After you've done all the work and prepared as much as you can, what the hell, you might as well go out and have a good time.
Benny Goodman
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My friend Marty (remember him?), who's doing fine by the way, sent me a quote this morning from an unknown source which says "Do something you love and you'll never have to do a day’s work in your life."
Some directors have a habit of telling the actors just before opening night to go out and "have fun with it." I don't know why they say that unless it's an attempt at offering an antidote to the struggles of rehearsal and preparation. Otherwise it's an unnecessary remark. If course we will have fun with it. If we didn't enjoy it we wouldn't be doing it. It's too difficult.
About ten years ago Ed Earle and I were doing a play in which we were the two main characters. During a break in rehearsal one of the designers came up to us to compliment us on being so good and so funny. I said to him if he thought we were good in rehearsal "wait until you see us in front of an audience."
The purpose of "all the work" that Goodman talks of is to be as entertaining as possible when the audience comes. I don't think there is a single musician who can just pick up his instrument, walk out on stage and play it brilliantly without preparation, without tuning it, warming it up and himself. Benny Goodman may get to a point in performance where his clarinet plays itself, but not without a lot of preparation.
An actor must know many things before opening night. He must know the lines so well he doesn't have to think of them. That takes hours of tedious work and is the biggest pit for an unprepared actor to fall into. He must know the story and his place in it. He must know where he is both on stage and off. He must know how to work as an ensemble player with the other actors. There are some well known actors who never achieve that knowledge, and it shows. He must know how to perform his role with all of its details and subtleties. The accent in Benny Goodman's remark is on the work and preparation as well as on the good time. The only times I have seen an actor suffer during a performance was when he was unprepared and his lock of knowledge of one of the things I just mentioned caught up with him.
My friend David came to see me perform in a play only once. He went out with the cast for a beer afterwards and jokingly said "I don't know how much they're paying you, but it's too much, because you're having too much fun."
What the hell, you might as well.
DB
*****************
APRIL FOOLERY
Weekend Contest
This contest is open for the next 5 days.
APRIL FOOLERY
Choose as many numbers as you want and fill in the blanks
Winners will be posted on the evening of April 4.
The decisions of the nasty biased judge are final. Prizes will awarded on the basis of originality and whatever makes me laugh.
5 ENTRIES SO FAR
On the first day of April my true love gave to me
12______
11______
10______
9_______
8_______
7_______
6_______
5_______
4_______
3_______
2_______
and_______
Good luck
DB
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Showing posts with label preparation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preparation. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Good Guidance 7/25/09
You cannot prepare enough for anything.
James Galway
**********************
Batter up.
---------------------------
One of the most annoying and disruptive things for an actor is to go on stage and try to work with another actor who is not properly prepared. Some beginning and amateur actors think that if they are dramatic and try real hard the role will take over and play itself, that the inspiration will come. That is total nonsense. Without the necessary preparation an actor will forget lines, miss cues, mispronounce things and be in the wrong place. Inexperienced actors simply don't know how difficult it is to prepare for a role and how many hours of work it takes. It can't be done just in rehearsal. I think of rehearsal as a daily test to find out if my homework was done. The lines have to be known so well that you don't have yo think of them. The story has to be known just as well. Nothing happens automatically. Yes, sometimes the role takes over and plays itself, but that only happens to serious, professional actors who know the role so well they can get out of the way and let it happen, Everything has to be rehearsed, on the stage, at home, with the script, in your head, walking down the street. It's not unusual for an actor in a major role to go into that role a hundred times or more before going into performance.
In my whole career I only had two major fights with a director. One of them was about preparation. It was a 2 character play. I had the role of a bartender. A girl comes into the bar and orders a lemonade. In the course of the play she has two of them. He makes them from scratch, slicing the lemon, squeezing the juice into a container, filling the glass with ice, dumping the ice, filling the glass with water and sugar, mixing them, pouring in the lemon juice, stirring and placing it on the bar in front of her. This business had to be carefully done because the lemonade would be placed at a very specific moment in the play. Meanwhile the dialogue between the two of us was going on.
The director would never let me rehearse the lemonade making. She kept saying we would do it later. Finally we got to dress rehearsal and I said I couldn't do a dress rehearsal without knowing the lemonade business. She said "We don't have time for that." We don't have time to rehearse the play, in other words.
So I sat there for the half hour before the dress rehearsal going through the business in my head, deciding when to cut the lemons, at what point the ice went in the glass, on what line I had to put in the sugar, and so on. I ran it over and over in my head. And when the rehearsal came I did it just right. She came backstage after it and was in a rage. "What happened? You lost all the contact you had with her yesterday. What the hell were you thinking about?" "What do you think I was thinking about? I was learning the business. Business must be rehearsed." And the fight was on.
When you see a play, a film or a TV show and there is activity going on know that it has been carefully worked out and rehearsed. Nobody makes it happen by pushing a button. If there is a fight scene on stage, there is a fight rehearsal before every performance.
I was hired to coach some people who were readers in an episcopal church. Those are the people who read from scripture during the service. I began with a roomful of people who had decided that it wasn't right to prepare because thy didn't want to interfere with the holy spirit and it's inspiration. I showed them that if they didn't prepare their normal human propensities for making mistakes would get in the way of the holy spirit. To err is human.
It is said the President Kennedy used to prepare for his news conferences by having his staff ask him the most embarrassing and difficult questions they could think of. Like a batter on deck swinging three bats to warm up.
Things may go right the first time. But I have seen too many awful things happen to people who tried to do something for which they were not prepared.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
_________________________
A joyful weekend is here.
******************************
James Galway
**********************
Batter up.
---------------------------
One of the most annoying and disruptive things for an actor is to go on stage and try to work with another actor who is not properly prepared. Some beginning and amateur actors think that if they are dramatic and try real hard the role will take over and play itself, that the inspiration will come. That is total nonsense. Without the necessary preparation an actor will forget lines, miss cues, mispronounce things and be in the wrong place. Inexperienced actors simply don't know how difficult it is to prepare for a role and how many hours of work it takes. It can't be done just in rehearsal. I think of rehearsal as a daily test to find out if my homework was done. The lines have to be known so well that you don't have yo think of them. The story has to be known just as well. Nothing happens automatically. Yes, sometimes the role takes over and plays itself, but that only happens to serious, professional actors who know the role so well they can get out of the way and let it happen, Everything has to be rehearsed, on the stage, at home, with the script, in your head, walking down the street. It's not unusual for an actor in a major role to go into that role a hundred times or more before going into performance.
In my whole career I only had two major fights with a director. One of them was about preparation. It was a 2 character play. I had the role of a bartender. A girl comes into the bar and orders a lemonade. In the course of the play she has two of them. He makes them from scratch, slicing the lemon, squeezing the juice into a container, filling the glass with ice, dumping the ice, filling the glass with water and sugar, mixing them, pouring in the lemon juice, stirring and placing it on the bar in front of her. This business had to be carefully done because the lemonade would be placed at a very specific moment in the play. Meanwhile the dialogue between the two of us was going on.
The director would never let me rehearse the lemonade making. She kept saying we would do it later. Finally we got to dress rehearsal and I said I couldn't do a dress rehearsal without knowing the lemonade business. She said "We don't have time for that." We don't have time to rehearse the play, in other words.
So I sat there for the half hour before the dress rehearsal going through the business in my head, deciding when to cut the lemons, at what point the ice went in the glass, on what line I had to put in the sugar, and so on. I ran it over and over in my head. And when the rehearsal came I did it just right. She came backstage after it and was in a rage. "What happened? You lost all the contact you had with her yesterday. What the hell were you thinking about?" "What do you think I was thinking about? I was learning the business. Business must be rehearsed." And the fight was on.
When you see a play, a film or a TV show and there is activity going on know that it has been carefully worked out and rehearsed. Nobody makes it happen by pushing a button. If there is a fight scene on stage, there is a fight rehearsal before every performance.
I was hired to coach some people who were readers in an episcopal church. Those are the people who read from scripture during the service. I began with a roomful of people who had decided that it wasn't right to prepare because thy didn't want to interfere with the holy spirit and it's inspiration. I showed them that if they didn't prepare their normal human propensities for making mistakes would get in the way of the holy spirit. To err is human.
It is said the President Kennedy used to prepare for his news conferences by having his staff ask him the most embarrassing and difficult questions they could think of. Like a batter on deck swinging three bats to warm up.
Things may go right the first time. But I have seen too many awful things happen to people who tried to do something for which they were not prepared.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
_________________________
A joyful weekend is here.
******************************
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