"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie." - All's Well That End Well

Good evening!
Well... perhaps I really should say "good morning," as we have already ventured into the wee hours as I begin to compose this post. I'm sitting beside our fabulous Production Stage Manager, John Nehlich, who is still up finishing paperwork and finalizing tomorrow's schedule. He has been sleeping on our couch on the nights we rehearse to cut down on travel time and the expense of NJ Transit tickets out here from his place in the city. Stage managing a show the size of Romeo and Juliet that utilizes texts in two languages, multiple translations, and a hodgepodge of actors ranging from Equity members to high school apprentices is more than a full time job. John, like the rest of us, is donating his time and his talents because he believes in what we're doing, and I must say that he is proving to be an uncommonly delightful house guest.

There's too much to say about how rehearsals are going and too little time before I start passing out at the keyboard, so I'll try to take you on a brisk walk through our woods as opposed to a leisurely stroll. Our second Apprentice Company rehearsal with Dan and the rest of the cast was our first on our feet. The ACs have yet to visit the real performance space (we're rehearsing in a studio for now), so the session began with a description of the church and an explanation of the tape lines on the floor that represent stairs/set pieces etc. Dan worked with us on staging or " blocking" the opening exchanges and the very end of the play, two scenes in which the AC will play vital roles. The confidence the younger actors gained over the course of the two hour session was stunning. One of our more reluctant actors, a young lady who signed up for the project because of her talent for working behind the scenes, started out the night nearly whispering her lines. After some coaxing from Dan and myself and not a small amount of ribbing from her older sister, she ended rehearsal smiling, having landed some great zingers on her cast-mates.

The biggest problem we faced last night was with our Spanish translation of the scene at the top of the play between Sampson and Gregory. It's quite funny in English, but the Spanish version we've been working with is dry and not exactly actor-friendly. The ACs have found a fun sense of play speaking the English version, but as we've worked their lines in Spanish, their performances have flattened out. John Keller and I haven't had any real way to address this due to linguistic limitations. Fortunately our Lord Capulet, Claudio Mir, heard the need for a more dynamic translation and found us a new one by this morning. The AC's say it'll be much more fun to act this version, and they don't seem even slightly annoyed by having to start memorizing another script.

Things are definitely moving forward. We did a lot of stretching and movement work tonight. The ACs resent me a little, I think, for asking them to perform such super-human feats as forward bends, lunges and child's pose. I'll have to console myself with the fact that they do seem to enjoy doing the exercises we lead them through in spite of their claims of fatigue. Last night we began to introduce some of the basic principals of Michael Chekhov movement technique in order to give them some physical tools to bring more life into their scenes. We'll continue with this and the stretching so that they're better prepared for the real tasking physical stuff we ask them to do when our fight choreographer arrives.

Stay tuned. You'll be hearing more from us soon.
Happy Friday, friends of culture.

-Jen