Today was a major day of viewing plays put on by my peers. As I had stated before, I woke up pretty early this morning, primarily so that I could see Krystal Blackman in The Dining Room at 9AM. I got to the school with about 10 minutes to spare (not quite enough time to get a bagel at Tasty’s yet, considering the line they had there), and hung out outside the school with G, R.J., Adam, and a couple of other people from the shows I’ve been in.
We headed up to the MG Theater to see The Dining Room, which not only featured Krystal, but also Alex (whom I don’t think I’ve mentioned here — he lives with Jamie Egan and Tara Brown, and played piano a lot for Jamie and I when we were assigned a duet in Vocal Production class) and my buddy Nicola Buck. Although the show was quite confusing at first — the actors play a range of different characters in a number of situations taking place in, what I’m assuming are, different (yet strikingly similar) dining rooms — it eventually made sense. Not only that, certain scenes were hilarious. Krystal had a great scene underneath the dining room table (I know it sounds a bit naughty — as well it should!) and there was a great scene at the end involving a bunch of kids at a birthday party, where Nicola excelled.
Coming off the one great show, we headed downstairs to see the first performance of THE HOT L BALTIMORE. Get it? It’s like Hotel Baltimore, with the ‘e’ missing, for those who need it spelled out for them (like me… I went through about three weeks before I figured out that they weren’t rehearsing “Hot L,” which I assumed contained some lesbian action). I was surprised, as the show contained a great deal of former afternoon students — including John Brant, Ulla Virtanen, Chris Hapshaw, and Will Carter. John and Ulla were both great, but Will really stole the show. For the greater part of the show, despite the fact that the talking and plot development was happening stage right, the audience’s eyes were glued stage left — to Will and Chris’ checkers game. Even at the end of the show, it was Will commanding the most attention in the frenzy of the climax — marching back and forth, lifting weights, and singing opera. It’s also a great testament to Will that a lot of people kept their attention on him throughout, whereas the end of the play featured (as the last Jackie Bartone-directed exam play did) a pair of naked breasts on a particularly attractive woman, whom was running around in circles.
After that, I was able to grab that bagel from Tasty’s while intellectualizing on the effectiveness of the nudity in the aforementioned scene. During the last series (where apparently, a whole cast of female first-year students shed their undergarments on stage) I pondered the necessity of this. I mean… personally, I‘m not getting naked for a play unless there’s a significant amount of money involved. To bear skin for an exam play seemed… pointless. Although, I do think that it complimented the absolute insanity of the final scene of this show perfectly… and I understood its relevance. Maybe that’s a testament to Lanford Wilson, maybe that’s a testament to Jackie Bartone, I’m not quite sure.
Anyway, heading back up to the MG Theater to see the second performance of The Dining Room, I was quite surprised to see both Ulla Virtanen and Chris Hapshaw were members of this cast, as well… meaning that they’re playing in back-to-back shows. Alex Sauter (from my Section 5 class) was also in the cast, as well. I was a little nervous for Ulla when she accidentally knocked over a coffee pot on stage (which was empty, thus revealing that there’s no real coffee in the pot). I guess I had forgotten what a professional Ulla is. She not only made the effort to correct the mistake, yet endowed the coffee pot with enough heat to give her a “burn” on her finger, coming out in the next scene with a bandage over it. A-frickin’-mazing. Chris also dazzled again, both in the “under-the-dining-room-table” scene and the party scene.
After Dining Room, I knew there was but one performance of Hot l Baltimore left. This one featured Nathan Wills in the same role that Will had played earlier, and Alex (pianist Alex) as well. The show was, again solid. I think I understood more of what was going on in this cast, but it was because they spelled it out a little more, rather than acted out the story. Although it wasn’t more enjoyable than the other cast throughout, Nathan did a great job in his portrayal of his character — which was different than Will’s — and the end was equally as frantic.
After an hour lunch break spent with Nathan and Steffie Smith over pizza, it was time to get back to… watching more plays. Up in the MG, Cat Among the Pigeons, an English Restoration-style play, was on. Jamie Egan and Gavin Macleod were in this cast — both turning out amazing performances in a play that was complex in plot, but still very clear and easy to follow, thanks to the cast. The play was stolen, however, by (I think his name was) Robert… who played a Spanish General hell-bent on getting his girl no matter what the cost. Absolutely amazing. Cary Ward was also a big part of this play’s success, playing a music composer who eventually suffers the fate of a case of mistaken identity, and gets on the General’s bad side. By and far, the best part of the play — and Cary’s timing for taking the stage at the end to grab his umbrella was impeccable.
In between shows, Ulla and I saw Jackie Solotar, who gave us both kisses as we made our way to the next show. Hopefully, that means she’s proud. Throughout the day, I was getting compliments on Once A Catholic — especially from people who had attended Catholic school, and claimed the performance drudged up some memories (which was pretty cool, honestly).
Downstairs at the MM, Three Bags Full played — with Joel Brady, Austin Wages, Zoe Cooper, and Adam Fujita. The play was pretty fast-paced, with a plot as complicated and laced with mistaken identities as the one before it, but wasn’t quite as wordy… which made it enjoyable on another level. I thought the performance was pretty solid and turned out absolutely hilarious. I only wish that we all had the opportunity to perform the exam plays in their entirety — even if that means only performing two plays (one comedy, one drama) — because this was one of those shows where I wish I could find out what happens at the end. Maybe it’s on my list to rea done day.
After Three Bags Full, I took a break from all this watching of plays to head upstairs to Room 41, to get notes from T Ryder Smith on yesterday’s rehearsal. While there, we discussed the shows we’d just seen — with Joel revealing that he didn’t feel all to well about his performace, and he seemed less than thrilled about having to watch the next cast perform in an hour. Without the usual warm-up, we got down to the notes from yesterday, with Joel and I both being complimented on stepping back a bit from our previous characterizations, trusting the working process, and grounding our performances in reality — despite the fact that it made us a little slow. There’s a compliment in there, somewhere.
T didn’t get through the whole show before we were forced back downstairs for another performance of Three Bags Full — this time with Jamie Egan, Ambr Falck, Kiki, and Katie. I didn’t necessarily think that the lead roles in this cast were better, or even on the same level as, the last cast. I did, however, enjoy some of the supporting roles. Katie was absolutely brilliant as the maid, I loved some moments between Jamie and Ambr, and Will Saks (as the butler) did an amazing job (despite not having any lines).
After Three Bags, we headed back up for an after-school rehearsal with T. He let us know that by “deadly,” he really wasn’t insulting us. The fact is, with the performance we turned out in rehearsal yesterday, most of the teachers in the building would have used the word “great”… and we probably would have got a lot of laughs from the audience. T, however, wants more. Whereas every other cast is shooting towards giving a performance during exam plays that shows off how we work while entertaining our peers, T wants to go for a full-fledged performance with intent to teach the audience the moral of the play. He wants it deeper than usual. He’d rather that we aim higher and fail at some things than aim low and succeed at everything. I’m glad that he’s being honest and pushing us for better results — hell, that’s what I came to school for in the first place!
We ran through the end of the play, starting with Birdboot’s death, cleaning up some bits and adding some new bits as we went along. I think I’m pretty off-book for that scene, and, if I’m not, I will be soon. Before being kicked out of the building at 7 PM, we made rehearsal dates for the next two days — with the possibility of T joining us on Sunday afternoon. Sweet. Additionally, we’re going to stay late on Monday.
We’re getting down to that wire.
1 rehearsal day left for The Real Inspector Hound
