Moments

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Being a director is work.  Figure out the voice of the play.  Find the right talent, both on and off stage for to give life to that voice.  Figure out the beats and measures to the story.  Establish what will work, what won’t, and whatever else you do, try to remain faithful to that voice.  I have spent hours thinking, writing, scribbling, talking, meeting, reviewing, and we haven’t even started the rehearsal process yet.

What makes directing worth while for me is the magic moments in the process – tonight, I had the first of them.  That moment where you bring your cast together for the first time and you listen to the voices that have been talking solely in your own head coming from other people.  Where your cast firsts puts their own unique stamps on the characters.  Where you get glimpses of the chemistry and the characters that will come out of the rehearsal process.  For me, that’s a glowing, perfect moment.

Yes, my cast made me laugh (wouldn’t be much of a comedy if they couldn’t) and I know I will have fun with them.  Better yet, I could feel those characters – the kernels of those characters.

I made several new notes tonight based on the inspiration of listening to the cast.  I threw away ideas I had, because I could hear better ones from the talent these fabulous people bring with them.

As with all theatre, there were moments of frustration (poor Dick not getting to the readthru due to travel mishaps until about 3 minutes after we were done; a couple actors who had to miss it because of health issues), but hearing the chemistry between Nick (Petruchio) and Polly (Kate) in their first meeting, listening to the lovely licentiousness of John (Gremio) as he spoke of “fair Bianca” (that had me laughing to tears) and just about any time Jonathan (Grumio) had to explain himself to Petruchio – yup – these are the reasons I direct.   The magic moments where the words on the page go from being pictures in my head to being people I can hear.

Hee.  And now I start sending the cast the character write ups and discussing beat and measures before we start rehearsal.  Back to work…