Oh crap! There are PEOPLE out there!!!

True West is opening up this week and we're really excited to get this one up and running. Scott Treadway and I are having a great time working on stage together. He's a very generous actor and a real joy to hang out with. Also in the cast are Kay Galvin, who you might have seen on any of the various stages around Asheville, and Lance Ball, an actor who has worked with our good friends at Immediate Theatre Project in their production of Copenhagen last year.

Had an invited dress rehearsal on Tuesday night with about 40 people in the audience. It went really well but it's always interesting the first time you perform a play you've been working on in front of people besides the artistic team of the theatre. Sometimes you discover things that are funny that you didn't realize were funny. You hear a laugh and think, "the hell???". Then, when you have a chance to think about it, you realize that it is funny. On the other hand, you do something during performance that consistently made the director and the sound designer laugh and then you do it in front of an audience and...nothin'. So you cut it. Oh well.

The most important aspect of the first audience is to see if the way you've crafted the show makes sense as a whole and that it's impacting an audience the way you intended, those little individual aforementioned moments aside. It allows us to gauge what the audience is noticing and responding to. It let's us punch up those elements that need punching up and get rid of the things that aren't working. So each afternoon this week we'll be gauging the response to the show from several audiences, taking notes and then rehearsing the bits that help us make the show as a whole more meaningful. By Saturday night this process should be finished and then it's official opening night and no more rehearsal during the day except for line brush ups with Scott and the other actors prior to the show.

In other news, I asked Amanda to take a little video tour of the set with Angie, who directed the production. The set was designed by Rob Bowen, whose head of the Department of Dramatic Art at UNCA and construction was headed up by Sylvia Pierce of Scenery Concepts. Enjoy!

True West is ramping up. Prepare the vacuum cleaner!

It’s that time again! Going into rehearsals this week for our next show, True West. To kick off our rehearsal process, we held two open readings of True West, free to the public. The readings went really well, and an unanticipated benefit was the terrific discussion that ensued afterward. The folks who had listened to the script had great insights into family dynamics, Sam Shepard's oeuvre, and specific language in the play--plus, they all seem excited to come and see the fully-mounted production!

I want to thank all the actors who read: Scott Treadway, who will be playing Austin, Kay Galvin who will be playing the Mom, Lance Ball who will be playing Saul, and Peter Savage who read Saul on the Sunday reading. Peter also tweeted during the reading and took a few vids. You can see them here and here. It’s an interesting thread about the reading so I encourage you to check it out.

I wanted to share with you a couple of interesting comments and questions
that came up--hopefully these will whet your appetite for this unusual
play!

Comment: Oh, I know this family. You know how it is in families--there
are no surprises. You all know what cards the other ones have. A topic
gets brought up, and you know that your mother is going to say this, and
that will make your sister say that, then your father chimes in with
this...We're just watching this family do their dance. It may get more out
of hand than your family does, but...well, it may not!

Q: How long have you been rehearsing together?
A: We read this for the first time today.
Q: Wait, no, because this play opens in--what? On February 17?
A: That's right. We rehearse all of our plays for three weeks.
Q: How do you do that?
A: Well, it's the big advantage of working with this cast--Scott and I
have done a number of plays together, Lance and Kay have worked together,
Kay and I have worked together...it leads to an ease in the rehearsal
room, and it also means we're not really starting at square one, since we
know how the other people in the room work and think and communicate.
Plus, rehearsing this play is a full-time job. We rehearse about 30 hours
per week.

Q: This is by Sam Shepard, the actor?
A: Yes! Except he's also Sam Shepard , the playwright. He's quite well-known as a writer of dark family dramas, as well, of course, as an actor in movies and on stage.

(Side note: I worked for three days on the film Sweet Dreams which starred Jessica Lange back in 1984. She and Sam Shepard had just started dating, I think, and Shepard sat on the side of the set the entire time we were shooting. Cool! BTW, Ed Harris looked at me funny in that film! Uber cool!!)