On Thursday night, I had a night off from rehearsal and my guys and I went to the theatre to see Tick, Tick , Boom. (Notice that when I get a night off from theatre, I go see more! Guess I really like it, huh?) As it turns out I got last night (Friday) off as well, due to a storm, but didn’t know that until I was driving out of my neighborhood, headed to rehearsal. Now, me being me, I am panicking because I am nervous I haven’t rehearsed enough! You know I like to rehearse things to death and then I am still not confident. Our director keeps saying she doesn’t want us to peak too soon and I keep saying “Not a problem!” As far as I am concerned, I never “peak”!! I am always hanging by a thread!
Back to Tick, Tick, Boom. I have seen the show before and love the music and sentiment behind the play. I thought this cast was very talented and although there were some technical things we were not happy about (inconsistent blend between the band and the singers, too much volume for certain singers. etc.) we enjoyed the show. However, I was not fond of the direction of this particular production.
I took my first directing class in college because I had to. It was fun enough and I got to work with a professor I did not know very well at the time, but I knew I did not care anything about directing. It was not what I went back to school for and I had never had the desire to direct. I took Directing 2 because it fit into my schedule. It put me with the one professor I was not fond of ( and who was really not fond of me!) but I decided it was the thing to do. As it turns out, we worked together fine and I learned quite a bit in the class. I was one semester away from graduating and I decided to completely change my schedule at the last minute and try to take Directing 3, this time with my favorite professor. I had to get the professor’s permission and I had to quickly decide what play I was going to direct. I ended up loving my three fellow students, the class, what I directed, my actor’s and the whole process. But I still didn’t really care about being a director some day.
During that same semester, I was offered and took a directing internship. I went to a local high school and worked on character development and assistant directed a production of The Crucible. Helping these young actors really think about and experiment with their characters, showing them how to do research and asking them lots of questions to make them work out problems was one of the most fun and rewarding things I have ever done. They scared me when they did not know all of their lines a week before the show, but it all turned out great! Still, I did not have any plans to direct.
In the year since graduation I have been in 5 plays. I have had a director that was lazy and did almost nothing, to the point of not showing up at all to some rehearsals. I have had very well organized, well researched, enthusiastic directors who made the process fun and made me feel very prepared. I have had those who were somewhere in between. I got to direct a small kiddie show at church a few months ago, which was not as fun as I thought it would be due to so many limitations. (The actual show turned out fine.) All of this has made me think maybe I do want to direct something with real actors again. I see all of these things I would do differently when I watch a play, which makes just watching difficult, but gets my creative mind spinning!
My problem with Tick, Tick, Boom was the way it was staged, especially in a couple of numbers that to me went beyond the light-hearted pieces they were supposed to be to something I found almost silly and incongruous with the rest of the show. Other blocking issues and the set design in general bothered me. I know it was a small space, I am used to that. I did my directing at school and my BFA project in a small 40 seat black box space. I just found it repetitive, unimaginative and cluttered. I do NOT fault the actors, they did a great job. I fault the director.
My last comment is about the audience. For some reason every diva of the Birmingham area was in attendance on Thursday night. And let me just say it makes for some entertaining people watching!! There were old women I have seen in shows since I was a child. There were women my age that I did shows with back when we were all children/ teenagers. There were younger women there that I just auditioned with recently. There were the women who get the leads in every major musical production in town, over and over and over and over and over again. I kept my head down and observed these women of the local theatre. They squealed and hugged. They waved around the room and talked too loud. During the show they laughed too loud and too long and sometimes when things had turned from funny to serious, they continued to laugh. They acted silly, melodramatic, and WAY over the top from the minute they walked in the door until they were filing out. I slipped out as quickly as possible.
NOT that anyone knows me! I haven’t done much in those big theatres since I was 18 years old. I look way different than I did when I was 18, so no fear of being recognized! I have no intention of auditioning for anything at those places again. I felt out of place when I did audition last summer and after seeing these women strut around, I feel fortunate to work with the talented, unassuming women I am currently working with. I am content to quietly do small roles in small theatres.
So I am glad for the night out with my guys, I enjoyed the performances, both on stage and off, but I will be glad to get back to my own rehearsals!
