20 April 2011
A long day of rehearsing, revising and rehearsing once again...nice lunch break with the ladies at a fabulously delicious restaurant and then back to rehearsing. I am such a work horse, I forget to take breaks and no one mentioned stopping. What patience, commitment to the process, dedication and flexibility are present at every class/rehearsal! And equally important, everyone's support of their fellow actor/writers...All working together in this creative process!
22 April 2011
I met with Willie and Ted to rehearse, 'The Handcuffs' scene written by Willie. When we arrived at the Community Center - it was closed! The skies were hovering with pouting gray clouds and a list mist of rain with promises of heavy showers. I asked if they would mind rehearsing outside. Without a moment's hesitation, they both agreed...No complaints...no whining...both enthusiastic to work outside in the chilly, misty afternoon of a 'Good Friday'.
To the rescue arrived Evan, Technical Director of Matthews Playhouse who offered to let us rehearse in the warehouse/tech shop of the Matthews Playhouse. What an adventure we had driving down to the warehouse, past the locked barriers. And then two hours rehearsing in the cavernous space filled with remnants of past productions. We all joked about Ted and the handcuffs... Wrenn
The Memory Chair (cont’d)
Wednesday, April 21, 2011
This is week twelve—our final meeting as a class unit. And ten days till—Showtime!
To open this wrap-up week, Wrenn had us working our voices, exercising our tongues, waking up facial muscles, and laughing as though having heard the greatest of jokes!
We moved next into the enactment of our stories: seven skits were rehearsed, and the last performance was a poem by Lynnsy—of which each of us were given a foam red ball to wear over our noses—the gist of it being the title of her poem: Red Noses. (And as one would expect, laughter broke out again as we saw how changed we all looked sporting a bright red bulb in the middle of our faces).
We broke for lunch, and the afternoon was rehearsal time…and also discovery time: we went waaay over our time allowance. Plays have to be revised, monologues have to be edited, and only a handful of skits escape the editing round.
As Wrenn says, “changes happen, even up to the drawing back of the curtain!”
I wrote this last blog in my mind several times over, and like the line above, changes occurred there, too: my heart fills to overflowing with words; my head tells me to put a lid on them!
So…I am ever so grateful to have shared time with this marvelous group of people; we bring a diversity of circumstances to the table, we come together when our lives have traveled many paths, observed and been a part of history in the making; and we’re now able to tell of certain events as though the story belongs to a stranger, and not of ourselves….
I have learned much, pushed back tears, laughed a lot—and found out that lengthy chair time on a steel bottom seat leaves much to be desired.
See you on stage!
Elizabeth (Willie) Towles
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