Rehearsals started this weekend for our show.
This is going to be an amazing process! (If I can just get my lines down)
In addition to the exploratory and pedagogical methods of rehearsing, we are going to be leading pre/post show workshops in schools and attending a Forum Theatre event in a prison upstate.
Happy New Year (a couple days late)!
I wish that my first New Year’s resolution could be that I will be better at updating this blog. Unfortunately, I am also a very truthful person, and I know that I will not be able to keep that resolution. Therefore, I will just say that I will try to keep this blog better updated (provided I have anything on which to write other than “I worked, went to rehearsal, ate and slept”)
I have a few days off from rehearsals and classes before heading off for Christmas vacation, and what do I do? Did you say “learn those lines for that show you are supposed to be off-book for at the beginning of rehearsals”? Or how about “walk around New York and take in the wonders of pre-Christmas Metropolis”? Or even “catch up on the sleep you’ve been missing”?
Sorry.
Nope, I’ve been… um… investigating the new narrative and dramatic fiction that is Showtime television series. While I am glad that we do not get HBO (because of all of the series that I have heard tell are available on that wonderful network), we do, unfortunately/fortunately, get Showtime – home to wonderful/addictive series like Huff, Weeds and, as I’ve recently discovered, Dexter. If HBO has built itself on the anti-hero ensemble show (Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome, etc), then Showtime is home to the protagonist with one, albeit MAJOR, flaw. I will claim that I am watching these shows for the sole reason that they are a modern Shakespeare, Ibsen or Chekhov. This is humanity writ large. With our imperfections intact. We connect with the protagonist beyond the superficial laugh track connection of a sitcom. We cringe at every near reveal of the protagonist’s deep, dark secret. And every episode ends in a cliffhanger you know is coming, but, because the writing is just so darn good, we still half-hope will not arrive at the end of this episode.
This is all mere justification for my couch potato obsession, which is the Showtime television series.
Please, gentle reader, do not think less of me for my indulgence in serialized cable entertainment. I am only human. And when good literature, in any format, appears to me, I am powerless to resist.
That being said, luckily, the cable season is over now that I am beginning rehearsals for my next two shows.
Not that I should have to apologize for anything.