Monday, November 10, 2008

Day Off

It's my day off today. Rehearsals are going very well. We added in the children's cast this weekend. They are all EXTREMELY talented and well-behaved. I feel very good about this cast on all accounts. Not only are the actors talented, they are inventive, imaginative, and a joy to be with. But honestly, I find that so many actors are a joy to be with. I've not been a part of one single cast that bums me out. There's always the person that you'll never really get along with, but...that's just life.

I always find myself enjoying the rehearsal process before a show opens, sometimes more than the run of the show itself. It's such an exciting time: Finding your character, discovering relationships between characters, and playing with all sorts of ideas. Freedom within boundaries. Your script provides the boundaries, but the freedom lies between the lines, and in making the black and white on paper become color and movement and meaning. By opening night, hopefully, you've solidified enough to be consistent, and then the challenge becomes finding new moments within repetition. But rehearsal is safe. There's no press, no audience, no standard. A clean slate. Who doesn't love a clean slate?

I have a voice lesson today and honestly, I really don't want to go. Voice lessons. Blah. I'll be spending an hour ooohing and ahhhing and eeeehing up and down the octave. See this must be why so many singers run into trouble acting. (None of my fancied friends here, of course.) Too many rules to singing, too much to think about. My voice teacher keeps telling me not to think, but for the life of me I can't figure out how NOT to think. Any suggestions on how not to think?

3 comments:

SandinaJ said...

Glad you are having a good time!

As far as not thinking, that's impossible. You're always thinking...even when you're trying NOT to think. The more you try NOT to think, the more you think about NOT thinking. It's a vicious cycle.

Roy said...

Actors really are a joy to be with. I feel more at ease at a rehearsal than in pretty much any other situation. It's even more comfortable than choir.

I suspect that what your teacher wants you not to think about are all the technical details of what you're doing, because when people focus on details, they lose the big picture. In singing, that means it becomes unmusical (this happens often in Bach Choir rehearsals).

So my suggestion is: when given an adjustment to make, think about how that will change the sound of what you're singing, and then try to make the sound that you've just imagined.

Fork said...

The easiest way to stop thinking is to put try remembering the choreography while you sing. That fixes it for me every time.