Jerusalem Auditions, Casting and More!

Casting a show with 14 characters (and a minimum of 12 actors) is a monster of an activity.  In the past I've shared a few tips about auditions and casting, but sometimes only brute perseverance can help you.  Some of our actors spent four hours at callbacks.  Only to be called back for a second round.  In all, we held five casting calls of various types over the course of a month.  But in the end we found a stellar cast:  Tyler Barns, Emily Carson, Stefin Collins, Michael DiMartini, Matt Harvey, Grace Ingland, Becky Raeta, Nickolas Rice, Natalie Walker, and Ian Walker as Johnny Rooster.  You can check out our promo above and out show image below....

Now that we 're back in production, you can expect more theatre tips, insights, resources, and updates!

Four Ways Were Changing Our Relationship to Our Audience

Transforming our Lobby into a Lounge. Utilizing QR Codes in our program. Opening the bar after the show. Initiating an Elite Pass for the production. Here’s why:

Transforming our lobby

We’ve got a small lobby—it has room for maybe four chairs, and is separated from the theatre by a curtain. It’s not the best of circumstances, and it often requires us to set up folding chairs in the hallway outside the lobby to accommodate early arrivals and overflow. In the past we’ve done things to spruce up our “inner” lobby: lit candles, projected images high up on the walls, filled the space with old show posters, and offered free hot chocolate (that was a big hit). But it still says, “wait here a minute, the real entertainment soon.” It’s a “waiting room.” Why am I telling audience members not to engage in conversation? Not to connect? Not to enjoy themselves? So we’re moving comfy furniture into the lobby and even the outer hallway.

QR Codes

You know, that funny little black and white square with dark speckles in it. If your smartphone has the right app, you can take a picture of it and visit a website or see a short video. Like a lot of marketing innovations it’s become all the rage without a whole lot of evaluation, but I figure within the setting of a theatre auditorium having one person use the QR code gets 2-5 neighbors in on the fun. Want to hear an actor talk about his role? Hear the playwright’s description of the play? Get clues on who done it? All they have to do is open their program, point and click.

Open the Bar

People tend to flee the theater after the show, even if they enjoyed the show. That’s cool. But we also want people to talk about the show and engage with the art form. So even if the attendance doesn’t merit it, we’ll be keeping the bar open after the show and inviting folks to chat with the artists.

The New Elite Pass

Make theatre more than a business transaction of dollars for stage entertainment—that’s what this new program is about. We’re encouraging people to get involved not just for two hours, but two months by offering inside looks, workshops, right of return, discounted food and drink. For just $35, the price of many shows in SF, you get a whole experience. It’s our new adventure. For everyone involved. And frankly, we think it's the most intimate theatre experience in the nation. Check it out at www.secondwind.8m.com/AboutElite.html

So come tell us how we did.
Vigilance runs February 2nd thru the 25th at The Phoenix Theatre.

Director's Tool: The French Scene

Today we're looking at a script analysis tool called the French Scene. It's useful in both understanding the pacing and relationships of a play, and in developing rehearsal schedules-- who to call, how many pages they have together, and from that you can calculate how much time you should allot. For rehearsals, I typically allot four minutes of rehearsal time for each page of script. This is each time I return to a scene. Altogether, I'm likely to spend 75 hours in rehearsal before Tech, or about 40 minutes to a page. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, the French Scene....




You can find my French Scene diagram for The Woman in Black here:

Oh Where Oh Where am I? Tech!

My long absence (fueled only slightly by difficulties with my blog server) is a statement in itself. Tech was grueling: 12 stright days working at times until six in the morning-- and never quitting before 1pm. I fell sick for two days near the beginning. People fell off the stage. Repeatedly. We discovered one of our computers didn't have enough processing power to run both the video program and the videos smoothly so we bought another laptop, programmed it, tweaked it, and then learned that it had a faulty circuit on the power board that kept it from running reliable. We returned it on opening day, programmed, tweaked, and threw it into the mix. After having never seen all of the media elements together in the same show, we ran without a hitch to a standing-room only audience on opening, followed by an over-sold audience on Saturday. But all of that is another entry; this one is a little behind-the-scenes of tech itself.

We're open! So you can buy tickets at: http://www.secondwindtheatre.com

Sound Design

I've been off-line for the past week because rehearsals are on break. During the last week the show started to slip steadily behind where I wanted it to be in terms of the actors' readiness; then it took a nice step forward in the final run-thru. We're still two days behind in my estimation, but it's not so far that we can't get back up to speed during tech if the actors stay on top of their game.

Break from rehearsals does not mean a break from production, though. There's still publicity to do (though primarily prep work, since nobody's in the office, now); video footage is being edited, tech tools-- like the Arkaos VJ program and SCS sound controller-- are being tested; and I've re-focused my attention on the sound design, which is the topic of today's post.

It's difficult to give a concise, helpful summary of how to design sound for the theatre, especially in a video blog, so I've added a written overview of my process here. It's not quite a tutorial, but close.

http://www.secondwindtheatre.com/

Two Days of Filming

We went into the studio this weekend to shoot about 3 minutes worth of footage for the production. We scheduled six hours over two days to get it done. To say I'm proud would be ridiculously arrogant, because the real work, the real creativity and beauty, the real accomplishment was by others: the filming, costumes, choreography, and acting was the result of other people's inspiration. Many thanks to Colin Day, our Director of Photography who also made it possible to work in a real studio, and Richard Enriquez, film director for the sequences. This one is worth watching....

Ticketing, website, info and more: http://www.secondwindtheatre.com/

On Directing as the Playwright

We're entering a more frenetic time, production-wise. The flurry of activity and tension is due to the fact we're scheduled to film the video segments of the play this weekend-- and thus need costumes, lines, and scene work to be spot on-- and also because we're about two rehearsal days behind where I'd like to be. It's unusual for me; most of the time I'm able to pace the process more closely, but so many elements (and as I've said before, so much physical movement) have made it more difficult. Yesterday was the first formal "off book" day. It was rough, but in general they did pretty well. There are glimmers of beauty, but a lot of mud to clean up. So I thought I'd talk about my approach to directing, particularly as it relates to the strengths and weaknesses of being the playwright.

Purchase your tickets here!

Inside a Rehearsal

This time it's an inside look at rehearsals in moving images. I've shied away from taking footage of scene work because I think it's too intrusive. It's too easy to start acting for the camera (for both the actor and the director). But Thursday's rehearsal was focused on integrating movement and fight choreography into the scene-work, giving an opportunity to shoot a little more tape. We've slipped about a day behind in the rehearsal process; there's just too much physical work to cover, and it always takes longer than one expects. Where we'll make it up, nobody knows. It's particularly frightening, because we'll take a 11 day break for the holidays, and if we're not solid before then, the show could slip dramatically. On the bright side, Arthur Keng returned from NY after 2 weeks out of rehearsals very much ready to go. When a moment catches fire for the first time in rehearsal is a blessed thing.

Visit us: www.secondwindtheatre.com

Why Meadowland, Why Now?

Rehearsal, rehearsal. On Monday we focused primarily on the romantic scenes between the Investigator and Sister-in-Law. They're right at that tentative point where the memorization and the emotional journeys are almost connected. So close, in fact, that I felt bad knowing that we weren't scheduled to re-visit the scenes for a week, and I asked them if they'd be willing to rehearse with the AD and AAD on Tuesday, while I worked the dance and fight choreography with Misha. They agreed, and that's what we did. I hope to have some footage from yesterday's choreography up soon.

But today's topic is why Meadowland, why now? What made us take on this work right now, from both the artistic and the political perspective.

Visit Second Wind's website at:

www.secondwindtheatre.com

90 Seconds in a Costumer's Meeting

The title pretty much says it all: a brief look at a design meeting with Scarlett Kellum.

Ah Paperwork!

Theatre companies don't exist on creativity and inspiration alone. I thought today I'd address some of the organizational aspects of producing theatre (and the creativity--and discipline!-- that goes into getting things done) by sharing some of our production materials. There's always more, but here's a taste.

http://www.secondwind.8m.com/Production%20Papers.html

See you in the theatre...

Masks and Fight Choreography

Okay, it's two in the morning, I've spent 10 hours of my Sunday in either production meetings or rehearsals (I ended up bookending a 4 hour rehearsal with design meetings), the light in this shot is beyond awful, and I'm having trouble forming sentences. Not my sharpest entry. Maybe it's the whiskey. But if you jump about a third of the way in there's some nice footage of our fight choreography excersizes, and some face casting for masks. We also worked the "romantic" scenes, but you won't see any of that. Thanks to Richard Enriquez for his camera work (and everybody else for their commitment).

What is Meadowland?

All these entries and I still haven't told you anything about the play? Well, that'll change here. A brief introduction-- with no spoilers!-- on Meadowland, which happens to be based on a 12th century folk story from Japan.

www.secondwindtheatre.com

First Read-Thru

Rather than have me describe our first read-thru, I'm going to rely on pictures being worth more than my words. At Second Wind we like our first rehearsal to be casual; too often, the cast doesn't get to know each other until after the show opens. Photography by Richard Enriquez (all the good shots) and myself.

www.secondwindtheatre.com

Auditions

Auditions: they're nerve-wracking on both sides of the auditors table. Hard on actors, and hard on the producer/director-- at least that's how I feel about it. They're actually my second least favorite part of the producing process. So here's a bit about how we tricked-out our audition process to get hard-to-reach actors, and the inside scoop on what I'm looking for in an audition. And I promise the next videos will be shorter...

As always, you can hop to our website for more information about the show, buy tickets, and have a generally fine time at: www.secondwindtheatre.com

Getting Started

Finally! I got off my duff and posted the first video entry into the MEADOWLAND video blog. It's more rough and tumble than polished, which is what's I'm going for. I'm already cast and in production meetings with a great team of artists. More to come....

What's to Come

This is just a place holder for what's to come. This is a video blog for Second Wind's production of MEADOWLAND, by Ian Walker, hosted by Ian Walker. My hope-goal-desire is to post an insider's account of the production process, with new video's every other day (starting with the first day of rehearsal, November 16, 2008). I'm going to add a few pre-production posts to give some background, starting next week, and ramping up as we go along.

Until then, welcome.