Op4P rehearsal: You were doing it too, jackass!

It's been more than a week since I went to OP4P rehearsal. It was fun to get back there last night. Jenna had the cast work the opening scene through Stuart (the character) "killing" Sierra's beer over and over, setting more specific blocking along the way. Many of the cast are off-book or close to it. The six of them seem to have really gelled (not like several of them weren't friends or hadn't worked together before ... but it's nice to see them all functioning as a unit.)

There's definitely illness in the air. Stuart (the actor) is struggling with a coldy/fluey thing and did seem less energetic than he usually is on stage last night. Sarah has virtually no voice, so she was doing her lines very quietly and very high-pitched, which I guess was the only way she could get any sound out. At times it was quite funny to hear, and I'll admit I laughed at my Sarah Pants, but then I felt really bad and just wanted her to go home and get in bed and sleep in luxurious comfy covers for days with Nate bringing her hot tea and pie until she was better.

But back to the show ... this is the first time I've ever seen any of it off-book, since all other productions have been on-book readings. And it was really cool. I was actually shocked at how close to word-perfect the off-bookers were. Really shocked. I guess I just assume that with a writer as wordy and talky as me, actors are bound to paraphrase a lot. We all do it. But they were very true to the words, which makes me wonder did I somehow find that magic alchemy of dialogue that sticks and makes sense so it's easy to memorize or are they just really thorough about their memorization (or both)?

Josh has really keyed into the right stuff as Kevin. I bring him up specifically even though I was really happy with everyone's work last night because Kevin is a character I worry about. The wrong actor would play Kevin as dick and not look for anything deeper there. But both Josh and Jenna understand that Kevin protects himself with dickishness and trying to be the leader. But people like Steph and Stuey wouldn't stick around if he didn't care for his friends underneath it (Jeremy might). Last night, Josh's Kevin was appealing and displayed flashes of warmth. His dickishness and surly self-importance was just how he rolled, it wasn't overstated or in anybody's face. In the blocking Josh frequently occupies the same chair, and Jenna noted that she now feels very protective that that's Kevin's chair and no one else should sit in it. (She also said she's got a bit of a crush on Kevin. But of course, girls like bad boys.)

Another thing Jenna's found that I like is with the Stuey character. She and Nate (the actor, not Sarah's real-life boyfriend, too many same names!) have developed a bunch of little moments where tension starts to creep up between characters, usually involving Steph, and Stuart breaks it up with a joke. Now that's in the script, sure. But they've added some nice touches where after he breaks the tension, you can see on his face that he's worried, that he's intervened with humor intentionally, and that he knows everything's not OK. It's great. It's so perfect for the character, and it's very true to what people like us do. We don't air the laundry, we cover up the smell with the Febreeze of humor until it goes away. (Horribly awful metaphor, isn't it? I love it.)

Tonight, Jenna's working just with Sarah, Aubrey and Stuart on their more intimate, serious scenes and Aubrey's monologue. I probably won't be back to rehearsal til Monday. Very excited to see how things progress.