The Table Read..

So this past weekend, we had our first rehearsals for "The Heiress".

I love this process, so so much. This is where the work is, kids! Right here is how we actors make it look effortless onstage-because we rehearse it, and feel it out, and make it our own!

We got together twice this weekend. Saturday afternoon, we sat onstage, just a few of us in the cast since the whole group couldn't be there, and read through just some scenes that we were in.

Sunday though, was when things really started to kick off and the rehearsals, in my mind, actually began.

We had to be at the theatre for 7pm so we could all be together, and record the reading so that we could all get tapes to practice our lines (I will not be using this tape-I don't learn my lines like that, but to some actors in the cast, I know that tape will be GOLD!).

I got there late (not my usual habit-I find it rude, disrespectful and very unprofessional to show up to call late!) due to a family dinner that was mis-timed.

Anyway, when I got there, all the chairs were in a circle and a recording device was on a small table in the middle to record us.

This is when magic happened! Being able to hear everyone's voices, to see them breating life into these characters for the first time together. It was a bit of amazing!

As the reading went on -and it was a bit rusty, due to the fact that it was our first reading-, I could see us all getting more into our characters. We directed our voices to each other, and tried to make ourselves blend into this world that we have to re-create onstage for an audience at the end of April.

Listening to everyone, I could tell we were going to be a good group. The director of this production absolutely cast the show correctly (and believe me, I've seen performances, and been in performances where roles were terribly mis cast). And I can't wait to keep going, to get to know my character, Maria, better, and better yet, to get to know my fellow actors better.

Acting is funny- You go into a project with a group of essentially complete strangers (unless you've worked with them before), and by the end of the run of the show, you are a family, with a bond possibly stronger than the one you have with your own family. You have inside jokes, funny moments, memories, and stories that you tell with your theatre family year after year.

That's the great part about rehearsing, you get to mold, get to know your character, the world your character lives in, and get to play with them for as long as you'd like-until the end of the run.

This is just the beginning of a long road-we still have 2 months before we open for 4 weeks and 15 shows. By then..we'll be ready. And I'll keep everyone in the loop of what's going on and everything like that. Maybe I'll even put some pictures here, too :).

Until next time...