Author: Kat Swank

Call Began:  8:00

Ended: 10:00

General:

Jon had common hour until 8:30, so Kat worked on scenes and blocking with Molly alone. They went through scene 3, establishing more specific blocking and bits for Molly’s character.

When Jon joined, we did blocking for scenes 3, 8 and 20. Molly (grandma was off book, but still calling for line for all of her scenes.) The blocking was more specific this time than the last time we ran these scenes.

Kat began by talking through intimacy with Jon and Abby- telling them about intimacy vocabulary (powder, paint, clay), asking them what’s the intention behind the kiss in their scene, and having them to tell each other their no-fly zones. She told them that we would start towards the middle of the scene, running through the intimacy part slowly (letting them know that they could say STOP if they ever felt uncomfortable). They practiced the scene 2 times without the kiss (once with a high five and once with just eye contact in place of the kiss) before running the scene with the real kiss.

After the line “oh come on”, Jon will use his upstage right hand to touch Abby’s shoulder, and then kiss her – she will just sit still. Abby will lean out from Jon to end the kiss. This kiss should have a paint quality- there’s a sense of urgency underneath the scene, but this urgency is not shown through speed because Wallace is still trying to be smooth and suave.

After the intimacy work, we went back to run all of scene 10, working on blocking. We finalized the overall blocking for the whole scene. After they ran it once, Kat gave some notes, and then we moved on to scene 12

Set:

When we ran scene 12 (with Wallace and Sarah), we practiced with using the door for the first time

Call Began: 6:00

Breaks: 7:06-7:10

Ended: 8:15

General:

After giving Jon 5 minutes to look over some of his monologues, Kat did work on all of Wallace’s long monologues: Scenes 1, 5, 9, and 13. After reading each scene once, Kat talked through each of the monologues with Jon, asking questions like: Where are there dips/breaks in monologue? What tempo fits with what he’s saying? Who is his audience? How is he carrying himself- how will this change in his later monologues? Then, we ran through the monologue two more times (using the notes that were just given).

Kat’s announcements: everyone will need to write and email a character bio by Tuesday night. This week we will be doing fight and intimacy choreography. Next Sunday, September 9 will be our first stumble-through of the show (with Anjali coming to watch). Props and set pieces should be coming in sometime this week. Costume discussions will be happening this week.

Movement:

We did a movement exercise today. The full cast walked around the space- stretching themselves out, and then finding their actor’s neutral. Experimenting with leading with different centers. Experimenting with walking based on age.

Intro to fight choreo: experimenting with the motion of the head (side to side). Chest nap practice. Handshake distance. We practiced slaps, punches, and pushing

Call Began: 6:00

Ended: 7:30

General:

Abby talked about her character background for Sarah. They talked about how she met Wallace: are they in classes or clubs at school together? They also talked about how Sarah feels about Wallace: does she know about his reputation at school? What does she ideally want out of her night with Wallace?

Kat gave general blocking for scenes 10 and 12. The actors ran scene 10 2 times and scene 12 1 time. After each run, they were given notes on intention to think about for next rehearsal. They were also reminded that they should be off-book the next time we run these scenes.