Rehearsal Day One aka. HELL

I got cast in a play.  I was excited because #1 I had previously been cast in a play that I decided to quit when I found out how illegit it was (ie we had to pay to be in it....um, shouldn't it be the other way around?) and #2 I love/miss/live for acting and haven't been in a play since graduating acting school and I'm beginning to feel like a lame-o.

The following is my experience of the first rehearsal.  Oh, it was a special two hours.

Rehearsal: Day 1

Drove to the ghetto. Parked in the ghetto.  Was scared in the ghetto.  Felt bad for being scared in the ghetto. Worried about my car getting broken into in the ghetto.  Felt bad for worrying about my car getting broken into in the ghetto.  Got out of my car in the ghetto, and quickly, swiftly, walked around my car and like a diving gull snatched my computer bag up from the passenger side floor so as not to leave it alone in the ghetto. Began my walk through the ghetto. All the while maintaining a general sense of guilty fear and high levels of self-consciousness.  I didn’t see a single white person.  I felt bad for noticing.

I arrived at the theatre, breathing a mental sight of relief that I made it, and was greeted by a staircase.  It is up! Ok! I climbed up the stairs in the definitely not handicapable accessible theatre to find a surprisingly nice little black box housing an equally surprising menagerie of folk.  Less nice, more surprise.  And as time passed: annoyance, coupled with regret, realization of future embarrassment, and general feelings of dissatisfaction with my station in life at present.  Although, these feelings do come up often being that I am a newly graduated professionally trained actor unemployed and living with my dad. WITH NO PROSPECTS.

The folk included a mild mannered and soft-spoken know-it-all not afraid to correct others even if he is not sure himself and might be wrong gay man playing the strong and handsome manipulative male romantic lead.   His pacing while reading, turning of his full back to the audience, and the monotony of his voice WORE on me. 

An assistant director who acted like a just plain old director although it was his first day.  He was replacing someone else due to drama I didn’t understand.  He had no research or plan, not a single note in his script.  Kept smoothing back his Hollywood hair, and sayings things like “most people just say the lines but you guys are actually like really saying them like they mean something and that is good because they do”.  His voice is halfway between Kelsey Grammar and Zach Morris. 

Sincere Leigh.  Sincerely. I’m not lying. She plays the stripper girlfriend of the romantic male.  She has a new white mustang, a purple mark jacobs purse, scuffed as hell pilgrim boots, a skull belt on her acid wash skinny jeans and black button up shirt outfit and scraggly greasy bleach blonde with roots short Cameron Diaz length hair, make-uped over acne, and the smell of wet cigarettes. Did I mention her name is Sincere Leigh? Sincerely.

Other notable mentions include the director/writer.  The woman is frightening because she seems to be one of those people that are on a different brain wave and you just can’t really get ahold of them.  Like how crazy people are scary because of their unpredictability.  There is a lot of little girl, broken dreams, and revenge mixed into her personality.  Add into this pot a 58 yr old (I know because she told us) frizzy short-haired big 70’s glassesed pants-suit wearing lady playing a 26 yr old single mom giving every emotion and American dialect in the book except the appropriate one.  An older down-trodden looking man playing the coked out caricature of a boss taking every line so seriously that he could only seem to do two in a row before being hopelessly lost.  As in, he lost his place in the script. CONS-TANT-LY. And then the cute 18 yr old looking stage manager who actually seems kinda cool and really excited about theatre.  It can't all be bad. Right?  I mean, I hope.  The liklihood of him being a serial killer or something is quite low I'd imagine.

Rehearsal was two hours.  Wretched, unexplainable, non-sensical horror.  It did not go well, but only I seemed to notice.  Favorite quote: "There is no reason this play can't end up on Broadway".  YES there is. YES THERE IS.  I can't even get into how bad the script is, but, BUT maybe you can guess at how bad the acting was based on the aforementioned characters.  The play will last two hours.  We will have 12 rehearsals of two hours each.  NOT ENOUGH TIME.  LAUGHABLE. LAUGHABLE!!!!!!!!!

*****

I quit

My second play in less than a month

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us ev'ry day, it will brighten all the way
If we'll keep on the sunny side of life

OR WHATEVER.

***I have to say that I applaud the effort of the people organizing the play to take the leap and do theatre, get themselves out there. However, my horror for this production was based in the general lack of effort to find anything out about theatre before beginning the process of putting on a play people were going to (supposedly) pay money and come see.  It felt like an LA fame drive.  People hoping to be famous and putting as little effort into it as possible.***