Hey Bruce, Just checking in . . . for the last time.
Thank you all for making this a life changing summer for all of us. But even more than that – Thank you for giving us the tools and allowing us to make for ourselves a summer that has changed us – that has allowed us to ask some important questions, explore some important ideas. Thank you for giving us the freedom to choose our own adventure and encouraging us to embrace that choice. “Thank you” are two words not powerful enough to express our gratitude for allowing us to see ourselves for what we are – luck, blessed, gifts to this world.
And so, I, Laura Jernigan (otherwise known as Roux) will bring us full circle. I started this thing off and now on behalf of the entire intern class of 2008 I am signing off.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
~ Laura J
p.s. To continue thoughts I started in this blog, I’ve started my own blog. You can see it at http://lobstermanswife.blogspot.com/
Friday, August 29, 2008
This is Actually Happening/EVENT
I wrote this during tech for the apprentice showcase
I wrote previously that theatre should be an event. Theatre should, as Anne Bogart said, make us lean forward. Eric, the marketing director, came to talk to the apprentices a while back. WCP’s marketing thing right now is all about having an EXPERIENCE. He told the apprentices that an audiences EXPERIENCE of the show should start with the marketing. Should start with the poster, the first flyer they get, the first advertisement they see or hear. I mean, the thing for the website is “your experience starts here” I think that’s brilliant! If I could thematically decorate the lobby of the theatre to go with every show (without it getting cheesy or campy, which I’m not sure is possible) I would. It’s an event! It should feel like an event. It’s why I like to get dressed up a little when I go to the theatre. This is something special, different, a gift.
Do you ever have those moments where you suddenly think to yourself: “This is actually happening!” ? One of those, “this, right here, this moment that I am breathing in. It’s real. This is actually happening”. We spend so much time watching TV, watching movies, in front of our computer screens that we become numb to reality. We walk around in a daze, not really noticing the world around us. Every once in a while we have an experience that shakes us out of it (see WALL-E if you want to see extreme examples of this situation). Of course there are the near death experiences that shake us out of these numb dazes, but these are not the kind I would like to focus on right now.
The first time (in my adult life at least) that I really had one of those moments was at a concert. We were seeing this band called Nathan Asher and the Infantry, it was late at night, in a small smoke filled bar, I was hanging out with people that were older and cooler than me and I had just had my first shot of whiskey. Suddenly in the middle of the concert, I realized as this huge sound rolled over me that all the people in the room had their faces turned to the stage. The light from the stage fell across all of them and we were, all of us, jumping on the same beat. We were all there, having that experience together, feeling the same music press against us, breathing the same smoke filled air, moving to the same rhythm and it just hit me. This is actually happening. This moment, right here. This is happening. This is real.
It happened at several concerts after this, a couple of plays, and several moments on stage, or behind the stage. But they are rare, these moments. It hadn’t happened in a while, though. I mean, I was working at a doctor’s office before I came here, and then I got here and was, well, overwhelmed, I guess, by the whole thing for a while. But then Tryst happened. Tryst is a show that makes me have one of those moments. This is actually happening. Whether it was during tech or during one of the several shows I have seen, every time something happens where my breath catches and the only sound in my head is “this is actually happening”. Every night is a new show, a new experience, a new event. Even if I can’t sneak in to see it, even if I can’t stay glued to the monitor, even if I am working through the show I will catch some line, some line that they say differently, some emotion resonating in their voices that freezes me in place. This is actually happening. This magnificent piece of theatre is happening above me right now, people are experiencing it, and for this one small moment, for whatever reason, so am I. For that small moment we are all connected. This is actually happening. Do you think they know? Do you think they have any idea? Do you think they would believe me if I told them? No. But they do and they are, and it’s just . . . a constant reminder- in these last dwindling days when I spend a lot of time thinking I don’t want to be here – that I am so lucky. I get to be here and daily be affected by art. By passion. By silliness and wonder. I just. I feel like I’ve been overstating myself in these last couple of blogs, that the more I say how wonderful the show is the less meaningful it’s going to be, the less sincere it’s going to seem. But it’s not about giving compliments. It’s about what theatre should be. Is the show perfect? No. Is there any show that is perfect? No (and I don’t think there should be, or else what do we have to strive for?). Do I still have some problems with the script? Yes. But these two actors achieve what I think theatre should achieve. They make me breathe differently and notice it. And the design and direction behind this show achieves what I think theatre should be. An event. And experience. What more could I ask for in my last weeks here?
You know what else reminds me that I am lucky? These apprentices. I’m sitting here in their tech right now. You guys are all going to think I am the biggest freak, I have never liked tech before getting here, but now I do. I love it. I think it’s because I spent so little of my time in the theatre here. So once I get to spend so much time in the actual theatre I notice the difference in the air and the energy and I love it. I love every second of it. I love the affect it has on everyone. I loved the tech for the intern showcase, too. I loved sitting in the audience watching those people I had spent so much time with in the last few weeks be on that stage under those lights for the first time. I love watching what Julie could do with so little time, and watching the miracles Ashley could work with someone else’s light plot. It was amazing. Fascinating. Moment after moment of “oh my god. This is actually happening. I am actually here in this house tech-ing a show that I am a part of, and then, oh holy Jesus, I am actually on the stage. Look at this. This is actually happening.” And then performing. Performing on that stage, getting the laugh, knowing my friend Lormarev was out there to see it, and my apprentices, and oh . . . This is actually happening. It didn’t feel like it had afterward, but I knew that I had that moment, and that was all that mattered.
And now these apprentices are getting to experience it. They are beautiful. This showcase was a struggle, a drama, of course it was, they are teenagers. But then again we had some drama and struggle in our showcase to. But they came together. I look at them, and they are together, on stage, working towards something together. And that’s what it is all about. My friend Matthew Earnest who directed me in one of the most fabulous theatre experiences of my life, told me that the audience comes to see the actor go through something. I want to see you go through something, I want to watch you take a journey, struggle through something. I want to see you experience something. In watching the actor go through something, the audience gets to experience something. What I don’t think my wonderful apprentices realize is that this show they are getting ready to do is brilliant because we are watching them work towards something, go through something, and do it together. We are literally getting to watch them come together as a group in a way they have not done so far this summer. We get to watch them tonight. Sure it might mean more to me since I have spent all summer with them, but I think it will come across. As the realization dawns on them, as they go through the experience of realizing on stage what exactly it is that they have done, what they have achieved, the audience will feel it, they will realize it to. It will make them breathe differently. This is what it is about. Coming together for a common goal to create and experience larger than ourselves. This is what it is about. This, right here, right now – This is actually happening.
I wrote previously that theatre should be an event. Theatre should, as Anne Bogart said, make us lean forward. Eric, the marketing director, came to talk to the apprentices a while back. WCP’s marketing thing right now is all about having an EXPERIENCE. He told the apprentices that an audiences EXPERIENCE of the show should start with the marketing. Should start with the poster, the first flyer they get, the first advertisement they see or hear. I mean, the thing for the website is “your experience starts here” I think that’s brilliant! If I could thematically decorate the lobby of the theatre to go with every show (without it getting cheesy or campy, which I’m not sure is possible) I would. It’s an event! It should feel like an event. It’s why I like to get dressed up a little when I go to the theatre. This is something special, different, a gift.
Do you ever have those moments where you suddenly think to yourself: “This is actually happening!” ? One of those, “this, right here, this moment that I am breathing in. It’s real. This is actually happening”. We spend so much time watching TV, watching movies, in front of our computer screens that we become numb to reality. We walk around in a daze, not really noticing the world around us. Every once in a while we have an experience that shakes us out of it (see WALL-E if you want to see extreme examples of this situation). Of course there are the near death experiences that shake us out of these numb dazes, but these are not the kind I would like to focus on right now.
The first time (in my adult life at least) that I really had one of those moments was at a concert. We were seeing this band called Nathan Asher and the Infantry, it was late at night, in a small smoke filled bar, I was hanging out with people that were older and cooler than me and I had just had my first shot of whiskey. Suddenly in the middle of the concert, I realized as this huge sound rolled over me that all the people in the room had their faces turned to the stage. The light from the stage fell across all of them and we were, all of us, jumping on the same beat. We were all there, having that experience together, feeling the same music press against us, breathing the same smoke filled air, moving to the same rhythm and it just hit me. This is actually happening. This moment, right here. This is happening. This is real.
It happened at several concerts after this, a couple of plays, and several moments on stage, or behind the stage. But they are rare, these moments. It hadn’t happened in a while, though. I mean, I was working at a doctor’s office before I came here, and then I got here and was, well, overwhelmed, I guess, by the whole thing for a while. But then Tryst happened. Tryst is a show that makes me have one of those moments. This is actually happening. Whether it was during tech or during one of the several shows I have seen, every time something happens where my breath catches and the only sound in my head is “this is actually happening”. Every night is a new show, a new experience, a new event. Even if I can’t sneak in to see it, even if I can’t stay glued to the monitor, even if I am working through the show I will catch some line, some line that they say differently, some emotion resonating in their voices that freezes me in place. This is actually happening. This magnificent piece of theatre is happening above me right now, people are experiencing it, and for this one small moment, for whatever reason, so am I. For that small moment we are all connected. This is actually happening. Do you think they know? Do you think they have any idea? Do you think they would believe me if I told them? No. But they do and they are, and it’s just . . . a constant reminder- in these last dwindling days when I spend a lot of time thinking I don’t want to be here – that I am so lucky. I get to be here and daily be affected by art. By passion. By silliness and wonder. I just. I feel like I’ve been overstating myself in these last couple of blogs, that the more I say how wonderful the show is the less meaningful it’s going to be, the less sincere it’s going to seem. But it’s not about giving compliments. It’s about what theatre should be. Is the show perfect? No. Is there any show that is perfect? No (and I don’t think there should be, or else what do we have to strive for?). Do I still have some problems with the script? Yes. But these two actors achieve what I think theatre should achieve. They make me breathe differently and notice it. And the design and direction behind this show achieves what I think theatre should be. An event. And experience. What more could I ask for in my last weeks here?
You know what else reminds me that I am lucky? These apprentices. I’m sitting here in their tech right now. You guys are all going to think I am the biggest freak, I have never liked tech before getting here, but now I do. I love it. I think it’s because I spent so little of my time in the theatre here. So once I get to spend so much time in the actual theatre I notice the difference in the air and the energy and I love it. I love every second of it. I love the affect it has on everyone. I loved the tech for the intern showcase, too. I loved sitting in the audience watching those people I had spent so much time with in the last few weeks be on that stage under those lights for the first time. I love watching what Julie could do with so little time, and watching the miracles Ashley could work with someone else’s light plot. It was amazing. Fascinating. Moment after moment of “oh my god. This is actually happening. I am actually here in this house tech-ing a show that I am a part of, and then, oh holy Jesus, I am actually on the stage. Look at this. This is actually happening.” And then performing. Performing on that stage, getting the laugh, knowing my friend Lormarev was out there to see it, and my apprentices, and oh . . . This is actually happening. It didn’t feel like it had afterward, but I knew that I had that moment, and that was all that mattered.
And now these apprentices are getting to experience it. They are beautiful. This showcase was a struggle, a drama, of course it was, they are teenagers. But then again we had some drama and struggle in our showcase to. But they came together. I look at them, and they are together, on stage, working towards something together. And that’s what it is all about. My friend Matthew Earnest who directed me in one of the most fabulous theatre experiences of my life, told me that the audience comes to see the actor go through something. I want to see you go through something, I want to watch you take a journey, struggle through something. I want to see you experience something. In watching the actor go through something, the audience gets to experience something. What I don’t think my wonderful apprentices realize is that this show they are getting ready to do is brilliant because we are watching them work towards something, go through something, and do it together. We are literally getting to watch them come together as a group in a way they have not done so far this summer. We get to watch them tonight. Sure it might mean more to me since I have spent all summer with them, but I think it will come across. As the realization dawns on them, as they go through the experience of realizing on stage what exactly it is that they have done, what they have achieved, the audience will feel it, they will realize it to. It will make them breathe differently. This is what it is about. Coming together for a common goal to create and experience larger than ourselves. This is what it is about. This, right here, right now – This is actually happening.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Cause here we are, here we are
Alright, I'll admit it.
I miss the playhouse way too much. I think what I miss the most is the positive energy oozing from every little nook and cranny of that huge red building. I've only been back at school for a few days now (not everyone has moved in yet) and I already wish I was working on Of Mice and Men with Liza.
It was really awful saying goodbye to all the interns after the showcase. I went home that night feeling really upset and not excited about leaving for California. Of course, once I was there, I was so happy to be there but I couldn't help but wonder what everyone was up to and how Tryst was going. Luckily, I received a phone call from Chris which totally brightened my day even though her news for me wasn't the best. I'm really going to miss my frequent talks with her in the main kitchen of the babe bungalow.
I just wanted to repeat something I said to most of the interns, please stay in touch. I want to know what you guys are up to.
My thoughts aren't finished but I'm being pulled away for an event in my dorm so stay tuned...
<3 Kim
I miss the playhouse way too much. I think what I miss the most is the positive energy oozing from every little nook and cranny of that huge red building. I've only been back at school for a few days now (not everyone has moved in yet) and I already wish I was working on Of Mice and Men with Liza.
It was really awful saying goodbye to all the interns after the showcase. I went home that night feeling really upset and not excited about leaving for California. Of course, once I was there, I was so happy to be there but I couldn't help but wonder what everyone was up to and how Tryst was going. Luckily, I received a phone call from Chris which totally brightened my day even though her news for me wasn't the best. I'm really going to miss my frequent talks with her in the main kitchen of the babe bungalow.
I just wanted to repeat something I said to most of the interns, please stay in touch. I want to know what you guys are up to.
My thoughts aren't finished but I'm being pulled away for an event in my dorm so stay tuned...
<3 Kim
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Strife, Pain, Wonder - A Love Letter
Today was a day. One of those days where I felt on the precipice of tears all day long. I have this problem, see. All I’ve wanted to do was write on the Intern Showcase and how amazing it was. And it was amazing. But for me, in the aftershock, it’s also completely surreal. Did that really happen? Did we just do that?
I go through these lows after shows sometimes (just ask my mother). It’s a listlessness. Especially after something like what we just did. You pour your heart and soul into something, and your precious little time, and whatever energy you have left, and you do this amazing thing for one night. One night. It’s shows like that that have this effect on me the most. Kind of like you want to walk up to everyone you see and take them by the shirt collar and shout in their faces “Do you know what we just did!” and of course most of the people here do. They were there! (Thank you all so much for coming, I cannot tell you what it meant to us. I think a lot of us thought that there might just be, like, ten people there, or less.)And this is not a complaint. We were blessed with this night, with this opportunity to . . . display our beliefs on that stage.
And it’s a high. It’s a complete high. It’s a high to perform. It feels like flying, it’s like suddenly being able to breathe underwater. It’s something that shouldn’t make sense, but the minute people are in front of you for some reason it all makes sense. It’s as if a higher power is breathing through you. The world is perfect for a few moments. Perfect because for a few minutes a group of people are all in the same room, breathing together, being together, and we all take the same journey together. As a performer I get to help take us on the journey. It’s a high to hear my words performed, and to hear people react to them. To hear a group of people laugh at my words, or gasp at them, or cry at them, or be moved in anyway – it’s a small piece of the divine. It’s God’s hands stretching out and touching people and I had something to do with it. It’s a high to see the people I lead (I don’t know if you could call what I did directing. It was more like guiding. Really, I just let them play and suggested a few fun things along the way)hit a moment, get the laugh, feel something, be effected, react to the audience. It’s as if the universe is allowing me to gaze through its eyes. And for all of us to be together, to come together like that, to prove to ourselves that we could. For a brief time we got to create –which is what we all love to do most and some of us were unable to because of the internships we had- and we created together. It brought us together in a way that will mean we are forever a part of each other’s beings, each other’s thought processes.
But the next day you’re back. Back on earth. You touch godliness and the next day you’re back to being an intern – you have to do your job. There are images to be found, there are schedules to keep, there are things to copy, there are people to be driven around, there are people to please and politics to navigate, there’s an apprentice showcase to do, and there are teenagers to wrangle, take care of, be with. Friends come in from out of town, people you have just begun to love leave, move on to new things, and there is such a thing as burn out. Today I did not want to do the job. Today I wanted to shout at everyone “Do you know I checked out, like, two weeks ago?! I am done with this. I am sooo done with this. I have learned what I needed to learn by coming here, and I would be perfectly happy to go home now. To move on. To figure out the next thing. To figure out where I am going to be employed once the 29th comes!”
But it’s not true! I haven’t learned everything I needed to learn yet – today definitely showed me that. Negative energy was oozing from everywhere, from all of my beautiful apprentices (every single one of them) and it just broke my heart into a thousand tiny little pieces. They are tired and cranky and still not sure how to navigate each other, and all I want to do is take care of them and make them happy, make sure they enjoy the precious few moments they have left here, with each other – with me. And I didn’t know how. I don’t know how. I couldn’t fix it. And I don’t need to, I realize that. They are intelligent young adults (and also moody teenagers), they have to go through this, and they will come out on the other side. It’s just such a powerless feeling this feeling of ignorance, this knowledge that I am doing them a disservice because I am still learning how to be a good teacher, because I am on a learning curb. It’s not fair to them, and I’m sorry. All I could do was look them each in the eye and remind them of all the things that Mark and Andrea said to us at dinner yesterday. We are so lucky. We are so blessed. We are living the dream. People would kill to be where they are right now. To have the opportunity they have been given this summer. And I told them that there were moments running up to the intern showcase that I didn’t want to be in rehearsal, I was tired, I was in a bad mood, but you go in and you do the work, and by the end you’ve forgotten about the bad mood because you’ve remembered you love the work. And that I didn’t get my wildest fantasy to come true for the scene I directed in the intern showcase. I wanted to have that piece of paper flown in and I wanted those actors to spray paint tada across it. But I couldn’t. There was no space to fly it in, we didn’t have time or physical space to build something to put the paper on, and we were told flat out that we couldn’t use spray paint in the theatre. But we figured something out. It worked, it was wonderful. The obstacles in your way are the ones that are going to give you the best ideas. Great art comes from strife, comes from struggle.
I wanted to tell them that when I was told we were to have an intern showcase at the end of all of this I thought it was a HORRIBLE idea. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to think about it, I hated it the way I hated group projects in college, no matter how much I loved the subject matter (probably more so the more you love it). There were so many strong personalities, so many directors, so many leaders, I thought it was going to be a royal mess or we were all going to end up killing each other or both. And sometimes it looked like it might end up that way. This was not all sunshine and lollipops, people. Exactly one week before the showcase I thought people were going to start spitting fire at one another, and I thought I might be one of them. There are times that it was not fun. There are times when this work is not fun. But you do it because you get to that moment when it feels like flying, you get to that moment when you realize there are people in the audience who are overwhelmed by the work you are doing.
I am going to see the showcase that these young people put on (or I hope I will, I might be back stage, but god I hope I get to sit and watch it) and someone is going to have to sit beside me and literally hold me together. They don’t know how beautiful they are. They do not know that they are sensational, that they deserve a medal for devoting all of this time to something that has been said several times this summer is a dieing art form. These apprentices are the people that will insure that that doesn’t happen. Even the ones who decide not to do theatre, they are the reason that theatre will continue to live. They hold the key in their hot hands and they are going to get up there on that stage and show us what it is and I won’t be able to hold it together.
I want to see it. I want to see the moment when they get up there under those lights and it all makes since. When this “process” that we’ve been dragging them through all lines up somehow, and in the midst of all this wonderfulness that is performance, the process was really the more important thing. I want to be there to see them have that moment of discovery when they realize the air is different on stage. The air is different on stage, did you know that? It’s different up there. It makes you breathe differently. It changes you.
Sam compared being an actor to Super Heroes. I can see that. It is mythological. I like my flying metaphor, because that’s what it always feels like to me. But it always makes me think of Peter Pan. Someone you can just look at and know that they have flown, that they have had the wind in their face, they’ve been kissed by it, and the effect lasts and lasts- on your face, it lives in your hair, your skin, your pours. That’s how I feel about performers. They’ve flown, they’ve ridden the wind, and the wind has touched them, and forever changed them, and the mark is on their bodies, and you can tell, you can just tell. I want to be there when they have that moment. When they experience that high.
I have to miss their last day. I will be flying away from them that last Friday night inconsolable. They have changed me. Emma has changed me, Peter has changed me, Rasheem has changed me, Whitney has changed me, Julia has changed me, Sarah Lee has changed me, Sam has changed me. I can only hope, only hope, only hope that I have had some small amount of that effect on them.
~ Laura (Roux)
p.s. It was after I had this talk with the apprentices that I realized “hey, miss i-am-going-to-walk-around-and-feel-sorry-for-myself-and-wallow-in-my-own-misery! Maybe you should take your own advice and remind yourself how lucky you are to be here. How incredibly lucky you are that you get to work at this place, with these people, with these interns, with these apprentices, with these actors (who once again, I must tell you, are soo incredible. And on top of that two of the most wonderful, genuine people I have ever met. COME SEE TRYST! IT IS SOO WORTH IT!). Shake it off already, will yah!
I go through these lows after shows sometimes (just ask my mother). It’s a listlessness. Especially after something like what we just did. You pour your heart and soul into something, and your precious little time, and whatever energy you have left, and you do this amazing thing for one night. One night. It’s shows like that that have this effect on me the most. Kind of like you want to walk up to everyone you see and take them by the shirt collar and shout in their faces “Do you know what we just did!” and of course most of the people here do. They were there! (Thank you all so much for coming, I cannot tell you what it meant to us. I think a lot of us thought that there might just be, like, ten people there, or less.)And this is not a complaint. We were blessed with this night, with this opportunity to . . . display our beliefs on that stage.
And it’s a high. It’s a complete high. It’s a high to perform. It feels like flying, it’s like suddenly being able to breathe underwater. It’s something that shouldn’t make sense, but the minute people are in front of you for some reason it all makes sense. It’s as if a higher power is breathing through you. The world is perfect for a few moments. Perfect because for a few minutes a group of people are all in the same room, breathing together, being together, and we all take the same journey together. As a performer I get to help take us on the journey. It’s a high to hear my words performed, and to hear people react to them. To hear a group of people laugh at my words, or gasp at them, or cry at them, or be moved in anyway – it’s a small piece of the divine. It’s God’s hands stretching out and touching people and I had something to do with it. It’s a high to see the people I lead (I don’t know if you could call what I did directing. It was more like guiding. Really, I just let them play and suggested a few fun things along the way)hit a moment, get the laugh, feel something, be effected, react to the audience. It’s as if the universe is allowing me to gaze through its eyes. And for all of us to be together, to come together like that, to prove to ourselves that we could. For a brief time we got to create –which is what we all love to do most and some of us were unable to because of the internships we had- and we created together. It brought us together in a way that will mean we are forever a part of each other’s beings, each other’s thought processes.
But the next day you’re back. Back on earth. You touch godliness and the next day you’re back to being an intern – you have to do your job. There are images to be found, there are schedules to keep, there are things to copy, there are people to be driven around, there are people to please and politics to navigate, there’s an apprentice showcase to do, and there are teenagers to wrangle, take care of, be with. Friends come in from out of town, people you have just begun to love leave, move on to new things, and there is such a thing as burn out. Today I did not want to do the job. Today I wanted to shout at everyone “Do you know I checked out, like, two weeks ago?! I am done with this. I am sooo done with this. I have learned what I needed to learn by coming here, and I would be perfectly happy to go home now. To move on. To figure out the next thing. To figure out where I am going to be employed once the 29th comes!”
But it’s not true! I haven’t learned everything I needed to learn yet – today definitely showed me that. Negative energy was oozing from everywhere, from all of my beautiful apprentices (every single one of them) and it just broke my heart into a thousand tiny little pieces. They are tired and cranky and still not sure how to navigate each other, and all I want to do is take care of them and make them happy, make sure they enjoy the precious few moments they have left here, with each other – with me. And I didn’t know how. I don’t know how. I couldn’t fix it. And I don’t need to, I realize that. They are intelligent young adults (and also moody teenagers), they have to go through this, and they will come out on the other side. It’s just such a powerless feeling this feeling of ignorance, this knowledge that I am doing them a disservice because I am still learning how to be a good teacher, because I am on a learning curb. It’s not fair to them, and I’m sorry. All I could do was look them each in the eye and remind them of all the things that Mark and Andrea said to us at dinner yesterday. We are so lucky. We are so blessed. We are living the dream. People would kill to be where they are right now. To have the opportunity they have been given this summer. And I told them that there were moments running up to the intern showcase that I didn’t want to be in rehearsal, I was tired, I was in a bad mood, but you go in and you do the work, and by the end you’ve forgotten about the bad mood because you’ve remembered you love the work. And that I didn’t get my wildest fantasy to come true for the scene I directed in the intern showcase. I wanted to have that piece of paper flown in and I wanted those actors to spray paint tada across it. But I couldn’t. There was no space to fly it in, we didn’t have time or physical space to build something to put the paper on, and we were told flat out that we couldn’t use spray paint in the theatre. But we figured something out. It worked, it was wonderful. The obstacles in your way are the ones that are going to give you the best ideas. Great art comes from strife, comes from struggle.
I wanted to tell them that when I was told we were to have an intern showcase at the end of all of this I thought it was a HORRIBLE idea. I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to think about it, I hated it the way I hated group projects in college, no matter how much I loved the subject matter (probably more so the more you love it). There were so many strong personalities, so many directors, so many leaders, I thought it was going to be a royal mess or we were all going to end up killing each other or both. And sometimes it looked like it might end up that way. This was not all sunshine and lollipops, people. Exactly one week before the showcase I thought people were going to start spitting fire at one another, and I thought I might be one of them. There are times that it was not fun. There are times when this work is not fun. But you do it because you get to that moment when it feels like flying, you get to that moment when you realize there are people in the audience who are overwhelmed by the work you are doing.
I am going to see the showcase that these young people put on (or I hope I will, I might be back stage, but god I hope I get to sit and watch it) and someone is going to have to sit beside me and literally hold me together. They don’t know how beautiful they are. They do not know that they are sensational, that they deserve a medal for devoting all of this time to something that has been said several times this summer is a dieing art form. These apprentices are the people that will insure that that doesn’t happen. Even the ones who decide not to do theatre, they are the reason that theatre will continue to live. They hold the key in their hot hands and they are going to get up there on that stage and show us what it is and I won’t be able to hold it together.
I want to see it. I want to see the moment when they get up there under those lights and it all makes since. When this “process” that we’ve been dragging them through all lines up somehow, and in the midst of all this wonderfulness that is performance, the process was really the more important thing. I want to be there to see them have that moment of discovery when they realize the air is different on stage. The air is different on stage, did you know that? It’s different up there. It makes you breathe differently. It changes you.
Sam compared being an actor to Super Heroes. I can see that. It is mythological. I like my flying metaphor, because that’s what it always feels like to me. But it always makes me think of Peter Pan. Someone you can just look at and know that they have flown, that they have had the wind in their face, they’ve been kissed by it, and the effect lasts and lasts- on your face, it lives in your hair, your skin, your pours. That’s how I feel about performers. They’ve flown, they’ve ridden the wind, and the wind has touched them, and forever changed them, and the mark is on their bodies, and you can tell, you can just tell. I want to be there when they have that moment. When they experience that high.
I have to miss their last day. I will be flying away from them that last Friday night inconsolable. They have changed me. Emma has changed me, Peter has changed me, Rasheem has changed me, Whitney has changed me, Julia has changed me, Sarah Lee has changed me, Sam has changed me. I can only hope, only hope, only hope that I have had some small amount of that effect on them.
~ Laura (Roux)
p.s. It was after I had this talk with the apprentices that I realized “hey, miss i-am-going-to-walk-around-and-feel-sorry-for-myself-and-wallow-in-my-own-misery! Maybe you should take your own advice and remind yourself how lucky you are to be here. How incredibly lucky you are that you get to work at this place, with these people, with these interns, with these apprentices, with these actors (who once again, I must tell you, are soo incredible. And on top of that two of the most wonderful, genuine people I have ever met. COME SEE TRYST! IT IS SOO WORTH IT!). Shake it off already, will yah!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
I'm on a high...
Do you know that feeling when you wake up and still feel the after-effects of what ever you did the night before? NO! I am not talking about being hung over! I woke up at 7 am, I suppose because my mind was restless, and all I could do was smile. The high I was on from the most amazing evening of theater I have ever been a part of was the best feeling in the world.
Every single one of these interns worked extremely hard on this showcase. Not because we had something to prove, but because we know that settling for anything less than our bests is a great disservice to all that we have learned at the Playhouse. There were many amazing moments that were a direct result of the evening: people laughed, people cried, our blogs were read by quite possibly the most intelligent, passionate women in theater, and Mark Shanahan knows my name now! But the most prolific, awe-inspiring result that came out of this evening: people were talking to each other about theater and WHY they love it and decided long ago that this was the right place for them. Mr. Shanahan put it best when he said that, “Sometimes it is so easy to forget WHY you love to do what you do. But when you remember, it makes all of the trials and tribulations that much more worth it.”
After the evening all of us interns had a little celebration. I had some of the best conversations, debates, and sing-a-longs I have ever had in my life. In my stupor, I suggested to Laura that we do “What’s the Question?” again and again and again. But she pointed out to me that the magic of that piece is those moments could never be recreated quite like they were that night. That piece in particular was wonderful and difficult, because we were forced to just be ourselves. To essentially be naked and be “okay” with telling people our hopes and fears. But because we were willing from the very beginning to throw our souls into the piece, I really did walk away from it saying, “WOW! We really made something there!”
Julie and I talked about the next steps and where do we go from here. I have two more years of training, but Julie has graduated. She is heading out into the real world. I told her, and I meant it, that she would change the world! I step back and look at that statement now and would like to say, “We (the interns of 08) will change the world!” I would work with every single one of you again and again!
Don’t ever stop doing what you LOVE to do! No matter how hard it is to feed yourself, pay the rent, or get the job at all. I am in this for the long run. Be bold, be brave! This is your art! This is your life!
Love Always,
Holly (finance intern)
I will be in London this coming semester and keeping up with the blog…. I hope you all do too!
Every single one of these interns worked extremely hard on this showcase. Not because we had something to prove, but because we know that settling for anything less than our bests is a great disservice to all that we have learned at the Playhouse. There were many amazing moments that were a direct result of the evening: people laughed, people cried, our blogs were read by quite possibly the most intelligent, passionate women in theater, and Mark Shanahan knows my name now! But the most prolific, awe-inspiring result that came out of this evening: people were talking to each other about theater and WHY they love it and decided long ago that this was the right place for them. Mr. Shanahan put it best when he said that, “Sometimes it is so easy to forget WHY you love to do what you do. But when you remember, it makes all of the trials and tribulations that much more worth it.”
After the evening all of us interns had a little celebration. I had some of the best conversations, debates, and sing-a-longs I have ever had in my life. In my stupor, I suggested to Laura that we do “What’s the Question?” again and again and again. But she pointed out to me that the magic of that piece is those moments could never be recreated quite like they were that night. That piece in particular was wonderful and difficult, because we were forced to just be ourselves. To essentially be naked and be “okay” with telling people our hopes and fears. But because we were willing from the very beginning to throw our souls into the piece, I really did walk away from it saying, “WOW! We really made something there!”
Julie and I talked about the next steps and where do we go from here. I have two more years of training, but Julie has graduated. She is heading out into the real world. I told her, and I meant it, that she would change the world! I step back and look at that statement now and would like to say, “We (the interns of 08) will change the world!” I would work with every single one of you again and again!
Don’t ever stop doing what you LOVE to do! No matter how hard it is to feed yourself, pay the rent, or get the job at all. I am in this for the long run. Be bold, be brave! This is your art! This is your life!
Love Always,
Holly (finance intern)
I will be in London this coming semester and keeping up with the blog…. I hope you all do too!
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
I love the smell of theatre in the morning
What I think about Tech week:
Tech can be tedious. It can even be boring. As an actor I usually dread tech – because it’s usually a lot of standing around, which is hard on the body, or just getting into a line or a feeling or a moment when things are stopped. As run crew it can just plain be boring: a lot of waiting around and not being allowed to goof off. As a stage manager, well, I’ve never really had to deal with the kind of tech we’re talking about. My one and only real stage management gig was right before I came here and I had to call the show blind. It was an environmental piece, where the actors and audience were moving around. I only had one camera for my monitor, so I could only see the first scene. The rest of it was called off of the sound of curtains opening and closing. There were very few fine adjustments I had control over.
But this. Oh god, this. This is amazing. We get here and start setting things up, and then they start working. And it’s the work people, the work. Watching the work, by people who really know what they’re doing and have been given the opportunity to do it right.
The apprentices are back stage moving things around. Originally I was going to be back stage “shadowing” them, just in case, you know. But there are so many people back stage that one person not really doing anything would just get in the way. So I got to sit out in the house and watch. I just thought it was fascinating. I just sat there, arms folded on top of the seat in front of me as I leaned forward to drink it all in – mouth ajar like a kid in a candy store. Every choice, every discussion, every breath was fascinating. How the director would ask for one subtle change to be made and that one thing would make all the difference. A whole new world opened up. I wasn’t too sure about the script when I read it, but the collaboration that these two actors (who are just soooo incredible) and this director and these designers came up with have made this show singularly remarkable. They have made me hold my breath, they have made me cry, they have made me laugh, and they have made me think. Even more than that, they have made me grateful: Grateful to witness . . . something remarkable. Grateful to witness theatre. And we forget- we forget that this thing we do is a gift. We forget to be grateful.
And that’s the thing. Well, one of the things that makes this show so different from the other two shows that have been done since I’ve been here. It’s the pure theatricality of it. Not just the type of play, not just the type of actors, not even the type of designers. All of them put together, and the thing itself has become an EVENT. And that’s what theatre should be. If nothing else theatre should be an event. A happening. An unstoppable force of nature held in one moment of time. This show opens with those lights, and one incredible sound effect, a sound so big it literally blows you away (I mean, I could feel my pant legs waving)- and it sends one very clear, very important message – hold onto your seats, ladies and gentleman, this is an EVENT. SOMETHING is about to go down. Suddenly instead of just watching theatre we are EXPERIENCING it.
Julia, one of the apprentices, wrote in her blog an Anne Bogart quote, which was something along the lines of “I go to a movie to sit back. I go to the theatre to lean forward.” That’s what this show makes me do. It not just invites me to lean forward, it compels me to, it demands me to, it accepts nothing less – and I oblige willingly.
I told Sam, one of the apprentices, that if I were back stage with them I would probably spend the copious down town they have sitting back there, listening, watching as much as I could, with my jaw open. He didn’t believe me. He said maybe for the first couple of shows but eventually – and I said no. I’ve been doing this for a while. On almost every show I’ve worked back stage on I’m afraid to leave for fear that I will miss something. Some new discovery, some new moment, some part of that glorious, living, breathing action I am thirsting for. Sure there have been shows where I have grown more cynical – but this one . . . I would rather spend the rest of my time here doing nothing but watching these people rehearse and then perform than anything else (sorry apprentices). Okay, I would miss out on a lot of stuff that I would regret later, important things that I really don’t want to miss, but . . . what a way to get to spend my time. I learn from every breath Mark and Andrea (the actors) take. I learn from every syllable that Joe (the director) and the designers utter. I had a good time watching Scramble tech, and I learned a lot from that as well, but this – there’s just something about this show, man. If you don’t come to witness this, you’re a fool. Come experience this event, this happening with us. I will be sneaking into the balcony and holding on to every second right along with you.
~ Laura (Roux)
Tech can be tedious. It can even be boring. As an actor I usually dread tech – because it’s usually a lot of standing around, which is hard on the body, or just getting into a line or a feeling or a moment when things are stopped. As run crew it can just plain be boring: a lot of waiting around and not being allowed to goof off. As a stage manager, well, I’ve never really had to deal with the kind of tech we’re talking about. My one and only real stage management gig was right before I came here and I had to call the show blind. It was an environmental piece, where the actors and audience were moving around. I only had one camera for my monitor, so I could only see the first scene. The rest of it was called off of the sound of curtains opening and closing. There were very few fine adjustments I had control over.
But this. Oh god, this. This is amazing. We get here and start setting things up, and then they start working. And it’s the work people, the work. Watching the work, by people who really know what they’re doing and have been given the opportunity to do it right.
The apprentices are back stage moving things around. Originally I was going to be back stage “shadowing” them, just in case, you know. But there are so many people back stage that one person not really doing anything would just get in the way. So I got to sit out in the house and watch. I just thought it was fascinating. I just sat there, arms folded on top of the seat in front of me as I leaned forward to drink it all in – mouth ajar like a kid in a candy store. Every choice, every discussion, every breath was fascinating. How the director would ask for one subtle change to be made and that one thing would make all the difference. A whole new world opened up. I wasn’t too sure about the script when I read it, but the collaboration that these two actors (who are just soooo incredible) and this director and these designers came up with have made this show singularly remarkable. They have made me hold my breath, they have made me cry, they have made me laugh, and they have made me think. Even more than that, they have made me grateful: Grateful to witness . . . something remarkable. Grateful to witness theatre. And we forget- we forget that this thing we do is a gift. We forget to be grateful.
And that’s the thing. Well, one of the things that makes this show so different from the other two shows that have been done since I’ve been here. It’s the pure theatricality of it. Not just the type of play, not just the type of actors, not even the type of designers. All of them put together, and the thing itself has become an EVENT. And that’s what theatre should be. If nothing else theatre should be an event. A happening. An unstoppable force of nature held in one moment of time. This show opens with those lights, and one incredible sound effect, a sound so big it literally blows you away (I mean, I could feel my pant legs waving)- and it sends one very clear, very important message – hold onto your seats, ladies and gentleman, this is an EVENT. SOMETHING is about to go down. Suddenly instead of just watching theatre we are EXPERIENCING it.
Julia, one of the apprentices, wrote in her blog an Anne Bogart quote, which was something along the lines of “I go to a movie to sit back. I go to the theatre to lean forward.” That’s what this show makes me do. It not just invites me to lean forward, it compels me to, it demands me to, it accepts nothing less – and I oblige willingly.
I told Sam, one of the apprentices, that if I were back stage with them I would probably spend the copious down town they have sitting back there, listening, watching as much as I could, with my jaw open. He didn’t believe me. He said maybe for the first couple of shows but eventually – and I said no. I’ve been doing this for a while. On almost every show I’ve worked back stage on I’m afraid to leave for fear that I will miss something. Some new discovery, some new moment, some part of that glorious, living, breathing action I am thirsting for. Sure there have been shows where I have grown more cynical – but this one . . . I would rather spend the rest of my time here doing nothing but watching these people rehearse and then perform than anything else (sorry apprentices). Okay, I would miss out on a lot of stuff that I would regret later, important things that I really don’t want to miss, but . . . what a way to get to spend my time. I learn from every breath Mark and Andrea (the actors) take. I learn from every syllable that Joe (the director) and the designers utter. I had a good time watching Scramble tech, and I learned a lot from that as well, but this – there’s just something about this show, man. If you don’t come to witness this, you’re a fool. Come experience this event, this happening with us. I will be sneaking into the balcony and holding on to every second right along with you.
~ Laura (Roux)
Sunday, August 3, 2008
something silly and off topic
hey guys,
So this is what my friends back home do when they get bored. They are too smart for their own good.
If you think Dick Cheney jokes are funny, like cheerleaders, or just like music and videos from the 80s, you should check out this youtube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enw6ajiyLFI
enjoy!
~ Laura (Roux)
So this is what my friends back home do when they get bored. They are too smart for their own good.
If you think Dick Cheney jokes are funny, like cheerleaders, or just like music and videos from the 80s, you should check out this youtube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enw6ajiyLFI
enjoy!
~ Laura (Roux)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)