We started rehearsals for Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy as soon as the holidays were over. It's been raining steadily for the past two weeks, but that first week of rehearsal, I was going to the gym in the mornings, racing home to shower, biking to work, racing back to the house & getting picked up for rehearsal, then rehearsing til 10pm. With the rain, I haven't been doing the biking to/from work, but the days are still just as busy. I haven't been in a full-length play since the spring of 2004, which is leading to a certain amount of self-consciousness and doubt, but I've been really invested in getting off book as quickly as possible and committing fully to all choices made onstage. It's been an exhausting and wonderful process so far.
The show opens on Feb. 5th, plays three shows each weekend, and closes Feb. 28th. The 6-person cast includes the lovely & talented Kathleen Ennis (who also happens to be Jack's ex-wife & Molly's mom), 2 young actors from the junior college who are really talented (Sean Trew & Tim Glidewell), a professor from the JC who I actually worked with in a Christmas revue years ago (Charles Mullins), and a Modesto actor who's done some work with Prospect Theater in the past (Josh Bower). We all work really well together and it's a very supportive atmosphere. The director, Ron Lane, is a friend of Jack and I, and he is just a doll to work with. He had me cast in his head months before auditions and has given me incredible support and freedom. It also helps that the character, Prudence, is a character I find myself identifying with. It's really just such a wonderful play and I couldn't be more thrilled to be working on it.
I'm totally stressed about making sure I retain all the lines -- although I have been off-book for a week, this week's rehearsals found me getting stuck in places where Durang's lines for Prudence in one scene are similar (or in some cases, have the same exact lead-in phrasing) to other lines either in that same scene or in a different scene. It's forced to me call for line more times than I'd like. I shouldn't worry as I am, because making the mistake in rehearsal (for me, at least) is often a good indicator that I won't make the mistake in performance. But because I haven't been onstage (MyMK47 shows notwithstanding) in years, I feel rusty and nervous.
...how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice...
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