Well, The Man Who Came to Dinner ended this past weekend. It was especially great working with Rex Ottinger (SHARIDAN WHITESIDE) and Lori Dunn (MAGGIE CUTLER).
Man Who Came to Dinner: Opening Weekend
Well, it was a very busy weekend to say the least. Lots of last minute stage prep. I arrived at 5 PM on Friday to assist with final stage prep for our 8 PM show. I finished up at 10 till 8 with painting and moving the men’s dressing room. Covered in sweat, I changed into my costume. No time for aging myself with makeup. If you remember, I play a 60 something year old man.
The play went well enough on Friday. Better than I expected. We had some large props obtained at the last minute; one being the mummy case in which LORRAINE SHELDON is trapped in Act III. We had worked on placement of the case, but until you see it, it is hard to determine just how this monstrosity will look on stage and how to interact with it.
Saturday night was fun. Lots of missed queues and forgotten lines. But we got through.
Hope next weekend is better.
Four more weekends.
Dyed my hair this weekend
I am a natural blond. (Insert blond joke here.) My color is now a dark brown. In The Man Who Came to Dinner, I play the 60+ year old Dr. Bradley and gray does not show up very well on Blond hair, so I colored it. Now the gray I add each night of the performance should show up much better, I hope.
I have let my hair grow out over my ears. This will have to go, as well as, changing my style. I wear my hair parted in the middle. I will have it cut short and parted on the side. And with gray added and with some makeup, hopefully I will look much older.
The Man Who Came to Dinner opens this Friday.
No Dinner This Week
Another company is renting out Class Act Theatre and so we cannot rehearse The Man Who Came to Dinner this week. Mary may call a few people to rehearse at her house, but not the entire cast. Last week we did run through the entire play and completed the blocking.
This week I just need to make sure that I have my lines down. And for some of my lines, the lines where I say something like “I see you are still busy” or “Are you busy” or “I’ll wait in here”, the most important part is my queue.
Stick my head in:
BRADLEY: Mr. Whiteside…
WHITESIDE: No, not now. Go away.
Pull my head back out.
Sounds easy, and it should be, but the timing is crucial. I can very easily be skipped right over.
Last week we had a lot of fun running though the script. This is a very funny play.
Just four weeks until we open.
Dinner Rehearsal
With Lane Teilhaber, director of Beau Jest, the priority for the actors was blocking first, characterization second and memorizing lines last. Lane did not want us to concentrate on line memorization until after we had blocking down. Lane moved consecutively through the script; All of Act I Scene 1, then Act I Scene 2, everyone present.
Well each director has there own method of directing. For The Man Who Came To Dinner, director Mary Binaco is no exception.
For The Man Who Came To Dinner, there is one main presence on the stage for most of the play and that is WHITESIDE. There are many other roles that come in and out during the play. Mary has been taking the smaller roles and going over each of there parts individually with WHITESIDE. For my character, DR. BRADLEY, we went over all his major appearances, skipping over all other parts in between.
Last night we continued that method but the focus was on MAGGIE. Most of MAGGIE’s parts ended where DR. BRADLEY’s began. So, rehearsal went from WHITESIDE and MAGGIE into WHITESIDE and DR. BRADLEY in one large chunk. Skip to the next MAGGIE area and continue.
In the mean time, Mary would like for us to have as many lines memorized as possible so we can concentrate on the blocking. Mary is also surrounded by yellow notepad papers with notes. And she seems to be always thinking about and analyzing the script. Tweaking.
I am not complaining or really meaning to compare. As far as I know, me being a newbie and all, there is no wrong way to direct. These are merely observations; A note of my experiences.