Rehearsals 1 & 2 PLUS a whole lotta in between

I suffer from the guilt of when I used to keep a diary and nearly every entry began, "it's been too long since I last wrote..."

Here's a brief update so that the wonderful details can begin.

After three attempts, today the scenic budget passed and we have a design about the go into build!
Two weeks ago, the BIG STRUGGLE was a scheduling error in which the rehearsal process as exact one week short of what a play of this size in this community and with this amount of support should have. I met with advisors, gathered support of the most affected actors, met with acting faculty who generously backed me up, did a ton of research and went into the Head;s office with a plan for an earlier start. After about a week of what I will plainly call suffering, we got the week. And so, that is why, on October 22nd, we are in our 2nd rehearsal.
The BIG PROBLEM last week was the scenic budget. Sometimes the first idea is the best idea, and in the design's case it was this amazing idea of the floor rising up when the flood came. This seemingly easy task of using a drop-cloth on the floor, and the actors lifting up the fabric, cost over a thousand dollars. That's sometimes the absurdity of what we do. I would NEVER spend a thousand dollars (in contrast to the rest of the budget) on a big piece of muslin, but labor and hours and money and space all collide and made this idea IMPOSSIBLE. And so, last weekend, Brian and I met for hours and hours to redesign. But what helped most was going to back to the WHAT. We knew exactly what this world was made of and what the flood meant, and so, there are many ways of accomplishing the HOW. Here's what was important about the flood:ecent conversations, I have done A LOT of thinking about what's most important. I think I have to remind myself and the team that when it all boils down, the story is what matters and we can tell that story even in a bare space. We have had a beautiful process, where the design has landed is quite remarkable, and now it has to undergo some "renovations."

So, here is what was most important to me as written in an email to Brian:

The environment is natural and full of life, there is movement and flow and the audience is within it.
The world is from Maggie's point of view= feminine, strong, imaginative, ritualistic and imaginative.

Things during the play I really want to work with:

spilling of flour, cleaning it up, and following through to the final image.
swinging in the bucket over the "water"
flour=water (tea party, head in bucket)
dolls= one is lucy, one is dad, one is definitely the witch, maybe one is maggie
cellist
wheelbarrow as bed, as boat? as actual wheelbarrow
for the flood: we can rethink the floor rising if absolutely necessary. But, I do want the image to be something that we are able to see Maggie make the choice to go into (drown), perhaps its a huge hoop skirt that comes out in Lucy's house, and follows through the water scenes to the end. She can pull it up herself. perhaps it's a huge pile of flour that lands over(around). I want to make sure it can seem like the others are trying to save her. Parachute, hammock... the list can go on. And there's always yarn.
_________________________________
And so the design team met again the next night at my place for a meeting to really discuss these changes... change is much more difficult than new. Tensions ran higher than usual due to this change and oncoming rehearsal in a couple of days. As for me, I am going back to enjoying the calm before the storm.

________________________________

1st rehearsal notes coming. (getting a bit of distance first)
Design Presentations were outstanding. The designers must post their notes!
2nd rehearsal: Dialect work, hid-and-seek, dramaturgica question and answer, beginning of read-thru with heart-rate monitor drawn in.