Tag: #rehearsal

  • A Bad Rehearsal

    Yesterday, I finished a second draft of a story. I had been working on it since September, when the kid went back to school and I got some more free time during the week. I had been sticking to my paradigm of writing, which is to outline the story, and then, you know, do it – write the thing. There’s nothing special there, I have been following this pattern since the summer, and it’s been a help. I have been getting ideas and drafts down on paper. Whether they are good or not is a completely different discussion.

    Anyway, so when I complete a draft, normally, there is a feeling of accomplishment. You know, I got something done. Not like a huge feeling, like I won the big game. More like, I was able to put the Kallax shelf together by myself; that type of accomplishment feeling.

    So, yesterday, when I finished the second draft… I didn’t have that feeling. That feeling of accomplishment didn’t come over me. What I felt was like taking the garbage out. Something happened, but nothing I am proud of.

    I don’t think it’s the story’s fault. At this moment, I like the idea, but that doesn’t mean it will see the light of day.  I could read the thing again, and hate it. Or, I could see it needs another draft.

    As I thought about it, I guess what this most closely feels like is a bad rehearsal for a show. And I love rehearsing. I think I like rehearsing more than I like performing. I like trying out ideas, and seeing what the other performs do, or how they react. I like when someone changes things slightly, and that causes me to trying something new in return. That type of working makes me feel like I am being creative, and makes the rehearsal feel fulfilling.

    Maybe that’s it. It was a bad rehearsal draft. I might need to listen to my gut. It might be a bad draft.

  • Power of Rehearsal

    It’s been little over a year since the last time I was in rehearsal for a show. Currently, I am working on a puppet show which I had worked on four years ago. It’s getting remounted and we are taking it on the road for a week. The last two nights in rehearsal, we had the original choreographer with us, and he and the director decided that the puppets needed a new dance, and it’s great. But it was demanding,  hard work. (The puppets are ¾ life size, it takes three people to work one of them, and we have a new person on our team, who is great, but it still takes a little time to get into a rhythm together.) And we have more of it tonight… And I can’t wait.

    This is the stuff that I really love to do, so there really is no surprise that I am excited about it. What does help is that my job recently has become so unenjoyable, that anything that is enjoyable, thusly becomes magnified by infinity! I can’t help but compare the two, for I have to sit through one to get to the other.

    A few points have been hammered home to me this week. One, don’t get good at something you don’t like doing, and that would be my current job. A professor of mine from college said that to me right before I graduated. I keep forgetting this advice, but he has been right every time I take a job to get ahead. Second, since I am over 40 and a pessimist, I had this weird feeling that there could be a chance that this might be my last puppet show. This presumably negative thought has given me a wonderful feeling of being at peace in the rehearsal process, and also made me very grateful for the people I am working with. Third, I remembered the importance of looking forward to something, or as my Grandmother would say, having a goal. Getting up with a purpose in the morning has been wonderful, and I think has made me into a happier person. I want to get at the day.

    It has been a great two weeks, and I only have a week and a half left. I at least know that you should appreciate when you are in a place that gives you unabashed happiness.