Attention to Detail

The Shakespeare camp production opens this evening, and I have high hopes. Last night, I was a bit worried, but after seeing today's dress rehearsal, I'm optimistic.

It's amazing how it always seems that theater stuff comes together only at the very last minute. I guess that's true of a lot of things in life, though. So while amazing, it's not surprising, if that makes sense.

Today's dress rehearsal was fun; you could see where things were working out, and we made some last minute changes to make things work better. The last minute things were often fairly small details, but have a bigger impact than you might think.

It's fun to see the actors developing in their work. Some started out being good at the moment they were saying their lines, and then looking like a kid standing on stage. But now they're looking more "in character" all the time; they seem to be paying attention to what someone else says to them, and actually responding with lines, rather than looking like they're waiting for their cue and then reading their lines out.

It's fun, being a text person and all, and then being part of actually putting on a play. It's a little weird when the director asks what I think of this or that, but also way fun, and very cool to try to work out how things will look and work best. And I think I've contributed well on that end.

And here's a truism, I think, about staging this play: everyone wants to use stage blood.

Heck, I'll admit, I'd like to check it out, if only I could think of a reasonable excuse. (oooo, wouldn't it be fun to go into the first meeting of the semester just covered in gore and say something about problems with the wo/man eating copy machine?)