Three Kinds Of Me

So, I have a new upcoming project. This one has a bit of a quick turnaround, as the show goes up in October. That doesn't leave a great deal of rehearsal time. I'm not yet sure if the fact that it's a one woman show will make rehearsal more or less difficult. It's by no means a foregone conclusion.

One conclusion you may have correctly drawn from that first paragraph is that I'm not in it. The one woman in question is a good friend Sarah Charlsey (she's such a good friend that I even manage to spell her surname correctly occasionally), and she's written the piece that she will be acting in. It's not precisely the first time I've directed a friend - it's not even the first time I've directed Sarah - but this time, the dymanics are somewhat different.

First of all, I've been asked to direct someone else's creation (we'll pass over the small detail that I wasn't actually first choice. I'll keep that in reserve if things aren't going my way in the third week of rehearsal). Normally as a director, at least at this level, when it's all local, and a compartively small amount of people are watching, you choose your own project. Therefore, I have in my head (as I imagine a great many directors do) a bubbling pot of various images for possible in-the-future productions that may never happen. I have great opening images for both Three Sisters and Twelfth Night, both of which I imagine are far too expensive for any venue I currently have access to. Likewise, I have a whole series of ideas for a show that I tell anyone that will listen that I definetly will write a script for one of these days (it involves Victorian women using silks and Arial skills. I have yet to convince anyone - including myself - that that little detail isn't just for my benefit).

However, the goal posts change somewhat if you are directing your friend in the script they themselves wrote. I'm not exactly expecting to have any arguments regarding costume ('but they have to be wearing a Thomas The Tank Engine jumper, that's what the real David was wearing!'), but you never know. Quite often as a director (and indeed, as actor, designer, or most anything else) you play around with the expectations of the script: you know that such and such a scene is a moment when everyone's royally annoyed with each other, so you see how it will work if each actor plays it really positive and nice. Usually, the audience will pick up on the tension anyway, in a passive aggressive way. I'll let you know how it all goes; the first rehearsal is this week, after I get back from Edinburgh.