Monday, 27 Septemeber; Before Noon

Inspiration (2)

• clocks ticking
• power cords (being tangled in them)
• TV glare
• symmetry
• agoraphobia
• chairs
• pots and pans
• egg timers
• socks
• Sarah Ruhl's "Clean House" - Act 2
• feet
• laundry
• pens (especially when they are missing)
• groceries
• life's documentation (bills, letters, etc - what are we saving? how will we be remembered? By bank statements?)
• "How to be a fascinating woman" from Julia Cho's "BFE"

Inspiration (1)

Today I reorganized my clothing. Starting with my closet—by color, knit, and weight. Then, to that chest of drawers that my mother found at a yard sale some thirty years ago (which, must be noted, was a piece of shit then as it is now). My shirts and jeans and underwear and socks. I kept inventory of my clothing as I assigned place. Twenty-four T-shirts (long and short sleeve), eight collared shirts, five pairs of slacks, three pairs of jeans, three khaki carpenter pants (one with eight pockets, two with four pockets), two gym shorts, twenty pairs of underwear, four undershirts, and twenty-seven socks. Yes, twenty-seven.

I knew I was missing one. I laid out my collection of socks on my bed, all in a row, once more by color, knit, and weight. Eight pairs in from the right, a black dress sock cowered in singularity, ashamed of its nudity. Left unrolled without a partner.

What the fuck do I do with one dress sock? It is not an every day white sock worn under an outfit that will occasionally lose its partner. That loss is expected, almost encouraged, in order to rematch the remaining socks from one’s collection and to hopefully lose the old ones with holes and sweat marks –Darwin’s theory of survival finds application in even the most menial of places. But a dress sock? A dress sock even in its name implies a status higher than the average Hane’s Tube Sock with its predestined obsolescence. A dress sock is worn far less than its casual counterpart. It is worn with an outfit in deliberate dressiness, which, in turn, implies precision and attention to detail.

How the hell do you lose a sock with a specific purpose? I would have taken care to ball the dress socks before entering them into my laundry. Black dress socks aren’t just taken off helter skelter and left on the floor. If you wear black dress socks they are for an event, and after said event you would hang up your clothing and put socks in the designated area for cleaning. Becauseyouworetheoutfitfortheevent. So where the fuck is that sock?

Looking at the row of thirteen paired and balled socks, and looking at the ninth (from the right) within its sequence, to that single black dress sock, I felt an anger so real and so palpable and so exhausting that I did not know what to do with myself. It made me want to throw my body around my bedroom, to knife the air so violently that that fucking missing sock would reveal its hiding place to me out of fear of further repercussion.

I decided that destroying all order that I had created was now a necessity. There was no reason to continue any sense of personal catalogue. I pulled my eight collared shirts and five pairs of slacks off their hangers and left them in a heap on the floor of my closet, not separated by color, knit, and weight. Then I went to the kitchen and knocked the spices off my spice rack, because order doesn’t exist here anymore. Because a world where a black sock loses its mate does not deserve a double-shelved, meticulously-catalogued spice rack.

Then I tore apart my mother’s recipe collection, each recipe pasted onto a piece of cardstock then hole-punched into a binder, each recipe in alphabetical order. I ripped them all out and mixed them up as if they were a deck of cards. Then I moved to the other rooms of my house, and ruined any order I had assigned to my music, movies, appliances, photographs, silverware, toiletries, bills, letters, hardwares, books, magazines, and to my childhood collection of baseball cards and comic books.

My sister found me there, among a sea of personal belongings thrown about in self-imagined chaos, sleeping on a pile of DVDs and photographs and Marvel Comics. I wore a single black dress sock, my other foot bare. She told me it was time to write a letter to you. She says it’s time for you to come home.

Rehearsal Agenda 9/23

• - Sit down, Check in’s.
• - Stretches.
• - Mill and Seeth.
• - Movement prompt: Share image/text/sound with cast. Then utilize Liz Lerman exercise – one mover enters performance space and creates tableau based off of image/text sound. Others build off of it, then recreate based off of different shapes.
• o Discuss images. Which worked? Which didn’t?
• - Perform audition piece. Talk about what we liked/didn’t like. What can we use? What can we preserve?
• - Sit down and go through every-day experiences log. Have them read through their list. Have them consider how complete/precise their logs are. Star whichever activities they do more than 2 times a week.
• o Then, have them look over their list and choose one thing (a habit, something that is starred) and come up with individual representations. They can be funny, sad, pedestrian, etc.
• - Talk to cast about building a common vocabulary. What does each one of us want to get from the process and final performance?
• o Personal goals to set.
• o What should I know about you, as your director?
• - Review schedule
• - Closing

Working Rehearsal Calendar

Hey all, so I took a look at our schedules and tried to make them all fit together (not an easy task amongst busy women). Please let me know if you have any questions, or cannot make a specific rehearsal (in this case, I request at least 48 hours notice for a cancellation). You will also see that there are a few longer gaps in between rehearsals - while we will not be using this time for physical rehearsal, I will be assigning (small) creative tasks for you to complete. Also note that all rehearsals may not go for as long as they are written on the schedule, but I am using some of the time as a cushion, if we so happen to lose another rehearsal date. Our first rehearsal will be this Thursday from 7-9pm. I look forward to seeing you all - dress for movement! All rehearsals will be in Webster Studio 1 unless I specify differently. Thanks!

9/23 - 7-10

9/25 - 1-4

9/28 - 7:30-9:30

10/2 - 1-4

10/5 - 7:30-10

10/12 - 7:30-10

10/16 - 1-4

10/18 - 6-9

10/20 - 6-9

10/23 - 1-4

10/27 - 6-10

10/29 - 4:30-7:30 (Brooke - I know you'll be late)

10/30 - 1-3

11/1 - 6-10

11/3 - 6-10

11/6 - 1-4

11/8 - 4-7 (Brooke - I know you'll be late)

11/10 - 5-7

11/13 - 1-5

11/15 - 5:30-9:00

11/17 - 4-10 (First showing of pieces - Full Class)

11/20 - 12-4

11/21 - 6-8

11/29 - 6-10

11/30 - 7:30-10

12/1 - 4-10 (Showing pieces)

12/4 - 2-6

12/5 - 12:30-6:30

12/6 - 7-11 (red indicates tech days - will not be required to be here all this time, only an hour and a half chunk of time during one of these sets).

12/7 - 6:30-11 (Tech)

12/8 - 6:30-11 (Tech)

12/9 - 6:30-11 (Tech)

12/10 - 6-10 (Performance)

12/11 - 6/10 (Performance)

Audition Retrospective

I love auditions – it doesn’t matter from which side I am approaching it, auditionee or auditioner, I always am in need of a good audition. Perhaps it is because it is like New Year’s Eve in some respects, a chance for a fresh start, marking a new era. For auditions though, it is less about proclaiming resolutions and more about gaining proper footing for a new creative endeavor.

This being said, I was both excited and daunted by the task of choosing my actors for my Performance Studio project. Excited to begin a new process but daunted because I had no idea what this process would entail. Usually, when I’m auditioning others, I already have a working script in front of me – I’ve been able to sit down and spend time with the performance piece and figure out what I need from the actors based on the requirements of the script. Yet, with this project, I had no written script. No cast lists and character descriptions. All I had was a few days to brainstorm what I want to create over the next 3 months. This proved to be challenging for me, since my directing style has been notoriously based in planning in my past experiences.

I knew, though, that I wanted to work off of my ideas from my own auditions for Performance Studio, in which I was folding socks. I loved the idea of working off the mundane, the every day. I decided this is what I would want to work on – an exploration of every day life, of routine, of habit. I decided I wanted to pull the beauty, humor, and tragedy of normalcy on to the stage. I created a list of vocabulary words that I wanted to give my auditionees to think about in terms of my project, so that they would get a clear idea of where I’m going with my work.

Now knowing what I wanted to work on, I needed to decide the kind of performers I wanted to work with. I always go into auditions knowing what I want in my actors, but still trying to keep an open mind to those that don’t fit my predetermined needs. I decided I needed people who would be aware of nuance and detail in their performances – to portray every day life with honesty, I was going to need people who made the most out of “normal” experiences. I also knew that I wanted people who could quickly build depth and humor into characters. Finally, I knew that my directing style requires performers open to using their own life experiences to inform their stage work.

With all of these things in mind, I created an audition exercise that would allow me to quickly see which performers would be right for my piece. I chose a partner exercise in which the partners tells an improvised story, but only with their hands (no facial cues, no words, nothing but hand interaction). After the story has been told, I wanted each person to think of a single statement that summarizes their story from their hand’s perspective, and perform it in character.


When I got to our actual auditions, I felt ready to go. I knew what I was going to do with my 10 minute time, and I knew what I wanted to see. While I was last to present my exercise, I got to sit back and observe the other choreographers’/directors’ working styles, as well as the performers working in different capacities. Watching the performers audition for others was endlessly helpful, since each of the choreographers and directors were looking for something different in their actors. Because of this, I got to see a wide range of performance, allowing me to pick out performers that were well rounded when working with text, movement, and sound. I quickly picked out 5-6 performers that I wanted to work with, and kept my eye on them throughout the entire process.

When it got to my presentation, I was excited to get going. I believe that, overall, I did a good job presenting my exercise and engaging the performers. However, I had to keep clarifying my exercise, as the auditionees had a lot of questions. This was my fault, and I am looking to clarify my intentions for exercises in the future, so that I’m not interrupting the flow of the warm-up or improvisation.

By the end of the audition, I had a firm grasp on who I wanted to work with, and what I wanted to do. Interestingly enough, I was already pulling out specific statements and movements that I had seen at auditions that I wanted to start bringing into the rehearsal process. More than anything, this auditioning process got me thinking more clearly about what exactly I want to accomplish with this piece – a declaration of every day life and practice.

Audition Lay-Out (9/13/2010)

- Buzz words: storytelling, plans, expected vs. reality, habit, responsibility, acceptable (socially), control, the everyday, waiting, normal, obligation, relationships
- Want to build a common vocabulary with performers.
- Looking to work with 2-3 actors/movers, comfortable with pulling inspiration from personal experience to create improvised characters and circumstances. I like to work with detail-oriented performers who experiment with both original language and movement.
- I am interested in exploring the “everyday life” – what is considered normal and expected and what happens when things don’t go to plan. This can be on either a small or large scale (i.e. as simple as missing a sock from the laundry and as complex as news of a divorce). I want to focus in on how everyday life factors in to personal relationship (family, friends, lovers).
- Schedule: I’m a very busy person and I know you all are as well. I’d like to meet 1-2 times a week during September and October(Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons are my best times, but I can be flexible), and up to 4 times a week, come November into early December.

Exercise
- Those auditioning will make 2 lines, facing one another.
- Look at the person across from you. Do you know them? Would you like to? Is it a face you’d remember in passing?
- Now close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Think about all the things you don’t know about the other person. Thousands of little things.
- Favorite color, biggest mistake, how long they keep their fingernails.
- Now open your eyes and approach your partner silently.
- You are going to tell a story together. Without any words, just your hands.
- Once the stories have been told, each person individually finds one statement that sums up their hand’s point of view. (i.e. “I could never really love someone like you”, “This is the last time I’ll be this weak”, "I know you borrowed my shirt and ruined it")

A jumping off point-

- A place to post images, sounds, texts and anything else that might inspire creativity. This blog will also serve as a tracking system for my Performance Studio process.

"Time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life." - B. Andreas