From the Director

Welcome to Our Town!

Great job on the read thru last night. Thanks to everyone who filled in for some of our actors who had conflicts. There are still a few unassigned parts in the cast; Katie and I will be filling/assigning those in the next week or so.

Because of The Fourth of July, next week is a short one. Call for those days looks like this:

Monday July 2: George, Emily

Tuesday July 3: Stage Manager (hereafter referred to as "SM",) all the Gibbs family, all the Webb family, Howie Newsome and Joe Crowell.

As a review for those of you who may have missed it, here are Katie's and my expectations for you:

1. Arrive prepared for rehearsal: This means that you should have your script and a pencil with an eraser. Be ready to begin at 7:00 PM. Take care of dinner, bathroom breaks and phone calls BEFORE 7:00! I typically don't take a break during rehearsal, but you likely won't be onstage for the entire three hours. You can take care of other business when your offstage, but when your onstage, be ready to work.
2. Direction comes from your directors: Katie and I are going to work very diligently in helping you find and create a character onstage. I'm certainly open to your ideas about what you want to create onstage; part of my job is giving you a space where you can create! But avoid giving other actors direction.
3. Keep all drama onstage where it belongs: I love drama onstage, hate it in real life. If you have a problem or an issue with someone or something, talk to me. Or talk to Katie. Our goal is to give you a wonderful community in which you are free to make a character become real.
4. Check the blog once a day: Using a blog to communicate with cast is new for me, but if I use it like email, I'll probably post things in the morning. It should serve as a handy record for what's ahead and what we've accomplished

Now for today's trivia:

Fun Fact about Our Town #1: On page 1, Thornton Wilder gives Grover's Corners an actual location- "latitude 42 degrees... longitude 70 degrees..." This isn't actually in New Hampshire; it's in Massachusetts, about 1000 ft off the coast of Rockport in the Atlantic Ocean. Peterbourough, New Hampshire is believed by many to be the inspiration for Grover's Corners.

Homework for this long weekend: Rita and Whitney need to create a kitchen for their homes in Grover's Corners. Everyone else, Katie would like you to focus on mime this weekend. Take an action that you do every day (eating a bowl of cereal, shaving, driving to work, making microwave popcorn) and identify every action that has to happen. She's already talked to you about the space that objects have; make sure you maintain this space as you pick up a spoon or push multiple buttons on a keypad. Once our kitchens are completed in Our Town, we'll be doing lots of stuff in there. Start practicing now!

Lisa