The show must go on...

Wow. 

The show opens tomorrow night. 

It has all gone so fast.

Tonight was our long dress rehearsal – 6 straight hours of practice.  We were all pretty pumped for it – and it was fantastic and horrible at the same time!  To start with, we were missing one of our actors for the first two and a half hours of it.  We made due without her, but it’s always hard when you’re missing an actor in a production this small.  That, and having to clean the stage after every run, made it a little annoying.  But everyone did pretty well, considering. 

Then we got to the last run.  For this, we were missing one of the main actors.  Boy, did we find out how much we need him!  This run was totally off-book, so when someone messes up, it is up to the actors to figure out how to get out of their mess.  Well, there was a pretty big mess up that cause the actors to skip three pages of the script, move on, then go back to where they first messed up and repeat it – all of it!  But the good part is that they figured out how to keep moving, instead of standing there waiting for someone to remember their line.  

So whatever happens tomorrow night, whether they forget some lines, or skip whole scenes, the show must go on!

-K

We have a stage!

I will tell you; it is not often that the actor’s first time using the stage is a week before the opening.  But, hey, our play isn’t like anyone else’s. 

Thanks to the techies (the people behind the scenes who build the set and basically do everything necessary for the play besides act), the stage is finally finished (and stable).  For most actors, the transition from a practice space to the actual set messes them up a lot, but these kids were amazing.  They remembered their lines (most of them) and did very well adapting their blocking on the fly, right in the middle of the scene, without ever missing a beat.  The only problem was getting them to open up (not turn their backs to anyone in the audience).  This is a problem because the audience sits on two sides of the stage, not just the normal one side.  If you open up to one side, you usually turn your back to the other.  But, as I said, the actors did amazingly well adapting continuously. One of the only things left to do is get the costumes.  I know the actors are really looking forward to it; it can be very exiting. 

The actors are doing great, and it will be a fantastic show (if they only remember to stay quiet backstage!)

-K

Those 4 Little Words...

..."I love you too!" No, I'm only kidding.

But yesterday, Paul did say those 4 words that are like cherub's music to a cast.

He said ... drum roll, please...

"We have a play."

(CUE EXPLOSION OF FIREWORKS AND EXCITEMENT!)

Now all we need are costumes, lights and televisions. Oh yeah and Maybe the stage would be useful... But acting wise, Paul says we're ready to go and those are magic words a WEEK before opening night.

A few members of the thespian gang from last year are coming back to watch (at least those in the Philadelphia area). The freshman won't understand but, at least for me, the show is for them. And Paul. The show is always for Paul.

-C

ES VERDAD! Vamos a estar en el aire.

ITS TRUE! We are going to be on the air. As Paul said, When have we been two weeks before a show and managed to get through a full run through? Exactly. Never. Last year, we hadn't seen the play the full way through until opening night. So, yes. we are set. No longer worried.

We had an amazing run today. It was our second full run and it was absolutely insane. We ran it as an "Italian" (the play term for "as-fast-as-you-possibly-can-speak-words" run through of a show). Dear audience member, be prepared to be blown away and sit in the audience for thirty seconds asking yourself if that did IN FACT just happen.

Trust me. It did. And no, we have no idea why either.

Its true. In the adrenalin, those blocking days are instantly forgotten.

-C

Impressionable Parents...

We're moving into the basement soon hopefully! The stage is being built and we saw the pieces in progress.

I think the show is gonna actually come together. We always doubt it when we have 3 weeks to put together a play and we haven't even gotten half way through it. But a full Saturday rehearsal was exactly what we needed- hours only interrupted by the open house parents coming through and listening to Dad rant about "young people" and Ana lose her mind and jump out of the window. Perhaps it was a perfect representation of Friends Select. The future parents at least know what they're getting their kids into.

-C

Costumes and Cameras

It was an exiting day! We recorded the opening credits to the internal TV show – very fun.  I even got a little camera time, despite being the stage manager.  Some of the actors got their first tiny taste of costumes.  Of course, hand in hand with costumes come wardrobe malfunctions, and we had many. 

We ran pages 19-25 without scripts for the first time.  Following that, the kids learned all the blocking for pages 19-23.  Like most days, blocking includes some script modifications.  At one point, the director changed almost half a page of dialogue, but rightfully so – the English translation was not making much sense. 

-K 

Estamos En El Aire - Things Not Expected

Today we got through pages 1-19. It went pretty well, despite two of our actors being late due to a calculus test. Though everyone did well, it was a hard practice. The second run-through was the actors first time off book, meaning that if they forget their lines or cues, they have to either make it up or skip it. Remembering their lines (and sometimes the other kids lines as well) AND doing all their blocking at the same time? That proved difficult for some. At times, half a page was accidentally dropped. But all the blocking was perfect.

We had a few unexpected visitors today. College students Alex Hughes and Oscar Serpell, both former masters of FSS theater, dropped in for the last half of practice. Being completely unfamiliar with the play, they watched our second run-through and then gave us some insight as to what an audience member would think – very helpful.

We were glad to have them back, if only for a little while.

-K

Esta tierra es tu tierra, esta tierra es mi tierra...

Blocking... Blocking....Blocking....(Think "Bueller.... " from Ferris Bueller's day off). I think this part of the process takes more out of everyone than full run throughs of the play and we only get through like 3 pages at a time.

Also, teaching spanish pronunciation to someone who isn't familiar with the language is crazy. I can't imagine hearing the differences if I didn't speak it myself. I remember trying to teach a foreign exchange student how to say "feet" (she kept saying "fate"). But they got it a lot better than if they had tried to teach me how to pronounce words in Mandarin.

-C

Estamos En El Aire

Today we had practice in the basement (where the play will take place) and the actors got familiar with performing in the space down there.  This is hard for a lot of them because they have to learn not to walk offstage, even though the stage isn’t yet marked in the basement.  I have to give them credit, though.  They did pretty well avoiding the invisible walls and the edges of the invisible stage!  

We still had some actors missing today, which is always hard on everyone.  But all did fine, even when having a conversation with someone who isn’t there (today seemed to be all about responding to invisible things…I guess that is a good acting exercise, though). 

All in all, it was a fun day.  The actors got to use some props and (some of them) got to stomp and scream around.  A very therapeutic and exiting practice. 

– K   

Estamos en el Aire Todavia?

Yesterday we finally set about to blocking pages 10 through 20. I think thats something I always forget about- how long and grueling a process it is to block sences. Its one of those things that you forget about once the play starts running smoothly and it gets off the ground.
One thing I noticed as we were running lines on Friday was actors keeping in character. Our cast is probably half (or more) freshman- which at first was scary. When I was a freshman, I certainly wasn't ready for the amount of lines these kids have. So first day this year, I definitely had some trepidation (especially when we had such amazing actors years past, I don't know if those shoes can ever be filled). And something I didn't learn my freshman year was the concept of "staying in character when calling for a line". This translates to: when you ask the assistant director what your line is, if you are angry, you remain angry as you call out "line!". If you are happy, you remain happy even as you knowingly butcher the script. I don't remember having a part big enough my freshman year to mess up my half a dozen lines but I remember that "staying in character" wasn't a part of my vocabulary back then.

But yesterday, after only a day of Paul asking them to remain in character, Actors were calling for line sounding anxious and angry and even 65 years old. I was impressed. The play has lost a large number of actors this year due graduation, college applications and outside school productions, so it was hard for me to think that practice could ever feel the same or have the same level of talent. Yet the freshman are quickly proving themselves to me. We'll see what comes (its only been a week) but if they're only freshmen, who knows how the productions will be their senior year?

-C

Estamos en el Aire

Today was Rosh Hashanah, as many of you may know, which made practice today hard. We have so many people on stage at the same time, we haven't had a single rehearsal where everyone's assembled. But a few more actors were missing today which just meant that half of the characters lines had to be read by other people. Usually this is the assistant director's job or who ever can be on book ("on book" means to be reading the script, ready to give lines to actors.) But today there were so many characters to cover, people just stepped up and said lines that weren't theirs. I'm not sure I remember having that united effort from actors to get through a few read throughs. It really showed a promising cast that I'm leaving behind next year when I go to college and relinquish the reigns on the theater I've loved and lived in for so long. I'll sleep a little easier knowing these kids have what it takes to get a show on its feet- despite issues with schedules or days dedicated to theology.

-C

Welcome to Behind The Scenes!

Hey all!

This is C and K here to talk about the fall play. Its titled "Estamos en el aire" and for those of you who don't speak Spanish, it roughly translates to "We're on the air". Like the title suggests, its a play about a TV show. Connecting to the InterSession theme of South America, its a Chilean play about the reality of a reality TV show called "The Perry Family"- think Jersey Shore meets George Lopez.
C is one of the siblings in the play who is enveloped in the drama of "The Perry Family". K is the stage manager of the play. We'll be the ones keeping you updated here.
For now, we're in the baby steps of just learning the script so not much development as of yet. But we'll let you know when it starts to take shape.

Behind the Scenes