Well, it’s been over a week now since I finished my second Graduation play at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts — The Women of Lockerbie by Deborah Brevoort. Over the past seven days, where I haven’t been bound down by class schedules or anything of the like, I’ve come to slowly realize something — I’m officially an out-of-work actor. A terrifying concept, I know, but before I truly accept this as fact (I’ve been delaying facing this realization until after Graduation… which is tomorrow afternoon…), I want to spend a little bit of blog space talking about Lockerbie.
The day our first series of Graduation Plays was over, the casting for the second (and final) series was posted. This series is especially important to the students of AADA because these are the shows that we can *finally* invite our family and friends to, after two long years of hard work. Personally, I wanted a comedy and I wanted it to be in the MM Theatre (my favorite of the three acting spaces). Scanning the list, I became elated when I found my name in Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party… and surprised to find out that I’d been double cast in Armitage by Don Nigro. I was excited about the theatres, the dates, the casts, the directors, and the shows. I quickly headed to the sixth floor and received my copies of those two plays, and began to walk out of the building with a smile on my face.
I was stopped by Josh Painting.
He diverted my attention to the cast lists, where administration had made a few changes since posting the initial, incorrect papers on the board. Josh and I had been switched. I was now in a modern-day Greek tragedy called The Women of Lockerbie. My heart sunk straight into the floor. Neil Simon is my favorite playwright, and I had had my first chance to be in one of his plays taken from me. I quickly started bitching about it to anyone who would listen (my apologies especially to Nathan, Kelly, Christian, Steffie, and Joe). Unfortunately, I made a judgement about the play without actually *reading* the play. I read it before my shift at Starbucks, and I immediately got emotional. I realize that I have an amazing role, and all-of-the-sudden, I can’t wait to get to rehearsal the next day.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I got to spend every day in rehearsals with an extremely talented cast, an amazing director, and a great script. Admittedly, there were some things I wasn’t quite used to (Jack, our director, pre-blocked the show — so, we knew when and how to move before we knew *what* we were saying), but once I learned to trust everyone around me (which happened rather quickly) things started to make perfect sense.
The more rehearsals that went by, the more I realized that I had to give my all each and every time. With a script such as this, it’s tempting to half-ass your way through it. It’s hard to go to a place of emotional pain every day for four hours. But with every day spent enduring the pain, I felt as if I were finally doing my work as an actor. My last play was an English farce, so there wasn’t as much emotional investment as there could have been with a work of drama like Lockerbie. Here, finally, after two years, I was doing complete work. Everything that both Janis and both Jackies had been teaching me about was finally coming to a head. Here, I was finally doing respectable work… and I knew it.
That’s not to say I was completely satisfied. I began to get worried because of one line in the stage directions towards the end of the play:
(Bill weeps openly for the first time. Madeline comforts him.)
To me, this meant that I have to cry. I tried as hard as I could, but no tears came. I used things from my personal life that were sure to make me cry — and, yet, nothing. Outside of rehearsals, those things made me weep like a baby… but I couldn’t do it at the appropriate moment in the play. I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to do it come performance time. I sought out advice from my colleagues, and got some good advice. The best probably came from Dominik, who passed along a hint from his director, James Warwick — keep your mouth open.
I tried this method in rehearsals and found that I was deeply impacted. Now I found myself openly sobbing… but without any tears. Frustrated, I had given up on the concept of doing it during the show, but in the back of my mind I knew that if I don’t cry, I won’t have the final moment that I need to deliver the performance that I want.
Showtime came faster than I thought, and I found myself nervously shaking an hour before curtain in the men’s dressing room. Although I hated the fact that I couldn’t control my own body, I knew that this was the nervous edge necessary for the character I was portraying. Not to sound pretentious, but it felt as if the hour and a half I was onstage felt like magic. Everything felt as if it worked. I wasn’t “in my head” until after the show was over, and it felt great.
Somehow, a miracle happened… and I cried, onstage. Furthermore, my crying made other people cry — in a good way.
I’d never felt better about my chances for getting in the Academy Company next year than in the moments following my show. I was personally congratulated by Dino, Jonathan, and my directors from the past year… and then the next day by Jackie. I was ecstatic… on cloud nine. Since then, watching the other Graduation Plays, I’ve realized that we have one hell of a second year — and that Company is still very much in the air… and I’m more than okay with that. Even if I don’t get Company, I had one hell of a great show on April 19th… and that’s an experience I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.
