Embracing embarrassment
On Saturday, we wrapped up the third weekend of our marathon five-week run. More than halfway through, Iﾒve still somehow managed to avoid major embarrassment or mayhem on stage. Thereﾒs the nightly jolt of adrenaline as I wait behind the curtain, just before I dash onstage, but for the most part Iﾒve experienced little of the backstage nail-biting and freak-outs I expected. Weﾒve had a streak of sold-out shows and the pleasure of performing for really fun, high-energy crowds.
Well, on second thought, I havenﾒt dodged embarrassment entirely. Last weekend, my fellow cast members dragged me to karaoke night at Moorheadﾒs Days Inn after the show. Singing, as you might have noticed in one of my earlier dispatches, has long figured ﾖ along with acting and needlepoint ﾖ on my list of activities to abstain from at all costs. So I warned my acting buddies that, just because I dabbled into acting and didnﾒt immediately unleash apocalyptic calamities, doesnﾒt mean I can go and break more rules. So there would be no singing. But of course, I caved. I guess when you once venture out of your comfort zone, other forays into uncharted territory become less intimidating and almost tempting ﾖ which, of course, is the beauty of redrawing comfort zones in the first place. So I went, I drank, and I sang ﾖ and pretty much decided I probably had pretty good reasons to stay away from vocal experiments. My fellow actor Adam, who is a totally expert singer, and I performed a duet of ﾓSummer Nights,ﾔ from the movie ﾓGrease.ﾔ I figured if I was going to do karaoke, itﾒd better be something ultra-tacky. And even tough I only mustered a shaky and bashful rendition, I got away mostly unscathed from the experience. I can strike one more activity from my never-messed-with list. I am still thinking of passing on the needlepoint, though.
Posted by: Mila on 12/12/2006 at 5:10 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink
Audiencethink
We launched the second weekend of our five-week production last night in front of our scariest audience yet. After an abundance of belly laughs during our first three shows, we were baffled by the radically low-key crowd that evening. By the end of the first act, all weﾒd managed to coax out of them were a few shy, stifled chuckles. Backstage, we had our ears cocked, waiting for our favorite parts, which so far had yielded major laughs without a hitch and which surely would break the quiet spell over the hall. The disembodied door slamming bit? Shy chuckle. Adam Harfieldﾒs absolutely hilarious ﾓI love you like a cicadaﾔ speech? Chuckle, and chuckle. Franciscoﾒs lingerie romp? A few extra chuckles. Were we already addicted to higher-volume laughs? Were we spoiled by rowdier crowds? Things picked up a bit by Act 2 and, at the end of the night, we got our first standing ovation.
Audiences are strange, unpredictable beings with minds of their own. Itﾒs amazing how each nightﾒs crowd finds different parts of the show funnier than others. Itﾒs almost as if all the viewers convened at a clandestine planning meeting before the performance, perused the script and decided on the most appropriate times for belly laughs. There is, for example, the Act 1 episode when Mitch Omar destroys a chair as a roundabout way of letting his family members know what he thinks of them. One night people find this hyper bit of physical humor hilarious, and the next thereﾒs perfect silence in the hall. Some predictable crowd pleasers, besides, of course, the above-mentioned and inimitable Francisco lingerie romp (itﾒs earned him more than a few compliments on his toned legs and stage spunk): Bill Heinﾒs pseudo-profound sermon on the making of the world from cheese. The mass slow-motion rending of garments at the memorial service. Oh, and did I mention Adamﾒs ﾓI love you like a cicadaﾔ speech?
At the start of this second weekend, I already have random lines of just about every character in the show swarming in my head at all times. After trying to tone down my foreign accent for years, I actually seem to have more of it suddenly, after ratcheting it up for my broken-English-speaking heroine. Iﾒve even given an autograph to a stranger. Itﾒs not a bad life.
Posted by: Mila on 12/1/2006 at 4:51 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Opening Night
I feel uncannily calm as I arrive backstage a half hour before the start of the show. Just a pleasant buzz, perhaps. Thatﾒs rather strange. I am as a rule far from unflappable, and this will be, after all, my very first time on stage. That state of relaxation persists even after I see my comforting opening-night mantra abruptly deflated. Iﾒve been telling myself no one will come see the show on Thanksgiving night, so even if I freeze or have another of my giggling attacks, there will be no public record of it. But turns out weﾒve sold some 30 advance tickets, and there are sure to be walk-ins.
Not everyone is that stage-jitters-free, it seems, and everyone deals with the condition differently. Bill Hein, a hulking sort of a fellow who plays the menacing compost salesman Bob, sits motionless and alert on a chair, ready to ward off the stage-fright-induced queasiness thatﾒs been known to plague him before shows back in college. Missy Teeters, a self-professed ultra-anxious actress, needs to keep moving to shake off some of that nervous energy, and she goes through a series of exuberant song-and-dance routines. Francisco, of course, has tuned in to his soothing concertos, and heﾒs mixing in a combination of deep breaths and gentle, calming motions. Adrenaline pools and thickens backstage.
With minutes till the start of the show, we exchange the requisite Break a Legs (the preferred way of well-wishing among actors, who tend to be very into quirky superstitions and all manner of jinx prevention). Thereﾒs also a ﾓBreak a Chair,ﾔ a customized sendoff for Mitch Omar, who has a hilarious tussle with a chair in Act 1, when he boils over with frustration at his family.
When the show gets going, those of us who donﾒt enter until later sit backstage and stare at each other, restless and expectant. In the first suspenseful minutes, all we hear are the familiar lines and somebodyﾒs intermittent coughing. Then, the first belly laughs resound in the hall, and we all grin, relieved and exhilarated. From then on, the laughs swell at an ever faster pace, and as I wait for my turn, I find myself craving them. I am drawn to the stage, where all this merriment is effortlessly manufactured. I feel even less fearful: Here we have a sizeable crowd of well-fed, tryptophan-drugged spectators who would have been laughing for about an hour by the time Dr. Jacquelina, my fur-clad character, strides onto the stage.
Mediating on that thought and taking a few deep breaths was all it took to propel me out of my hiding place behind the entrance curtain. I donﾒt freeze, and apparently after weeks of rehearsal, Iﾒve finally run out of things to get me giggling uncontrollably. Even when Francisco got so excited to reunite with Dr. J he almost knocked my furry hat off, I took that in stride. And those laughs from the audience surely give you a momentum and energy you can never quite muster during rehearsal. When I retired backstage for the second act, with everyone but me on stage, I almost felt a little envious of my fellow actors, who brought the show to a smooth completion. Perhaps I can ask David the director or Chris the stage manager really, really nicely to somehow work me into Act 2. But I am getting overzealous too soon. Fourteen shows to go ﾅ
Posted by: Mila on 11/24/2006 at 2:20 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Down to the Wire
Theatre B cofounder Carrie Wintersteen once told me that the beauty of having a small part in a play is, you get to experience the high of venturing on stage without helplessly watching a theater production hijack your life. Thatﾒs not necessarily the way Iﾒve left over the past few days, now that we have a dress rehearsal each evening and the Thanksgiving opening night looms large.
This past Sunday, I spent most of the afternoon and evening at the Main Avenue Theatre, where we scrambled to put the finishing touches to the show. First on the agenda was a rehearsal-in-spurts of sorts that theater people dub Cue-to-Cue. Actors get going on a scene and, just as they are really rolling with it, our no-nonsense stage manager Chris Horsager unceremoniously yells ﾓstopﾔ from his little booth behind the audience seats. The purpose of this stunt is to let Chris figure out just when to train which stage lights on which actors with what intensity. Finally in the spotlight! The show looks so different now that lights have come into play. I love Davidﾒs subdued approach, with the corners of the stage mostly swathed in near-darkness and the actors moving in intimate pools of soft light. So very winter-on-the-lake.
Then, we sat in a circle on the edge of the stage and went over our lines in fast-forward, ditching character for a show of rote memorization. This exercise of racing through the script together is apparently called Snap Lines. Itﾒs our chance to reassure ourselves we have our lines down before our first full dress rehearsal later that evening.
David had gone on a little thrift-store spree earlier that day and put together an appropriately hysterical ensemble for me. Dr. Jacquelina will be a vision in fur. (I specifically checked, and I guarantee itﾒs all fake, so please donﾒt spatter me with paint during the show ﾖ I am clinging to my character precariously enough without environmentalist interventions from the audience.) Quite a few veteran actors have mentioned that oftentimes slipping into the costume completes for them the transformation into their characters. As a matter of fact, Carrie told me for her itﾒs frequently the shoes that do it. Well, coincidentally, I donﾒt own anything fur ﾖ fake or not ﾖ so swaddling myself in layers of fuzziness certainly helps me leave my day-to-day self backstage. Oh, and now I also have a stethoscope!
This week, we dress rehearse nightly, and those run-throughs of the show are really starting to feel like the real deal. Before the kickoff, we cast members huddle in the drafty, murky backstage, among the costume racks and the tables laden with props and the bowl full of breath mints. Though heﾒs more of a pop music guy on most days, Francisco listens to soothing classical concertos on his headphones. When the show kicks into gear, we whisper or silently mouth our lines as voices, clatter and Davidﾒs laughter drift back from the stage. Actors disappear and reappear after stints on stage. As my turn doesnﾒt come until the near end of Act 1, I get plenty of downtime to kick back with a latte and the newspaper. Then, just before itﾒs time to hit the stage, I don my bristly attire, touch up my lip gloss and tip-toe to the stage entrance so as not to let my high heels announce my entry prematurely. I lurk there behind a curtain for a minute or two, and I can almost feel the hi-jinks of opening night.
Posted by: Mila on 11/22/2006 at 11:22 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink
A Week Until Opening Night
I love that Google has helpfully plastered the margins of my blog with ads that urge, ﾓCure your panic symptoms,ﾔ and ﾓStop panic attacks.ﾔ Such a perceptive search engine! Actually, things seem to be right on track with the show. I mostly have my lines down, having achieved a higher state of consciousness theater folks term ﾓoff-bookﾔ ﾖ the moment in rehearsal when your lines suddenly come to you and you can stop roaming the stage with your nose stuck in the script. (My new favorite place to practice my lines: On the drive home from work. To fellow drivers, I canﾒt possibly look that much more ridiculous than when I'm belting out to my CDs). We also now have a beautiful set, with a labyrinth of ceiling-high birch stumps that have mysteriously sprung up among the furniture in Maria and Frankﾒs cabin.
Still, Iﾒve never been one to have trouble coming up with new reasons to fret when tried-and-tested ones dissipate. Hereﾒs what recently landed on my list:
E The outfit: I might be giving away too much here, but weﾒre planning to outfit Dr. Jacquelina in a white snowsuit, with perhaps a little Red Cross emblem on it. Sheﾒs way too improbable a character to dress in a predictable doctorﾒs white coat, and plus, she is making a house call to a remote cabin in the dead of winter. One of my fellow cast members, Scott Horvik, who plays Frank, apparently has some sort of snowsuit connection, so he offered to try and track down a costume for me. After I shared my size with him, I got to thinking about Alicia Silverstone, who played Batgirl in ﾓBatman & Robinﾔ some 10 years ago. Just this summer, a friend had told me that Alicia ﾖ who for the record is now in amazing shape ﾖ apparently outgrew her clingy Batgirl number by the start of shooting and had a highly embarrassing time squeezing into it each day on the set. That got me rather nervous. What if my snowsuit is delivered in the size I requested, and I canﾒt possibly fit into it? There will be the whole cast, shaking their heads and murmuring, ﾓIs she crazy, fibbing about her size when weﾒre trying to find her a costume?ﾔ
E The giggles: I canﾒt help it. Dr. Jacquelina cracks me up. My fellow actors crack me up. My director Davidﾒs slightest chuckle cracks me up. Yes, itﾒs a merry old time during rehearsal, but will I get my fits of uncontrollable laughter under control by opening night? I am not sure my character is meant to be quite as giggly. I recently got some advice from cast member Mitch Omar. He told me to meditate on attending a funeral before I step on stage. I am not sure my character is meant to be quite as somber, but I guess itﾒs worth a shot.
E The unwieldy arms: Long after youﾒve memorized your lines and figured out your trajectory on stage, thereﾒs still one pesky thing actors usually still need to work on: What to do with your hands? Last week, I wrote a story about NDSUﾒs production of ﾓThe Recognition of Sakuntala,ﾔ a Sanskrit play that calls for actors to sign their lines as they speak them. At first, I admired the student actors for essentially learning two separate scripts: the words and the elaborate gestures. But now I also envy them a bit for having such a clear-cut solution to this actor predicament. David, however, raised a good point: Dr. J doesnﾒt speak English all that well, and she often wonders if people get her. So he gave me license to sign all I want, even though such over-the-top gesturing would be a definite no-no for your average fluent-in-English character. Iﾒm in luck.
Posted by: Mila on 11/15/2006 at 8:40 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink