I have directed nearly 30 productions in my career and it is almost always the same.  Where are we?  As a director, I have been working on the play since about this time last year, when I knew we were going to do it.  As a company, we have been in rehearsals since early February, spending the first couple of weeks on reading the text, getting the actors on their feet, and staging the play in the rehearsal hall.  All that time, the actors have had the script in their hands, they have been using rough approximations of the props they are going to have, wearing rehearsal clothes etc.  Last nights rehearsal was their first “off-book”, meaning they could not have the script in their hands while they were onstage.  So the play/production lurched last night…but it lurched forward!!  Actors figuring out how things are going to work, where to place their emphasis and focus (since it’s not buried in the script anymore), feeling the flow of the show during longer and longer sections.  We actually got to run Act II twice last night which is unusual, but this company is smart, committed, talented and hungry.  We are in the final phases, as a director, I am beginning to slowly turn over the production to the company, having them “make it their own” so that they have the confidence to move forward in their individual performances.  It is a wonderful, exciting, frustrating, time consuming, heartrending, delightful part of the process…and it is where we make or break the production.  I am pretty confident this production is going to make…it is in the hands of a terrific cast, supported by a first rate design team and I believe you are going to like the final results…but I’ll know more this time next week!
 
I will also write more when we leave the rehearsal hall and move into the actual theatre.  At that point, the process will literally start over again...which I will explain later, assuming I don't pull out my hair!!

 

The Tartuffe Company includes: 

Scott Wichmann* as Tartuffe
Charles Edward Pogue* as Orgon

Missy Johnston as Elmire
Laura Blake as Dorine
Eric Ryan Seale as Damis
Hayley Williams as Marianne

Cathy Rawlings as Madame Pernelle
Chris Rose as Cleante
Bob Singleton as Valere
MikeVan Zandt as M. Loyal
Sidney Shaw as the Minister of the State

*Members of Actors Equity Association

 Directed by Richard St. Peter
 Set Design by Brent Menchinger
 Lighting Design by Tony Hardin
 Costume Design by Jeremy Floyd
 Sound Design by Tommy Gatton
Peace and Love
Richard (Rick) St. Peter
March 1, 2007



Comments

Pogue said...

One of the great joys of rehearsal is watching Scott Wichmann work. He is endlessly inventive and the way he marries his movement to the words with such perfectly timed crispness is a marvel to watch. It's that kind of timing and clean execution that makes comedy work. How wonderful to watch seasoned talent like this...it's just one acting lesson after another every night.

posted at 9:52 AM on Mar 2nd 2007

Pogue said...

It's the interesting part of rehearsals for me too...I've been panicked, thinking we're a week behind, but then I always think we're a week behind from day one. And as a geezer only going into his second show after a twenty-five year sabbatical, I no longer think I'm as indestructible as I was in my twenties when I was known as something of a fireman and could get up in a part and learn the lines with no rehearsal and then be worked into a show in a day or two (I once had to learn Ferdinand in The Tempest in 24 hours, when our Ferdinand whacked himself in the eye with an unwieldy bullwhip while playing one of the Antipholi in Comedy of Errors). Despite the fact that my memory still seems to be functioning fairly well and I actually can still remember all those lines, I now fear I'll go into one of those Olivier stage fright funks where I won't be able to have anyone look at me on the stage.

But then as Philip Henslowe says in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: "It's a mystery". It always seems to work out. And despite constant frets and worries and disatisfaction with the way certain of my lines are spewed or my business is not executed with satisfactory briskness, it does seem to be taking shape. I've particularly been pleased with the last few rehearsals where sloppy business has been cleaned up and we've run and worked, run and worked which always helps solidify things for me. But I also spend at least an hour or more drilling lines before I come to rehearsals.

Biggest concerns for me right now are energy and pace which are the usual concerns at this point in rehearsals.

My biggest delight is the script seems to work right well.

posted at 12:06 AM on Mar 2nd 2007

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