Movement

I guess I'm a little more uptight than I normally think of myself as being.  I carpooled to rehearsal today with Brittney and Matt, and at some point, they totally made fun of this train of thought that I had shared with them earlier.  It was all in fun, of course, but I got really sad about it.  I mean, I had shared this thing with them (nothing at all really, it's just a story that will sound really weird in a blog entry) and then they chose to laugh about it and high-five one another.  I was hurt.  They couldn't believe I was hurt, and Matt said, "You don't make fun of your friends, do you?"  Mick and Debs joke like this: this is their humor, and it's not something I normally do.  I don't like it.  Brittney and Matt doing it today took me totally off guard.  I need to lighten up, of course, and learn that this is an okay thing and that I can handle it, but it was really weird.

Whatever.

Rehearsal was difficult today.  So many people means that a lot of people feel the need to talk, and when I am talking to one person, everyone else on stage to whom I am not speaking feels the need to speak to someone else.  It's so loud.  And Greg refuses to focus.  He's late to rehearsal every day and then when he's there he doesn't stay with the work.  He's all over the place.  It's annoying.  Dan is great... he gets better every day and Zuriel is going to be hysterical.  Today was a big Shawn day too, and Shawn is really fucking funny.  Mike fits right in with these people, and I like working with him.  It's fun, you know? 

Blocking rehearsals are hard on everyone, and they're always harder when the actors can't block themselves.  So I look at them act out 3 minutes of a scene without moving at all and then I go: "OK. Let's stop. And I will tell you exactly where to move."  It sucks because I hate doing that, and I have to tell them everything.  I don't want to be a puppeteer, but it turns out that I need to be or nothing will get done.  Matt and Josh and Dan can move themselves around a stage.  None of the other boys can and so there's a lot of "go here, go here, go here."  Meh.  Once I get this thing blocked, though, I can begin some real work.  I can't wait until then.  I wish they could get rid of their scripts and we could start working.

Matt and Brittney and I went to dinner in our town after rehearsal.  It was nice.  I loosened up a little, I guess.

I read a fascinating play last night by Dael Orlandersmith called Yellowman about racism among African-Americans surrounding more light-skinned black people.  It's quite a fascinating little read.  It's shorter: about 90 minutes, and was a finalist for a Pulitzer last year, I guess.  It's a minimalist, more poetic than anything else, piece.  Good shit.

I am exhausted.  This work is draining.  I forget that when I'm not working. :-)