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Guest Director BJ Jones, Artistic Director of Northlight Theatre in Chicago, takes us on a journey through the rehearsal process of INTIMAN’s season opener.
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6
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DAY OFF JOURNAL | April 1, 2006 |
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Photo courtesy of Northlight Theatre
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What a great couple of days at rehearsal! Breakthroughs all around. Lines are sticking, blocking is becoming second nature and discoveries are being made. Richard and Michael are playing off each other wonderfully, cracking each other up, and finding new things to play together. We have changed the location of home plate to provide more playing room on the baselines and though we seem to have lost two feet of circumference it doesn’t appear to have hurt our proximity to our audience. We took a little field trip to the stage and saw the floor treatment which is absolutely grassless. It is my hope that this down at the heel look to our sad little field will reflect the state of Don and Michael’s lives, threadbare and challenged.
We sat and talked for about an hour yesterday about these two lost souls, struggling against all odds, fighting for a win in the game of their lives. Though the play is hilarious, at its base we talked about the fact that its not about little league or even baseball, and that those are metaphors for the our heroes struggle to get up off the mat, to play the hand that life has dealt them.
We started using the bar unit, and have had the van for a week though we lose it after tomorrow. We will take a look at clothes tomorrow for the first two hours and decide on the pieces we will use, which I hope will mirror the progression of the characters development.
I also met with our sound designer Joe today and we walked through the play deciding where we would put children s voices cheering, the sound of bats hitting balls, where the thunder crack and the rain will fall. One feels a bit godlike in that respect, but soon enough you fall back to earth when your decisions don t work.
I mentioned that I like jazz and Wendy our stage manager told me about a restaurant in Madronna called St. Cloud s that has great food and jazz. So I pulled out my trusty Vindigo and took their directions and found it. But the directions took me through every neighborhood on the lakeside for a half hour tour. My waiter gave me directions back and I only made 3 turns and it took 12 minutes! I think Vindigo better change their map vendor. But the food was great and the jazz enjoyable. Seattle has been great.
OK& . and I ll admit it& I saw Basic Instinct 2. It makes Showgirls look like a classic! Wait I think Showgirls is a classic, but in a campy way. BI 2 isn t campy its just plain bad, though I gotta hand it to Sharon Stone, she s in great shape. But whoever directed her to smoke incessantly and pose absurdly and to sneer and leer and play every scene in the same arch way should be shot! I gotta read the Times reviews before I rush off to a movie willy-nilly. There isn t enough time left in my life to waste going to bad movies.
My friend Neal Stamell would kill me for seeing that film and he ll bust my chops for going. But there I admitted it, it s out and, I feel better. OK, off to read about Napoleon s battle for Moscow. Just a little research for the next play I m directing, Retreat from Moscow with John Mahoney, at Northlight. No rest for the wicked who go to bad movies.
More Anon...
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Beej
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