377 days, Blog #162 A Reflection on Almost, Maine or where I've been for the last three months

Well this is a break from the recent routine.  It’s Friday night and I’m not at the theater.

The show closed two weeks ago, but there was a follow up post production meeting last Friday.  I highly advocate post production meetings.  Something I learned from working on huge events – it is always best to capture the lessons learned from the project.  It’s a good way to affirm the positive and identify the need for improvement.  Plus, it takes that wretched cattiness to which I find most of us theater people are prone and forces it towards a constructive completion.

So there’s my advice.

Here’s my conclusion.

I did not expect to spend the first part of 2015 directing a play.  I had hopes (now thwarted) of ending the year pursuing a passion project.  But life is funny.  We don’t always get what we want.  We get what we need to learn.  Granted the opportunity to learn can be lost, but I went into this production with every intention of observation.

I think the biggest observation was my own impulse as a director.  It’s been seven years since that dust settled.  And it got kicked up in a shitstorm I’m not anxious to relive ever.  But this was a good test of my personal growth and artistic maturity.  I can’t say that I’m a good judge of that, honestly.  I am still an artist with a fragile ego… so of course I want to say I needed a lot of improvement.

That said, a lot went well… in spite of… a lot.  Like:

1. I found out I was directing two days before the first blocking rehearsal.  This was a play that I did not choose and quite honestly probably would not have likely chosen to direct (not for a lack of appreciation – mostly because I am a lot more particular with how I give up my time to community theater now and I’d rather it be for a passion project… but whatever).  I had no planning… and very little vision.  I was the stage manager, so I knew some of the previous director’s vision.  I wanted to honor that.  I also wanted some freedom to make it my own (a necessity for living with it for two and a half months).  Luckily, the playwright provided some lengthy stage notes.  He is also pretty active on the internet with interviews and links for further inspiration.  It validated my choice to have very little set and expose much of the magnificent Barre Players stage (seriously, Barre, you have absolutely no idea how good you’ve got it with that square footage and height of performance space).  I also managed to navigate my way with some music.  Ray LaMontagne because I had to indulge in one Maine trope.  That led to Iron and Wine and a few Beatles covers, as well as a haunting acoustic lullaby of When You Wish Upon a Star.  I chose the music (in addition to the stuff we had to use because it was already purchased) and got some positive feedback to validate my choices.

2. February.  If you were anywhere in Massachusetts that month, you can probably guess the challenge.  I had to cancel five rehearsals due to weather.   And there were some that I felt badly for making people drive to Barre.  But we had nothing noteworthy the first two weekends in March and for that reason alone I am going to be kind about Mother Nature.  That said, the theater is uninsulated and to conserve oil in the upstairs (where there are no pipes) the heat gets shut off every night.  Luckily the costumes for the show were mostly coats, but it didn’t stop us from seeing our breath a few nights.  And, of course, everyone’s favorite seats were the platforms on either side of the vents.

 

It’s also important to note that we were able to bounce back from the canceled rehearsals.  The beauty of Almost, Maine is that it is a series of nine little stories.  There were some scenes that took longer to find their groove than others… but the loss of time was not as devastating as it could have been.  My only sincere regret is that the rehearsal that kept getting canceled was the one after which I planned a dinner with the cast.  I felt this was crucial because the cast was never onstage all at once and some people were only in one scene.  We found this opportunity after the shows and it really manifested the second weekend when it smoothed out the rougher edges with the camaraderie of performing friends.

3. Barre Players (and I say this with a lot of love) has a chronic case of get off my lawn you mangy kids attitude.  And I get that.  There are a lot of devoted volunteers who have done well by that theater and committed themselves to it when many many others go off to other places or other interests.  They do it the way it works and the way it is possible to get it done.  But sometimes the idea of doing it a different way is… ahem… difficult to accept.  I met a bit of resistance about certain things.  But I’m stubborn and getting older myself so I honestly don’t give a f- care.   So I did it.  And it was good.  And, like I said, those cast parties made the show better.

4. We had no water the second weekend.  Actually, I had nothing to do with this solution.  But it just goes to show that theater is always full of weird curve balls.  Frozen pipes resulting from a water main burst cut off our water supply.  The town wasn’t able to fix it… so we had to syphon water from the bank next store and keep the kitchen sink running all weekend.  Yeah, never a dull moment.

5. The cast.  I did not cast this show.  It’s part of that finding out I was directing right before rehearsal thing.  And I suppose this sort of thing happens in the professional world all the time… but this was a new challenge – to work with someone else’s vision.  Kind of like that quick pick or whatever you can get when buying a lottery ticket.  Well, this ticket was a winner.  I got the chance to work with some friends I knew were theater people but with whom I never actually crossed paths in a theater.  I also worked with a few people I worked with long ago.  And a few with whom I worked for the first time.  I would do another play with all of them in a heartbeat.  We had no trouble children.  They were all team players and the sort of artists with whom I could lose track of time (and lack of sleep) over conversation into the wee hours of whatever.  That is the true treasure box of theater.

6.  Last and certainly far from least, I didn’t have a stage manager.  I was the stage manager.  I like being a stage manager.  I’m also good at it.  Volunteers for that job are few in these parts.   A reason I hesitated about offering to step in as a director was that I wouldn’t find a good stage manager – or any stage manager.   But I ended up with someone who puts my detailed attention to shame.  Someone who was not only a great support in the show, but someone with whom I look forward to maintaining and growing a friendship in the theater and beyond.

Oh – and speaking of excellent crew – we also got an awesome light board operator at the last minute as well.

So, yeah, it all fell into place quite nicely.  I guess I didn’t really talk too much about the play and its matter.  Maybe I’ll come back to it someday.  Or maybe, actually, its magic has dissipated into the ether of the last light cue.

The last gorgeous light cue (I had a stellar light design team, too).