Preparations
In a few short hours, I begin rehearsals for HVSF’s summer 2012 season. A bunch of old friends will be on hand, as well as some new people.
Somehow, every time I begin this process, I always wish I were more prepared. The task ahead seems daunting. We train our acting company, rehearse three productions in repertory (Romeo and Juliet, The 39 Steps, and Love’s Labour’s Lost), open them in rapid succession, and then I go straight back into rehearsals for The Dork Knight, Jason O’Connell’s one-man show.
But the idea that I can be prepared for all this is illusory. And it flies in the face of how I want to work and what I believe in strongly about Shakespeare production. The discoveries and interpretation should happen in front of the audience, not in isolation in the rehearsal studio, and certainly not inside my head before rehearsals begin. And the more prepared I am, the more likely it is that we will favor my pre-meditated choices and consequently thwart our chances at making real discoveries in front of the audience.
The very best I can do is to know to the best of my ability what’s on the page, to be open to new ideas, to throw away any notion of any kind of result, and to facilitate the inventiveness of the other artists working on the project.
This approach sounds to me like a lot more fun.
