From Mild to Wild: Creating Desdemona

Each night before we perform we all warm up. In our own personal way and as a group.

As we all finish getting into our costume and make-up we begin our vocal warm-up work. We start with running through our vowel and consonant exaggeration to loosen our our mouths and then we continue with a myriad of tongue-twisters and vocal calls to prepare to accurately enunciate our words during the show. We also do physical warm-ups. We sing an alligator song and clap and we sing a slower song that is also in a round. We sometimes do a “shake-down” which starts by counting to 8 while you shake each arm and leg separatley and you count down from 8 until you shake everything once and speed is key. Throughout the process we have added parroting the ghost’s lines as a group and doing a group scat band.

Finally, as our ”places” call is given over the intercom we do a group “pulse.” This is we stand in a circle and hold hands sending a squeeze all the way around our circle as fast as we can. It gets us focused and all using a group mind. Then we hug/shout “break-a-leg”/ run to our places and have a great show.

After the “dumb show” which is the beginning of the play where Desdemona is smothered by Othello, I have some time before I am on-stage again.

I go into the hallway and begin with massaging my vocal chords as I hum “Scales and Arpeggios” from the animated Disney classic, “The Aristocats.” Then I run through all the consonants in our alphabet and begin exaggerated receiting my beginning lines. As I am warming up I pace and gradually increase the speed of my pace throughout my warm up. I end with some jumping and energy bursts.

This has helped rev up Desdemona for her entrance as the warrior.

Today is the last performance of “Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet.”  I am sad to see this one end. Not only was the show great fun but I do not know when I will be in another production.

I am not sure what I am doing after graduation. Frankly, the word “terrified” comes to mind first when I think about the month of May and beyond. I love doing theatre so much and can’t imagine easily what I would do without it. There are also so many things I want to do and places that I want to go that I am not sure how to fit everything in.

I feel like on the one hand I have all the time in the world…which is true. Yet, on the other hand, time is so fleeting and I don’t ever want to waste it by not learning, growing, experiencing, doing. Everything is so important, even if it isn’t. I welcome and embrace the good and the bad that life throws and I only hope to be happy, healthy, and successful in whatever I choose to do.

To bring this back to this play, I have loved doing it and only wish I could continue.

Today’s audience is lovely, there are people who are getting jokes that usually are missed and otherwise the audience is very involved and seem to be really enjoying our work.

The audiences have been great for the entire run of the show.

Not to mention that after today I must re-focus again on my school work and now have no distraction that is nearly as exciting as this show.

I hope that all of the friends I have made who still have time at Mary Washington embrace their experience as fully and whole-heartedly as I have and really enjoy being in college. Even though I think it is hard to really have a true perspective on things while you’re still doing them ( ‘Our Town’?) I really think that college has been a highlight and great experience. I am so lucky to have been able to come to this university and I am thankful for everyone that I have been able to interact with while I was (am still) here.

This was a great, great show! Quite the cherry on top for my career here. When I was a freshmen I was in “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged” and now I end with a show that is similar in so many ways.

Thank you.

Once again we have a large house and a very involved one as well.

Tonight before the show we all agreed upon a new “warm-up” for tomorrows show. Consistently Landon, who plays the Ghost and Mercutio runs his ghost scene with Helena. We’ve all heard it so much that we can all say the ghost’s lines.

So we do. As Landon and Helena are running thier scene we parrot along with Landon on all of his lines as one huge group. It was the most fun and funny thing we’ve done in the dressing room. It really shows how we’ve gelled together as a cast and are really involved in our work with this show. This is such a wonderful group of people that I have gotten to work with.

Tonight I will say a bit about how Desdemona has grown throughout the performances. Many people may think that once the show opens, the work is done. However, once the show is open growth and discovery is still possible if you are open to it.

Last night’s performance invloved Taylor who plays Iago coming out and being sadder and more weepy than I have ever seen him and it was a great moment to see Desdemona’s tender side. I was very touched by how distraught seeming Iago was acting and really desired to know why he was so upset and forced to sweep the sewers.

I have also found more moments of connection with Constance throughout the beginning portion of our scenes. It is so nice to be involved in a live performance that, while entirely consistent, is live and changes every night. It is so exciting to see what my fellow actors will give at each performance and I only hope to give as much to them as they do to me.

This performance is the second to last. The end of the show is particularly bittersweet for me as it is not only the end of a fun experience but the end of my last main stage production at Mary Washington.

It was a good run and I am looking forward to the stellar performance that tomorrow’s matinee with be.

I have had a stunning time.

Tonight was another excellent night! A great audience that numbered around 250! It was so enjoyable to play to such a full house.

One thing that I will never tire of is the comroderie between the cast mates before the show. We laugh, play, warm up, and enjoy our selves so much in preparing for our performance. I will miss them all when we finish.

Another of my favorite parts of getting prepared for the show is getting in costume. As I have talked about in other posts, my costume is big and two to three people help me to get it on every night. I love getting dressed by other people. I just stand there and allow them to dress me, do what they say, and enjoy not having to dress myself. Not that getting dressed daily is too challenging a chore but it is so fun to have other people do it for me. This may speak to some undiscovered laziness that I possess but it is just so fun. I appreciate everyone who dresses me. It is my favorite part and they do it so well and with such care.

When I change my costume from pretty, flowing dress to pirate pantaloons it is much harder and while I have help I have to do a lot of it for myself; that is less fun.

Anyway, tonight’s audience is splendid, engaged and enthusiastic. I am excited to continue with the second half of the play as the show gets more farcical as it goes on.

Again, thanks to everyone who made this show possible. Every night is so fun!

Today is the first Thursday after not having performed for three whole days. It is exciting and I find it not too difficult to build up my energy for the show since I have had a break for three days.

The audience is very quiet today but it is also a Thursday night and usually has a toned down audience. Sometimes they laugh out loud but for the most part they seem to be the polite chuckling sort.

Tonight’s show does seem to have a strange energy about it. Helena noticed as well and we were talking about it between the scenes. She’s in a weird mood and I can tell her mood is influencing Constance tonight.

However, I think that the show is just as enjoyable as ever. It is such a fun show and I am sad to begin the last week ever of a show at Mary Washington. This last week and the final shows are bitter sweet for me as it has been a great run at Mary Wash and I am sad to have it come to an end.

Following tonight’s show we have our photo call and I hope that it goes smoothly and quickly. I am sure it well. Michelle, our stage manager has done a fantastic job with this production. She really does her job when it comes to supporting the cast and working with all of the designers to help create a successful show. I have felt very comfortable through the entire performance with her as stage managing.

Anyway, so tonight’s show continues. It is still going well and after tonight three more performances remain.

Today is the matinee. We begin the day with a theatre brunch at the campus dining hall and have a chance to mingle with the patrons. Helena, who plays Constance and I spent a lot of time speaking with a couple who live in Stafford and they were looking forward to the show. We talked to them about ourselves and our roles in the production as well as fun things like stage combat and costumes. I hope that they enjoyed watching the show as much as we enjoy performing it.

This show was great, I like matinees. The only thing that is strange is that backstage is not entirely dark as it normally is during the regular night time performances. The good thing about matinees is that they leave our evenings free. The first matinee usually has a good turn out and this performance was no exception.

Following the performance there was an “Afterwords” discussion which is a Q and A with the actors and some stage management and the audience. It is nice to answer peoples questions and a few patrons, one in particular was very complimentary about our performance. It is always nice to hear that people are enjoying the show.

Another one down….four more to go! I know it will fly by faster than I want it to.

The audience tonight was fabulous…..so smart! They caught a lot of the jokes that had been lost on other groups! As actors we sit in the dressing room and listen to not just the show but to the audience response and tonight’s audience was very impressive!

For me, tonights show had a slightly lower energy than the past two nights but it is so fun and as soon as I get on stage and begin playing it all gets there.

What helps is having an audience as vocal and responsive as tonight’s. Their energy is great!

This was a great run! I want every night to be as energetic as this one!

Tonight was excellent! Tonight my father and grandmother were both in the audience and even though the audience was a bit timid and slow to laugh it was a great performance. I think that as a cast we walked away thinking, “that was a great show!”

It is interesting how each night is different. That is one of the best things about live theatre….that performance will never be exactly the same from one night to the next. It is all in the moment.

Usually, opening night is full of energy and always a stellar show and then the second night is usually a slightly different energy, often a lower energy. I also feel like the second night for me is not usually the best night, never bad, but just not the best.

However, this second night was fantastic. I enjoyed just as much as I ever do and I look forward to all the upcoming performances! I know they will go by so fast. I hope that each audience enjoys all of the work that everyone has done on the show. It really is a fun show.

I am really glad that my dad got to come. He came all the way from southern Utah to see the show and I am glad that I felt as good about the show as I did. Hurray!

So far I have heard that everyone who has seen the performance has really enjoyed it!

Here’s to the next night!

Cheers!

One of the beginning rehearsals was all in a dance studio and all about movement. This show is a very active and extremely energetic show. This rehearsal we worked on patterns and shapes that your body can do. We worked on having a group mind and thinking as one entity. The exercises involved a lot of focus and helped us build our cast as a group.

My favorite part of the night was when we were split into groups and each group was given a word like Honorable, hungry, or passionate and the groups were to create a frozen statue of shapes, all connected, that represented that word.

The other groups got to see the statues and had to guess the statue’s word. It was amazing how much we got from the shapes and poses that people made. It was really fun and we took some good pictures of the statues as well.

It was at this rehearsal that we also practiced tempo. Marc lead us through exercises using these speeds: Hyper fast, very fast, fast, medium, slow, very slow, as-slow-as-you-can-move-and-still-call-it-moving.

This taught a lot of control and variety with whatever movement we were doing. For this exercise we were given something like “anger” and we were to do a movement that expresses “anger.” The movement on its own we called “medium speed.” From there were were able to either move up or down our tempo scale.

This was a good rehearsal and was a great actor exercise. I am sure if anyone had walked by during our work they would have been surprised and maybe would have assumed we were all working on some very modern dance. It was pretty wild.

This rehearsal was one more step in creating our characters. It helped us see the options when asking the question, “how does my character move?” or “what shape would my character be, round, angled, square?”

Karen who played the Nurse used this idea in making her character, the Nurse. She envisioned the nurse to be round and it really gave her something more to play with.

This was a good rehearsal.