April 2012
29 posts
5 tags
Kevin McDonald ruins my show.
Well not really, but a little. So I have had our process time planned since January. I planned every rehearsal date (including when we need a title, press picture, music pitches etc) and every set. I gave this all to the cast in advance so we could make plans and lock in our needs. But like some famous person once said “life is what happens when you make plans”
So we did have a set...
Weekend off
So after our song pitch day and an additional four scenes pitched we decided to take the weekend off of process and enjoy CIF. Also we have two straight weeks of three set days coming up, so we can’t exhaust the cast. That is über important. I don’t know any other cast that is giving this much time to a director so far. So life/ work balance is a must!
Identity
So we have a theme (maybe) we are gonna work with the theme “Identity”. When I took all the scenes (not the blackouts) and looked at what they were about and also things that struck me about them I found this was our basic theme. Even in our music pitches yesterday I found our theme popping up. It may seem super general but I think it’s a great place for us to start gaining...
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Theme
So after looking at the hour and a half of stuff the cast has already come up with I am starting to see a theme. I am not gonna tell YOU what that is before I tell them what that is. I went to the amazing Matt Hovde (who is the artistic director of the Training Center at Second City as well as a director. I would call him the head director but that is not an official title he has been given)...
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WatchNo Shame set 4-21
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WatchPimprov Set 4-20
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Trust the Process.
On this very special episode of Process the Cast learns a lesson.
So at our very first dinner I said to the cast if actor x wants to jerk off and cum on an audience members face as a scene…lets say they really want to do this. I might challenge them, ask them what they are trying to say with the scene (the point of view) and is there anything else in the world we can do to illustrate...
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Set tonight!
“When someone presents a scene idea, I like to put it up right away….immediately. I’ve wasted too much time in my life in endless conversations about ideas. I hate getting sucked into those measured, lazy, talking for the sake of talking I have a better idea or we could this or we could do that look, it appears we are being productive but we’re not bullshit discussions. 90%...
gregori68 asked: Thanks, Angie! You're a beacon. I understand the inherent value of the book to directors, performers, SMs but I was unclear; I was just curious about the precise next step of the book's journey once "released" to producer. Filed with WGA? Some other union spells? Rub on olive oil to season like a salad bowl? But it also seems like that step is outside of the Process,...
gregori68 asked: what does the producer want THE BOOK for?
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A.D.
I often times tease about how Second City has its own term for things. Its not a Show its a Revue…its not rehearsal its workshop (I should clarify Sheldon Patinkin said this is what SC use to say. I think they have gone back to rehearsal). And a term that I am still getting my head around is the Assistant Director or Assistant to the Director. During my program I was AD for Blue Co and...
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WatchSo last night we tried two scenes and two blackouts. I think it went great! Especially the blackouts. I can’t stress enough how important good blackouts are for a show. Next steps for these scenes are to take Gay Marriage to script and get another improv rep on Future Me. MORE SETS THIS WEEK!!!!
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47 min this week!
This is by far the hardest week for the cast. We had reho yesterday and we have THREE sets this week. If that’s not dedication I don’t know what is. Over the three sets we will try 47 min of material. We have already tested 39 min and we are doing a 45 min show. So it’s safe to say we are in a good place. Tonight 7:30 sketch test above Fizz Bar. It’s free so you should come...
1 tag
Process Planning Day 3
Here we are third reho. We have a set tommorow and a longer set opening for Pimprov on Friday and a mini set on Saturday. So we have a full cast movement bit I want to work on today and try, maybe all sets. We have a lot of time to test stuff this week so I hope to try a LOT of stuff. Also have a runner of a Black Out that I want to try in Sketchtest. We need more Blackouts for sure so that is...
WatchHere is our set from Saturday Night, we got great reaction to everything. At this point I am gonna want Blackhawk to go to script cause it is working, the third time we have done it (twice in reho and one set) and it is too loose right now. It tickles me silly, so I am interested to see what happens to it when we script it. Also small note you can see they went WAY over in time then the 20 min...
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Tonight
Tonight we have a 20 min set (not strictly cause I am in the booth aaaaa wink) so we should get a better feel for how we work in front of a crowd. Personal goal is to look at each pitch through this question “What is the point of view of this scene? Is that what came through? Can I help it be heightened or more clear?” I am excited for tonight. It’s 10:30pm at CIC (1422 w Irving...
HT Chris Witaske for this Quote:
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the PROCESS; they come out of the...
WatchSketchTest Set 04-10-12
Moving too fast.
So I know one of my weakness as a person is to move to fast, do too much, and try to “mother” everything. The result is I miss stuff trying to rush to the finish line. We had our first set last night and we tried out two sketches and a blackout. They went great (and I will post the video later today) but reflecting on them I think I may have done a disservice to the scenes. See both...
Tonight we SketchTest
So out of yesterday Reho we came up with 17 (yes you read that number correctly) scenes. They were pitching machines yesterday! Out of those 17 scenes (some were blackouts) I would say I really want to explore about 7 of them. That is great batting average! Or maybe its not I don’t know much about baseball truth be told. But I am impressed we have so much to work with so far.
Tonight we...
Day Two planning
So today we have the full cast in workshop. My thoughts are to warm us up with three line scenes with a tiny bit of direction (deliver your initiation about you or about them etc) and might take notes if something comes out that we want to explore later. Do that for about ten min. Then jump right into cast pitches. The ladies are to each come up with a lady only scene and two black outs. Joey was...
Reho
So rehearsal went great on Monday. We have four scenes to try in sets so far, three blackouts, two scenes for re-pitch next week and one scene and one black out on the “maybe” list.
So what is next? Well I only had three fellas on Monday as Joey is getting over a bout of Mono. So this Monday I have full cast for workshop.
My challenge as we get ready for our first two sets is...
Out of context notes.
The last play I directed my cast liked to remind me of my notes that, if taken out of context, would sound awful and/or funny. Like when I gave the note “punch Jews harder”.
My favorite notes I gave yesterday, if taken out of context would be awful and/or funny were: “I like rape let’s do that” and “my favorite is 14 mini gin’s”
Day one plan of process
So I plan to do start with an exercise I did in Norm Holly Satire class. I have done variations of it through out time but for some reason this version stuck with me as a possible good way to generate theme quickly. You start with the dreaded space walk :) generally just have them move around. Mostly so I can talk and have them start to warm up there bodies and all focus on one thing…my...
