Assignment: Create an entry post* (not page – see below) for each day of your rehearsal process and final production. An entry should consist of a rehearsal plan at the top, and then notes on how the rehearsal went overall.
*This is a post, not a page. Blog posts allow you to keep daily ongoing set of notes and/or journal entries. Here you would create a new post for every day of rehearsals, title the post ‘Rehearsal Journal Post’ and then add the date. In addition, be sure to label this and all rehearsal journal posts under the ‘Rehearsal Journal’ category so that they show up under the ‘Rehearsal Journal’ subheading which is located under the ‘Rehearsal Process’ Tab.
Grading Criteria: Thorough completion of assignment (including rehearsal plans as well as notes from rehearsal) with one entry p[er day of rehearsal and performance. Thoughtful notes and analysis will be given higher grades.
Miki Du Bois:
General Rehearsal Plan
- Introduction and my experience with theatre
- Consent-based practice
- While we won’t be touching each other, please let me know if you have any other boundaries or if something isn’t working in your body. Or if something isn’t making sense, please ask clarification questions!!
- Characters!! What do you all think about your characters? Relationships? The scene? The play?
- What my thoughts are right now in terms of characters and my vision of the play and scene
- Most importantly, Father Flynn did it…
- Elaborating on relationships that I am interested in exploring
- Popcorn read!!!
- Go through the script and establish the beats and points of emphasis
Rehearsal journal
I think today went relatively well. It was admittedly very nerve racking, but we made it through. I first wanted to start off with a general establishment of respect and boundaries, and then of course my excitedness to work with them.
Moving into the play, it was nice to see that there was quite a bit of overlap between the ways that they are thinking about their characters and the ways in which I am thinking about their characters. There was an instance though that there was some disagreement. In my vision of the show, Father Flynn is guilty. I believe that he molested Muller. It’s not really something I am willing to change. When reading the play for the first time, it was my immediate interpretation. And that informed all my thoughts of the play and analyses of the scene. When I asked the actor playing Father Flynn what he thought, he said that he isn’t sure that he did it and that he thinks that immediately assuming that he did it is the easy choice. But as the director, I did assert that this was my vision. But other than that, I was on the same general page as everyone – which makes my life easier given the time constraints. There were things that I wanted to dive deeper into or some nuances and character complexities that they didn’t mention, but that’s okay. We will get there.
The popcorn read was very helpful. It allowed me to see how the actors interpreted the other characters keeping in mind their own character assignments. I didn’t anticipate it being as helpful as it was. It shed a lot of light on how they were looking at the scene without discussing it in depth. And it was fun!
That was all in our meeting before class. During class, we went through an overview of the scenes and the major parts that I saw as building tension and conflict. After that, we did a read through and I established each individual beat and places I wanted to stress tension, conflict, and pauses. I didn’t get to blocking. It was mostly script work.
I think I need to be more confident in my abilities. I was nervous. I don’t know if it came off that way… I hope it didn’t. I had a plan and carried it out but it was scary… I wasn’t expecting to be that nervous. I think maybe being more specific in my plans would be good. That may relieve the nerves, and also trusting the fact that I did a lot of work to prepare. I’m also wondering how to effectively deal with when a vision that doesn’t work in space. For some reason, it just didn’t feel sufficient. So how do you deal with that, especially under the time constraint? I don’t think it would be a huge issue if not for the time constraint but I want to effectively use my time but also honor the vision of the scene I want to present. I guess that question goes with the rehearsal plan in general. What do you do if your plan doesn’t work out the way you expected it to – other than adapt?
Yasmine Adam 9/20/21
General Rehearsal Plan:
- Introduction
- Check in
- Yasmine’s Ground Rules
- Question and Answer
- First Read Through
- Popcorn Read
- I participated in this read
- Discussion: Initial thoughts? Questions? Is Father Flynn Guilty/ How do we want to portray Father Flynn?
- Second Read Through
- I sat out of this
- Sat on the floor- no blocking- and read through the script but this time each person read his/her role
- Discussion: Questions and Answer
- Third Read Through
- On our feet, set up a minimal set (3 chairs), told them to move around but didn’t give them set blocking
- Gave each of them a word and told them to incorporate it if they wanted
- After Run through, discussion with questions and answers
- Schedule Next Meeting
- Oct 4 from 12-1 Acting Studio
Journal:
Oh my gosh, wow I feel so official! Contrary to what I had anticipated- well feared- I was more prepared than I thought. Wow, I really need to start having more confidence in myself and my abilities. I had scheduled an introductory coffee date at 7th street on Thursday, but my health had different plans, and sadly today was the first day that our group actually got to meet each other. I started by breaking the ice with a check in: I told them my philosophy about the importance of a check in and I let them know that they are welcome to share whatever, if anything, they want. Secondly, I shared with them my philosophy about theatre in general, endeavoring to create a safe and welcoming environment. As I have reiterated a myriad of times, I strongly believe in the healing ability of theatre, and I believe that it is supposed to be at the very least, fun. I said: “If you are not having fun, something needs to change.” I tried to give them the pep talk, although it played out nicer in my head, and I reassured them about progress verses perfection in this process (wow, cannot believe that is coming from my mouth!). I also let them know that they can text me or pull me aside if they have any questions or concerns and I made sure that last Tuesday, we had a functional group chat going. Before we took on the text, I had us do a “popcorn read,” something that we did during one of the beginning rehearsals of Appropriate which I greatly benefited from. When reading your own part of the script aloud, sometimes one can become too preoccupied with how they deliver lines and forget to actually be comprehended the text: this was a purely comprehension read and for me to see if there were perhaps words that needed to be learned how to pronounce (i.e Monsignor and Ecumenical). As I said in class, I participated in the popcorn read so that I could establish myself on an “equal playing field” with my actors and so that they could see my involvement from the inception of this process. We the preceded to read through the script again, still not on our feet, but this time they read his/her assigned role. After spending time analyzing the script, addressing questions, and asking the unavoidable question- Was Father Flynn actually guilty- we were ready to get it on its feet. I deliberately set up minimal prop pieces (just three chairs in a triangular configuration) and gave them no blocking. I wanted to see what their initial interpretation of the script was like without my feedback. Before jumping into the scene for the third time now, I gave each of them a word and I told them to try to incorporate this word if they can, once again under their individual interpretation and discretion. I gave the verb “scrambling” to Father Flynn (Bryan), “authority/discipline” to Father Aloysius (Avery), and Sister James was given the word “optimism” (Izzy). Although the nature of the words was vague, for the most part, I was especially impressed by each and every individual interpretation. Avery and Izzy especially really seemed to ruminate on the words and employed their interpretation into the scene- for instance Izzy was much more joyful and demure while Avery this time could have been viewed as the disciplinarian and the person of higher status- and for the first time as a director, I felt as if I did something right. My own interpretation was somehow brought into fruition. Our next meeting is from 12-1 in the acting studio on Monday the 4th, and the space has been signed out.
Nabeel Jan, Rehearsal Plan
- General Introductions, icebreakers, etc
- Thoughts on the play
- Thoughts on their characters
- Thoughts on each others characters
- Motivations
- Where are they coming from in the play?
- Decisions
- Are we treating Father Flynn as Guilty
- Is Sister Aloysious doing this to spite him, or protect Donald Mueller
- Read through of a specific section
- Father Flynn as guilty, Sister A being spiteful
- Father Flynn as not guilty, Sister A being spiteful
- Father Flynn as guilty, Sister A protective
- Father Flynn as not guilty, Sister A protective
- General thoughts
- Homework
- How would your character order a cup of coffee
- Find 2 people (characters, or people in your life) who you can steal characteristcs from.
Journal:
Although I’ve directed Film in the past, this is really strange feeling. I feel strange being in charge of kids my age but I really like how it’s going so far. I think it’s compelling seeing how people react to feedback, and reading how people best recieve it so that we can get to where we need to go faster. I’m really excited to see where this goes and cannot wait for the cocktail process.