I know that yesterday I was an absolute wreck. But rehearsal went absolutely swimmingly. No read-throughs here: I scheduled my first day with the crew I figured I would get along with easiest. So I did Act I, Scene I and followed that with the 2 Lucentio/Tranio/Hortensio/Bianca scenes. It wasn't just easy. It was a highly productive rehearsal and a very fun one at that. I got immediately back into the groove of directing. I was randomly shouting out shit constantly. I even started to block some of it. I tried to restrict myself to just table-work today, but what can I say? The spirit moved me. Nick found me this great guy to play Baptista. He's totally laid back and cool and is going to be a blast to work with. One of the things I learned from Jeff Calhoun: don't just cast for talent. Cast people you would hang out with during breaks. Cast people who you can have fun with. The guy playing Baptista is perfect. He's gonna be a laugh riot.
Zamora Rant.
John Zamora doesn't know the work of William Shakespeare from his own ass. He's gonna try to direct my show as often as possible, I can kind of see. He tried to gived me directing notes during the rehearsal today. What? I'm talking to the actors, here. I don't need to be undermined by your nonsense right now. He keeps trying to feed me crappy actors, too. I don't need any crap actors. I don't. Seriously, he has suggested every bad actor that was in Hamlet so far, excepting Laertes and Ophelia. "I think he's good," says he of the guy who played Guildenstern. Um. No. "Bianca needs to be more this, and I'm not getting it from her." Yeah. It's Day One. "I think you can take it even further." Of course I can take it further! (BTW: "Take it further"—standard note people give when they have no idea what to say. "Love what you're doing; take it further." "You're great. Take it further." "Do you have any notes for me." "Um, yes: take it further.") Whatever. I need to figure out some way of dealing with his notes better, I guess.
And he has decided he wants to have a little pizza thing with all of the actors so that they can get to know one another. I am, naturally, completely opposed to this idea. Call me antisocial, but I am not there to make friends: I am there to work. I have friends, and I'm sure most of the cast have friends, too. I am scheduling this mandatory pizza-pow-wow on a day when I'm calling everyone so that no one drives out there simply for pizza. That would be retarded. In fact, if we're done working, I would rather go home than socialize. So, I will stay for this pizza thing, but I won't like it. People drive from far: they don't want to hang out with random cast-type people, do they? Am I just a killjoy work-aholic freak?
It's just great, because I was so anxious about the show and rehearsal number one and it just all worked out. So much so that as one of the actors was leaving he was like "this is going to be so much fun." I think it is going to be. I'm using their time wisely, I'm letting them go if they don't need to be there, and I'm working around their schedules. Today was very fun. I am so grateful to Jensen and Matt, who are just fall-out-of-your-chair funny. I think Zuriel is gonna be really funny too, and we haven't even seen Shawn yet, and Shawn might be the funniest one of all.
Good times. Who is free at like 9:45p for me to call on my way home from rehearsal? Anyone? I usually need to talk about the evening, so if anyone wants to volunteer to be a sounding board, let me know. ;)
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