Rehearsal: 4/18/11

Today's rehearsal was interesting for me. I know Matt kept talking to us about "frustration" but for some reason, I didn't feel frustrated once. I pretty much enjoyed the entire experience. I've been having a lot of worries about doing this play because I've been feeling confused about all of Jeanann's character archs and changes throughout the play. I'm used to doing scene work so there's usually only one major arch that I need to focus on. I've never done a full length straight play before so discovering all of Jeanann's changes has been a challenge for me. Today, when we just focused on the text, it made me realize a lot about how Jeanann develops. I also reacted to lines differently and discovered so many different ways of getting my lines to land on the other person. 

I have also been very worried about my small scene with Jason (and the little scenes I have with Jack) because I'm worried about being "one-note" or losing energy or not playing enough of a variety of dynamic tactics, so today's rehearsal was really helpful because it didn't allow me to worry about those kinds of things. It forced me to come out of my head and allowed me to just listen and respond to the other actors. Also, the amount of physical effort exerted in this exercise helped me with my objective. I could literally get in Jack's face when I wanted something from him and I could actually run away from Jason when he was scaring me. Whenever I messed up a line, it just re-informed me that I need to go back and look over that set of lines again. It wasn't a frustrating experience at all. 

Although it was exhausting running around for two hours, It made me feel more energized, focused, and present in the room. I think this is an exercise we can take a lot from and I hope to do it again for other plays/pieces I am in.