Eggshells

The accusatory emails petered off after I contacted both parties and asked for discretion. Apparently what happened was this: The actor, who revealed he had worked previous versions of this show, made whispered directorial suggestions to other actors Wednesday night, and the director caught wind of them. She didn't appreciate the back-seat driving and let fly in the emails. He fired back. I find out after rehearsals tonight that the director was tempted to cancel the show based on his comments. But, keep in mind that she's been virtually abandoned by the crew. The producer's out, the assistant director quit, and we have actors who have passively quit by simply not showing up.

I can't blame her for wanting to dump the show. And if we do this -- if we simply call it a night -- it needs to be sooner rather than nearer to showtime. I don't want to see my work go for naught, but I can't say I'm surprised by it. I had trepidation of working with this company, and everything began here with a last-minute change of productions. This show requires a sizable cast, and this follows a show with another large cast. It's adventurous to mount two big shows consecutively, and our director, from what I can see, is a lone captain. She still has to fill roles, and we're three weeks from the curtain going up.

Tonight, everything seems OK when we assemble. The actor/photographer is setting up another publicity image. The cast takes the room's temperature, and we agree silently that things are calm. It's possible that this was a needed pressure release. The director apologizes to me if I was offended by the online argument, and I sincerely say that isn't the case. I don't use the script for the majority of tonight's Act Three but do pick it up for the last ten pages. I'm going to memorize those this weekend. Because most of us are trying to work offscript (and mostly succeeding) we start acting, instead of merely reciting, and there are genuine moments of tension. The defendant, especially, is doing some heavy lifting in my cross-examination. Doc is obviously studying his closing argument.

As the actor/photographer takes the stand, he raps the attorney table in character, and the director compliments him. So far, so peaceful. We are told later to pretend the gun is heavier so it doesn't look like a toy. I worry that my projection limits the variety of my enunciation. I'll work on that starting next week. I want each examination to be distinct as the play progresses. In this last act, particularly (as the murder conspiracy is revealed and the case threatens to unravel) my guy has to, well, he has to mirror the director. He's got to keep his argument together even, and I enjoy this, even if it's not the true version of events. He gets more dramatic, more aggressive. By the end of the play, he's desperate to put away the defendant because of her perceived moral decadence instead of whether she killed someone.

I have trouble with the gun's serial number, CC3490, and it continues to come out of my mouth in a jumble of syllables. It makes us all goofy. These things happen all the time in rehearsals. We run a bit late tonight, but we repeat segments of the act to get timing and delivery correct. The judge, try as he might (or might not) still doesn't know what page we're on half the time.

Tonight is a full-play runthrough, and I will appreciate having Saturday off. I haven't seen much of Your Sister this week. Unfortunately, we start Sunday practices this weekend.

Official play website

Rehearsals
Drama!
Getting Serious
Our First Friday
Act Three Lines
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
Auntie Em!

Drama!

We have an early call time to take playbill headshots. I eat a heavy Mexican lunch around 2 because I won't have time for supper before or during rehearsal, and I use the lunch to go over Act One lines. When we arrive, the actor playing the father-in-law insists on taking publicity photos. I didn't get word about this before, and I have no costume to wear. I took my suit back home.

Now this is the guy who was off-book first with his lines and presented a very professional attitude, but now he's anxious. He seems to be in a big hurry, which would be understandable if he had to get the pics to the newspaper tonight, but the paper prints and mails on Wednesdays. He can't possibly make the last paper of the week tonight. I change into the top half of the suit I tried on last week. He sets up the shots he wants with the defendant, gangster, and both attorneys. And one of the guns we pick up from the prop room basket of toy guns. It's hard to understand just what kind of positions he wants, and it takes him a while to set us up. And this doesn't help his anxiety. He also apparently has a burgeoning grudge with the director over his ideas for how things should be. In a recent email, the director threatened to quit if he doesn't knock it off. Yes, please, let's make this production more difficult. As I type this, emails between the two continue to fly by, and they apparently don't know how to turn off the "group mailing" option.

I get my headshot taken between publicity photos. We don't have all the cast here. Again. Oddly enough, at least one Act One actor shows up for the headshot but then leaves for the night before she can rehearse. We again have no cop or widow, played by two students from the local college. We haven't see them in a week. Brick from Cat is here, however, dressed in a suit he owns, and he very much look the part of the PI. He also reads it very well. We chat before rehearsal and talk about the play and doings at the theatre where we performed before. I probably won't do another play until Spring, and that might be the Schoolhouse Rock musical. It's too enticing to let go by.

I do Act One (35 pages) without my script and call for lines a few times. Luckily, I have the other actors to bail me out. I have trouble with the small lines ("that's all" versus "your witness," etc.), but I can hit the major points of conversation. Because the first housekeeper and the cop and the widow are absent, the gal playing my secretary again reads those parts. Later on, the defendant's real-life son pitches in, adopting a high falsetto for the housekeeper lines.

We're about four lines into the widow scene when the director enters the room, points dramatically to my secretary reading on the witness stand, and says "you're our widow." And just like that, the gal who has been there virtually every night even though she has no speaking lines gets a speaking role because the first actress flaked out on us. And both deserve what they get. This also now pits the secretary actress and the defendant against each other, and as old friends, they relish it. Their end of the act staredown now has ten times the cattiness. They trade wigs and try on dresses between their lines.

Official play website

Rehearsals
Getting Serious
Our First Friday
Act Three Lines
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Pictures of the Day
That's the gangster on the left. I'm standing intentionally in front of a wall socket to hide it.

Getting Serious

The Friday rehearsal, and the absence of so many, forced the director to add Sunday rehearsals, something I had hoped to avoid. I do agree that we need more focused rehearsals, but I'd argue for doing more with our weeknights. We're still rehearsing just one act each night, and we should tackle at least two of the three acts instead. A mid-day email laid down the law on actors appearing for rehearsals and focused on the youngsters. She can only refer to the two college kids, but we've also had plenty of the older actors not show up. For instance, the new clerk isn't here tonight. I haven't seen the medical examiner in about a week. The girl who plays the secretary -- and has no lines -- has shown up like clockwork, reading lines for the missing actors. I'd seriously consider giving her one of the speaking roles and demoting someone to her role. The housekeeper from act one shows up tonight and wants to run her scene, but it's from Act One, and I didn't prepare for that. We run it, and I do passably well, I suppose.

I spent the later afternoon going over my Act Two lines. It's the smallest amount of dialogue I have, and it should be the first act I can do from memory. But I screw up at the rehearsals. I don't have my script in hand (hoping to avoid the crutch), and I blank twice when talking to two witnesses. I'm not relying on cue lines for my stuff, and I stumble when the other actors pause to search for words. They were also off book. The new calendars tell us we have 16 scheduled rehearsals before we open, and I want to be off script as soon as possible. I do notice a change in stride and posture. I'm upright, more confident. I'm getting lawyery. The defendant actress has her script at hand, but she's using it as little as possible. What we really need is someone to read along and give us lines when asked. The judge could do it, and it would force him to follow along for his lines. I'm still considering making a script tape for my commute. When I'm sitting at the attorney table, I frantically review my script.

We speak a little on costumes beforehand, and I tell the director what the costumer told me. I'm not giving up on my $5 suit. I try on another jacket, and it's too big for me. Thank God, too. It's heavy and thick, and would kill me if I wore it for three hours each night. The secretary and the defendant want the same pair of shoes, and the secretary eventually wins them by the end of the night.

I'm taking a rare lunch break today to go over Act One. I want to do it fully off script.

I should also note that the cast is agog by my many geeky t-shirts. We spend some time each night talking about them.

Official play website

Rehearsals
Our First Friday
Act Three Lines
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

Picture of the Day
Emma Peel. Just 'cause.

Our First Friday

The first Friday night complete-play rehearsal coincided with homecoming at Your Sister's school. We knew my secretary wasn't going to be here. But when we start Act One, we are missing five witnesses just from the first act. One is gone for another weeklong trip. The others just no-showed. When I stand up to call the third missing character, the defendant actress asks why we were even doing Act One. I agree. But the director says, "we're doing it for the attorneys." And I have to agree with that too. I had 90% of my lines down, but I can't say how Doc is doing. He's using index cards with a shorthand script. I'm still carrying around the whole script, and I sneak peeks now and then.

Between acts, Doc tells me the 1993 cast of the show featured attorneys who used index cards throughout the performance. He's saying this as a way of asking me if I want to do so. I don't. While I agree attorneys would have notes and paperwork at their tables, I see those as props for the show, not crutches for the actors. I don't want them. If he wants to use them, and the director OKs it, fine. But I'll work the show sans notes. The accessibility of a back-up script will keep the words from sticking in my brain.

A number of us try Act One without scripts, and it goes haltingly at best. We have no flow, and we move backward at times to get a batch of dialogue right. The act takes a long time. We also may be tired after four days of rehearsals and facing a long night on a Friday. Then again, we may cranky after talking to the costume lady.

She rolled out a costume cart before the run-through to show us potential outfits from the theatre's stores. She shot down both suits that Doc and I brought and shot them down with barely a glance. She then tossed off a comment about allowing them if the director wanted them in a manner that suggested that she wouldn't like anything we brought to the show. The director didn't argue the point, and I tried on a black pinstripe suit hanging on the rack. The jacket fit great, but the pants were much too small. When I told the costumer this, she quickly suggested we mix the jacket and vest with solid black pants. Which would be fine if I was playing a butler or the Joker. But there's no way -- no fucking way -- that a 1930s New York DA would wear a mixed suit as he prosecuting the killer of a fictional Rupert Murdoch. I don't argue the point tonight, but nearer to gametime, yes, I'm bringing back the complete gray suit. I don't need to validate the purchase; it's only $5. I'm not that attached to it save that it's the right look for the show, and it fits like a glove. And, OK yeah, the costumer pissed me off.

I get the feeling she did this a lot tonight and mentally blame her for the show's early bad vibe. It might be no coincidence that the rehearsal goes much smoother after she leaves. Although, I have to say that I'm prickly as we begin because the other actors are chatting at normal volume when I'm trying to recite my lines from memory. I have to yell over them so the director can hear me. It's rude, and I want to throttle them.

The assistant director, who was present for one night, quit. The others say she's burned out, and I wonder how much that applies to the actors coming to us from the just finished Fiddler production. As I recall, they make up half our cast. We do have a new actor, and he's playing the clerk. An older gent with the voice of God. He'll make a fine addition to the show, I think. He obviously knows some of the others, and he jokes with them throughout the night. Because he's so otherwise quiet, the jokes slay us, coming out of nowhere with shocking sarcasm.

The later acts go OK, and the play does feel strong as we see it in its entirety. I get a better sense of my character's strategy of demeanor with varying witnesses. It's a long night, a full three hours compared to our usual two.

I spend Saturday and Sunday completing the memorization for Act two and beginning Act Three. I'm starting to force myself to stock the script in my forebrain by making myself recite the lines as fast as I can pronounce each word out of my mouth. It's speed talking, and it's how I ran my lines for Cat. I now have about five pages left to commit to my brains, and then I can start working rehearsals without a script in my hand. I still lose some incidental lines here and there, but I believe I'm retaining the majority of the lines. No, no index cues cards for me.

Official play website

Rehearsals
Act Three Lines
Dusting Off Act One
Line Trouble
End of Second Week
'Go and Do Likewise, Gents'
Script Work
J'Accuse
Cramming
Walking and Talking
Readthrough
Marking the Floor

Auditions
First Night
Second Night
Third Night
Fourth Night

My lawnmower may have cut its last lawn. It continues to kill spark plugs with a nasty oil leak, and the blade almost fell off the undercarriage as I moved to the front yard. It's a good machine; it's served me well for ten years. And I'll be sorry to take it out back and shoot it.

We took steaks and taters to Kathy and Travis Sunday night for a leisurely dinner cookout and conversation. I lost the fantasy league week by fewer than three points.

I don't know what you've heard about Thanksgiving, but here's the latest. Your Mom, while talking to P2, did just what I advised her to avoid. She second-guessed their ability to host us with a new baby and a holiday dinner, and Your Brother called the whole thing off. There is still plenty of time for plans to get back on track. But I can't blame him. What else could he do when she's suggesting they haven't thought this through? The last I heard, Your Dad was going to call them back later in the weekend to calm the waters, but I don't know how that went. Also, I'm not positive that the plan is canceled. It's possible he suggested that only the two of them stay home. I don't know. I can't speculate. But Chez Debacle still intends to go if they're cooking a bird. I'll give you the latest as I get it. But until you hear about this from Your Brother or Your Parents, keep mum. Your Mom only called Your Sis to be told she did nothing wrong.

Picture of the Day
Am I geeking out over this? Verily. I am geeking out over this.