Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

I had a lovely weekend, despite some rain on my parade.

( First, we made the trek to my folks' place )

( Then we meandered our way to the Southern Vermont Arts Center. )

( We stopped for dinner in Northampton. )

Unfortunately, by the time I got home, I was not going anywhere, so I missed scholargipsy's farewell party, about which I hear many fun things.

( But the next day was another party. )

Then, at last, I got back to my script and had a chance to block out the rehearsal plan for this week.

We have crickets inside again. This seems to happen every fall just about this time. I'm trying to focus on their potential as omens of good fortune, rather than their annoying chirp.

What a fantastic rehearsal last night! I'm always impressed by what Mare's led the Chorus into discovering with these lines. They take it in directions that I never expected, but that at the same time are completely in tune with my vision and understanding of the show and their part in it. Watching them creeping along the aisles in "Smelt" is deeply fulfilling on a level that's hard to explain. One of the textbooks on directing talks a lot about how directing is mainly an exercise in communication and it does feel like I've gotten an A when I manage to get an idea in my head expressed in my actors' bodies. And we got so much done! I thought it was an unrealistic hope that we could get through a review of the entire first act, go over what they'd done with the second act speeches, talk through the blocking for those speeches and get them all on their feet, but we managed it in under three hours! In general people seemed to be feeling pretty low energy and grumpy and many of us are somewhere on the continuum of illness (so far I am fighting it off with echinacea & zinc--wish me luck!), but we still managed to keep on truckin'.

Tonight we block the murder in the space--that should be very fun and dynamic.