Session Six: Week 38

Tuesday

We brought costumes and props in tonight, which is always exciting even if a little chaotic. As we began to unload and set up, one of the ensemble members approached me and let me know that our Anne got in some trouble and might not be able to perform with us. When Anne arrived, she confirmed this; the exact timeline going forward is unclear, but she will almost definitely not be present for all three performances.

She’s upset, but she’s taking responsibility for the actions she took that resulted in this situation. I reassured her that there is no judgment on my part, that I’ve reserved myself as an understudy for situations like this and can take on her role if necessary, and that now we needed to strategize together to figure out a plan. She was able to calm down and think things through with me.

This kind of thing happens sometimes, unfortunately. It’s why last year was the first time that no facilitators played major roles in the performances. Progress isn’t always linear, and we accept that as one of our challenges, trying not to let it frustrate us too much.

After we were more or less organized, we began at the top of the show. At first our Richard got very upset that she was forgetting many of her lines, at which point our facilitator Sarah stepped onto the stage to reassure the entire group that it’s normal to “lose lines” during a first dress rehearsal, even for professional actors. This reassured everyone, and we were able to get back to work.

There was a lot of compassionate adjustment on stage and off throughout the evening, with people reminding others of entrances, exits, and blocking that were miffed, and no one becoming angry or short-tempered.

Our Elizabeth joked with us that we had let her down by only bringing one throne, when we’ve blocked that scene with her seated beside Edward since the beginning. I mentioned that standing beside the throne could provide her with an interesting opportunity. “It’s up to you,” I said. “He’s sick and dying… Maybe you stand there protectively.” She shook her head. “I don’t really like him,” she said. “I mean, come on – ‘if he were dead, what would betide on me?’ He just died, and she’s thinking of herself.”

We got to the halfway mark in terms of pages, although we know that the latter part of the play moves much faster than the first. We’re in a good place and ready to move forward!

Friday
 

I had exciting news to share with the ensemble tonight. As soon as we were in costume and organized, we gathered in a circle, and I announced that we’d won a $36,000 WeWork Creator Award. The group erupted into cheers and applause. “Wait, how many noodles is that?” asked one woman. Kyle did the math: more than 12,000. “We’re rich!” she cheered.

I tried to impress upon them that this recognition is a result of their work more than anything else, and that they should feel proud and take credit for that. “I’m just the pitchwoman for the work that happens in this room,” I said.

We picked up where we had left off in our dress work through, plowing forward and, again, making compassionate adjustments as we went.

One longtime ensemble member arrived late, missing the announcement about the award. I caught her back stage when neither of us had anything to do for a few minutes and told her. She burst into tears, saying, “This is literally the best news ever.” She has an enormous amount of ownership of the program, being my most frequent (constructive!) critic and taking a lot of responsibility upon herself for our success. She also wants to continue to do this kind of work when she goes home, so something like this has enormous meaning for her. It was a thrill to see her so happy and excited – she has worked extremely hard in Shakespeare for years, and I didn’t need to say out loud that she should take a lot of credit for where we are now as a program.

We got to the end of the play far more quickly than anyone had anticipated, which was a very pleasant surprise. Even with adding costumes and props, we’ve shaved a half hour off of the time it took us to work through the play last time.

We gathered again in a circle, and I gave a bit of a pep talk. I encouraged everyone to keep hammering lines, but asked if our goal next week could be simply to get from the play’s beginning to its end, no matter how we do it. Based on my last five years with this program, I said that I thought that would be more valuable than trying to do things perfectly – our performances are always full of hiccups, and we’ll have more confidence having gotten through the entire thing while compensating for mistakes than if we try to get every line right and have no idea if we can get through the play in our allotted time. I reminded everyone that we’ve been working on the play for nine months and could improvise virtually any part of it if needed.

The team seemed confident going into our last week of rehearsal. Every year, this part of the process has been unique; I’m very interested to see how the next few weeks go.

Session Six: Week 37

Tuesday

We were thrilled tonight to welcome some folks from a local news station as we began a work-through of the play. Although some of us were nervous to begin with, we found it relatively easy to get past that and have a great rehearsal.

I was running around quite a bit and didn’t take many notes, but the theme of the night was patience and team work. We’ve been away from some of these scenes for a while, and people took good care of each other as we refreshed and refined. Some ensemble members are also becoming more and more aware of how scenes are functioning artistically. “We’re getting all bunched up,” one woman said at one point, encouraging the others on stage with her to spread out in a way that would be more visually pleasing.

We got through about half of the play, which is great considering it was our first attempt. The main thing slowing us down was uncertainty about entrances and exits, and the speed at which those were happening. We’re all aware of this and working on it. We are still confident that we’ll be able to perform our play in the allotted time!

Friday

When I entered the auditorium, I noticed our Richard standing at the back of the room, leaning on a table on which she’d laid her script, pinching the skin between her eyebrows with her eyes closed. I went to her immediately and asked if she was okay. She ruefully smiled and said, “Not really.” I asked her if she wanted to talk about it, and she said she did.

She is feeling extreme pressure to be perfect, just as she has the past two years. She feels that if she doesn’t know her lines exactly right, she will let everyone down. I listened intently and let her know that I understood – I’m a perfectionist, too – and then I asked her if she was feeling pressure from anyone in the group. She said she wasn’t. I reiterated that no one expects her to be perfect – that none of us will be perfect – and that not even our audience expects perfection. “The only pressure is coming from you,” I said. “You’ve gotta find a way to let yourself off the hook a little.” She responded that she wants to act professionally, and that she needs to live up to that expectation. I reminded her that even very successful actors make mistakes – that’s what blooper reels are! – and that she is not a professional yet. “Think of this as training,” I said. “You’re learning. Mistakes are a valuable part of the process.” I told her that the worst thing in the world is an actor whom you can tell is terrified of messing up. And she’s incredible when she relaxes. “You’re so much fun to watch when you’re having fun,” I said. “I’d much rather watch you enjoy yourself and mess up the lines than for you to get every word right and be stressed out the whole time.”

By the end of the pep talk, she was smiling and relaxed. I know that this is something we’re going to have to keep revisiting – it’s a very deeply-rooted issue for her – but she seems to recover a little more quickly every time we have one of these chats.

I hopped back stage to man the curtain as we continued working through the play. A few ensemble members sat at a table in the wings, going over their lines. One of them put down her script and said, “Frannie, I suck at memorizing lines! I have nothing memorized!” Before I could even respond, another ensemble member said, “Sit back, sweetie. I’m gonna teach you what Kyle taught me last year.” She scooted her chair closer and smiled, sharing some strategies that work for her. Another ensemble member chimed in, and so did I. “You’ve gotta find your own way to do this,” said that first ensemble member. “Me, when I’m doing my lines, people ask me who I’m talking to alone in my bunk, and I say, ‘I’m just doing Shakespeare.’” She shrugged, smiling. She has clearly joined the vast community of actors who don’t care if people think they’re crazy – they just want to get those lines down.

An ensemble member who has been gone for a while was back tonight. Toward the end of the night, I found myself sitting in the front row with her, watching a scene unfold. Suddenly she shook her head and said, “This just makes me sick.” I asked her why. She said that seeing what everyone had accomplished in the time she was gone – seeing how much she’d missed and knowing that it will be hard for her to catch up – is gut-wrenching for her.  We went to the back of the room so we could keep talking without being disruptive. She talked at length about the situation that had led to her long absence and said one of the hardest things was being away from Shakespeare. She reminded me that she’d acted in high school. “When I played Juliet, that was a big part of who I was,” she said. “And now, doing Shakespeare here… This helps take the burden off your shoulders. I can’t explain it…” She paused, thinking. “This helps you dig down inside yourself – and everybody says that. It’s not just me. Everyone in the group says that.” She then told me that the first person she saw after her absence was another ensemble member. When this person saw her, the first thing she said was, “Where have you been? Are you coming back to Shakespeare? You’d better be coming back. I’ll see you tonight.” The ensemble member to whom I was listening tried to impress upon me how incredible that was - to be welcomed back immediately when she’d been gone for so long. “You just don’t get that anywhere else,” she said.

We got through to the end of the play with lots of starts and stops – we haven’t worked very much on the last few scenes. We’re in a good place, though. Costumes and props arrive on Tuesday, and we’re ready to start using them. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but no one is freaking out. We are all determined, even those of us who are nervous. This group is very tight and motivated. The next few weeks will be intense, but I know that people are really going to shine. The end of the process is always awe-inspiring.  

Session Six: Week 36

Tuesday

We continued our work through of the play tonight, arriving at the final scenes in Richard’s and Richmond’s camps and on the battle field. These scenes are pretty straightforward, so most of our work was simply reviewing and refining blocking – we initially staged these scenes in the classroom where we sometimes work, and we needed to get on the same page about some details.

The main work of the night was on the ghost scene, which we staged with many stand-ins and without knowing for certain where people needed to enter and exit. We re-assigned roles as needed, refreshed ourselves and introduced new people to the mechanics of the scene, and ran through it several times, writing everything down as we went. Having a “cheat sheet” will help during the remainder of our process, especially if we need to run the scene with stand-ins again.

At the end of the meeting, those of us who’ve been in the group for a while asserted again that we are far ahead of where we usually are in the process at this point. Some years, we’ve been lucky if we’ve been able to work through and run the play once with costumes and props; in fact, our first full play never had a complete run before we performed it, and we didn’t know for certain that we’d be able to get through it in our allotted time. Our plan going forward, with this luxury of having more rehearsal time than usual, is to alternate runs of the play with detailed scene work until the week before performance, at which point we will run it twice with costumes and props.

I’m thrilled that we’re able to do this. We will, of course, still be nervous before our performances, but we will have a solid foundation to give us more confidence than usual, even with those nerves. It will be interesting to see if this changes the dynamics of the play’s execution in front of an audience.

Friday

We spent our time tonight problem solving – one ensemble member who has emerged as a sort of stage manager and I have kept a list of particularly messy scenes/transitions to be worked as time allows. We solved the problem of a mysteriously appearing and disappearing bench, figuring out the best way to get it on and off stage to ensure that it stays a part of a scene in which it’s very helpful to the actors involved. One ensemble member told us that she’d felt particularly awkward during one scene – that it had been difficult for her to figure out how to address certain people because they’d been physically far from her on the stage. So we fixed that blocking!

Our Edward, then, asked to work on her monologue, which she’s memorized. At first she judged herself harshly each time she stumbled, frustrated that she knew the lines when rehearsing in her unit but couldn’t seem to get them out with us. We all encouraged her, saying that this is part of the process, that it’s completely fine to make mistakes, and that it throws all of us off when we go off book in front of people for the first time. As she continued to work, her performance got stronger and stronger. She still felt poorly about how she’d done, but the rest of us felt strongly that she’d done very well, and we reiterated that.

Our next meeting will be an attempt to run through the entire play. I cautioned the group that we might not get through all of it on our first try – that that’s common and nothing to worry about. We’ll see how it goes!

Session Six: Week 35

Tuesday

Written by Matt

Facilitators were held up for a while at security today, which usually promises a delayed start for the group. With so much to do before performance, there wasn’t time to waste, so facilitators hustled over to the programs building, anxious to make up the time.

Inside the auditorium, the curtains were drawn and a scene was being rehearsed: a conversation between Hastings and Catesby that sets up Hastings’s demise. The two women were speaking with confidence and poise, but then a voice cut in at a key moment:

“Wait. Who are you saying that to?”

It was our Richard, sitting in the audience. The scene stopped, and the women paused for a moment and rustled through their scripts.

“Well, isn’t she talking to Stanley?” offered one woman who follows the script closely.

“Let’s think about this,” said a longtime member, while several other women. After a minute or two of discussion, they came to an understanding of the line (a statement by Hastings), and moved on to figuring out how to block the end of the scene.

“That’s real good,” Richard chimed in. “That’s dope. You guys are awesome.”

Our Anne, who has so far mostly avoided weighing in on others’ performances, suggested a change, leaping to her feet and striding to the stage, where she demonstrated her idea.

Playing the scene again from the top, the performances by Hastings, Catesby, and Stanley were tight and considered. “Open up!” shouted Richmond from the audience whenever an actor turned her back to the audience. At the end of the scene, a chorus arose of “that looked great.” One woman took the temperature of the group: “Are we ready to move on? Let’s move on.”

A new member piped up: “Okay! Act Three! Scene Three!”

Richard jumped to her feet. “Ok, we need Ratcliffe, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan!”

All without a word from facilitators—some of the women were surprised, after 45 minutes, to see the facilitators sitting there in the audience.

The feeling of purpose in the room was contagious. Even women who ordinarily take a back seat during scene work were engaged and focused. And that energy from the group enhanced and redoubled the effort onstage. For two and a half hours, the group worked totally undirected and uncoached, sorting out among themselves how to run the rehearsal. And run it they did. We blazed through all seven scenes of Act Three, including several with complicated entrances and exits, first stumbling through each scene, then working it two or three (or more) times to refine blocking and intention.

A highlight came in III.iii, a scene in which Ratcliffe leads Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan to their deaths. Two women were recruited to be halberds, which crowded the narrow playing space before the curtain. “Wait,” said Ratcliffe, halfway through, “I don’t get this scene.” Several women offered suggestions about making the performances more specific and intentional.

“Wait, why are [the prisoners] talking?” asked Ratcliffe.

“The same reason we talk when police are escorting us,” said Richard, who was kneeling to demonstrate to Rivers a potential physical expression of terror, and then leaping up to show “what comfort looks like” to Grey.

“It’s like you in seg on [security level] four and they’re taking you on that walk and it’s like a mile long,” Richard offered to the three prisoners as a final note.

When one of the guards—played by our Anne—broke up the three prisoners, who were huddled together for comfort, the woman playing Grey said, shaking her head, “No touching. Breaking us up. That’s prison.”

Already, as III.iii finished up, women were pulling together the furniture for the next scene.
As we worked through the rest of the act, so many of the women joined in to help, from the usual leaders to those who ordinarily sit back a bit.

When we ended, the group was elated, almost giddy with excitement. “That was dope as hell,” Richard said, and the others murmured assent. The woman who plays Richard’s mother said that, although she had remained quiet throughout most of the rehearsal, she had been riveted by the performances. A new member mentioned as we closed for the day that this was her favorite meeting so far. She said she felt that we had “really done the work,” and commented on how good that made her feel.

Friday

Written by Kyle

Tonight was a great night. I really see the ensemble coming into itself, and I feel less like a teacher or leader and more like a facilitator.  It’s really satisfying that when we get into the space, everyone has already taken it upon themselves to start the workshop.  When Lauren and I got there this evening, the ensemble had already checked in and completed the ring exercise.  They were eager to start rehearsing, and, without much discussion, we launched into rehearsal.  One ensemble member in particular seems to be very good at taking charge.  Up until now she has always been a solid member of the cast, and all of us have been waiting for her to step into this role.  We as a group of facilitators have felt that it was an inevitability that she would emerge as a leader; we just didn’t know when, or what was holding her back.  It feels vindicating that she, without our prompting, has taken such an active role in the group’s productivity.  She was giving notes, organizing the rehearsal, and holding the others accountable in a very humble but clear manner. She seemed to hit that balance perfectly.  Between her and one of the other newer members, they seemed to know the blocking for the whole cast - their energy was contagious.  For the most part, Lauren and I sat back and let the ensemble be the ensemble.

Despite the productivity, there was a fair number of people missing; we didn’t skip a beat, though, and the rest of the ensemble jumped in as needed.  All in all, we finished the entirety of the fourth act, which is a relatively large chunk of text for this group.  I also noticed that there seemed to be a fair number of personal struggles happening in the group with individuals; it was nothing anyone wanted to talk about, nor was there in-fighting within the ensemble - just two or three different women, who were clearly upset, speaking low to each other for support.  With the relatively small turnout for the evening, having two or three in a dark place came out to a high percentage.  It didn’t seem to bother anyone, though. Everyone was pretty content to just get up no matter how they felt and get the job done.

On the way out, I talked with one of the newer members whom I know has been having a hard time lately. This time of year has a lot of family time that she is missing and takes its toll on her.  I asked her if she was okay. She said that she was “only kind [terrible] today,” but that this coming Tuesday she was expecting to be “really terrible.”  I asked if she was still going to come, and she said “probably not.”  I told her to come, tell everyone at check in that she didn’t want to talk, is having a hard time, and to give her some space.  She smiled large and said “We’ll see…”

Session Six: Week 34

Tuesday

Tonight I had a series of individual conversations with members of our ensemble while Kyle got the group going by reviewing the scene we ended with on Friday. That strengthened, we moved on to the scene in which the Murderers come for Clarence. We were missing our First Murderer, but we decided to work the scene anyway.

We discovered some funny shtick for the Murderers, whose interpretation is very Laurel and Hardy, but there was a challenge the first time we ran through the scene in that our Clarence remained seated on the ground the entire time. We asked her if she felt that she needed to sit, or if maybe she should stand. She said she wasn’t sure. I asked her what Clarence wants in this scene. She landed on him wanting to stop the murderers from killing him, which is spot on. I suggested that she physically engage in her efforts, pointing out that, even seated, if I want to make a strong point, I’m going to plant my feet and lean forward to do so.  

We went through the scene again with her standing when she felt compelled, and it worked much better! We wondered how to get Clarence’s body off the stage without dragging her across the floor and arrived at the creative solution of the First Murderer stabbing her from behind while the Second Murderer pages the curtain, and then the First Murderer simply pulls Clarence through the opening and follows, returning for the end of the scene.

We went through the scene one last time, encouraging our Clarence to give herself time to absorb the information she’s getting and react to it. She did, and there was a lot of growth!

We moved on to the scene in which peace is brokered by Edward and then word comes of Clarence’s death. There was a bit of a debate over how everyone is arranged on stage at the top of the scene, and finally we figured it out. One of our longtime ensemble members, who is a perfectionist and knows it, smiled and said, “Okay, okay. I was wrong. I was wrong.” Another ensemble member gasped theatrically and said, “You were wrong? You were wrong?! Let the record show that on April 25, 2017, [name] admitted she was wrong.” We all had a good laugh, including the woman who was the subject of the joke.

The scene went beautifully. A quiet member of the ensemble surprised us all by having her lines memorized! And our Edward has clearly been working on her monologue – it’s incredibly strong and impactful.

Our Richard entered the scene with her foam sword tucked in the back of her shirt through her collar. I’m not sure why she did it, but, as I watched, I realized that the bend in the sword made her look hunch backed. You may remember from this blog, months ago, that our Richard has been very resistant to playing Richard’s “deformity” – she hasn’t wanted to alter her physicality or weaken him. Using the sword as a prosthetic was an interesting idea to me, and potentially a compelling artistic choice. I pulled her aside toward the end of our session and asked her what she thought about it. I pointed out that, perhaps, when the curtain opens on her at the top of the play, she could be regarding the sword, endowing it with all of her bitterness and anger, and then at the word “deformed,” she could place it in her shirt, establishing the convention. The sword could then be taken out for the fight, and would work as a pretty cool symbol. She loved these ideas. Problem solved!

Friday

We began tonight by plugging our First Murderer into the scene we staged on Friday. This threw our Clarence for a bit of a loop, as having a different person in the role changed some of how the scene worked. We reassured her that more rehearsal will help things fall into place. One ensemble member asked our First Murderer why she was “doing an accent,” and she replied that she didn’t seem to be able to help it. I asked her if she knew her character’s objective, and she said she wasn’t sure. I suggested that the “accent” might come from a disconnect with the character, so we talked about how this guy behaves. Why does he let Clarence speak for so long, for instance? We determined that he wants to control the others. She asked if “the cockiness should come into my voice.” I asked her to just focus on her objective for now – that everything else flows from that. The second time running through the scene felt much better for everyone, and we moved on.

We explored the reactions of the characters in Act Two, scene four, in which the Duchess, Queen Elizabeth, and York are told about the imprisonment of Vaughan, Rivers, and Grey. What does this violation of the peace agreement mean for them? Our Duchess and Elizabeth were all in for reacting with horror and dismay, while our York was more hesitant, saying that a child might not understand the implications. We suggested that he would still react to seeing the women so upset, and we found a flow for the scene from there.

We moved on to the scene in which the Prince is brought in by Richard and Buckingham, Hastings informs everyone that Elizabeth and York have taken sanctuary, the Prince is taken to the Tower to meet with his brother, and Buckingham enlists Catesby’s help in finding out if Hastings will be part of the conspiracy to make Richard king.

We worked on blocking very collaboratively, with one member making a great suggestion that Richard linger on the floor in front of the stage, separating him a bit from the group and making more clear what has happening.

In discussing the Prince’s role in this scene and the way the others treat him, we got into somewhat of a debate. Our version of this lengthy scene is extremely truncated; our Prince has stage fright and asked us to cut as much as possible. As a result, we eliminated the entire part of the scene in which the Prince expresses some suspicion, and the boys play around with Richard.  Our Richard, who seemed to be having a bad day in general, pointed out that some ensemble members were interpreting the scene without keeping in mind the material that has been cut. She reminded us that the Prince actually has a lot to say about what’s happening, and that he “isn’t stupid.” She made a good point, but, unfortunately, she made it in such a confrontational way that it shut down the collaborative energy and caused a number of people to get frustrated and upset. I tried to express what she was saying for the group in a more constructive way, but the sour energy remained, and we ended in a bit of a cloud.

It’s an ongoing challenge for this ensemble member – when she’s feeling negative, she often takes it out on others, often without realizing she’s doing it. We keep talking with her about it, trying to help her navigate new ways of handling communication when she’s feeling lousy, and the ensemble continues to be as patient as they can be even when her actions make things difficult. We are all learning and growing.