School Daze

Things have slowed down a little here at Casa Wilma.  After a 4 month hectic pace of rehearsing, competing at festivus, & 3 days of performing at home, we finally put "You've Got Hate Mail" to bed.  It was one of the toughest plays I've ever been involved in.

Let me tell you what my normal acting routine is:

• record lines with rest of cast at a table read.
• rehearse 3 nights a week
• listen to recorded lines every night for at least 3 weeks.
• spend 1 day at the computer typing out lines.
• spend 1-2 days saying lines off my cues.
• put script away, never look at it again.
• recite lines in head each night as I am falling asleep.
  
  Now, here's what my routine was for this past production:
  
• record lines with rest of cast at table read.
• rehearse 3 nights a week.
• read over lines every day.
• forget about recording... find it 4 weeks into rehearsal process.
• listen to recorded lines sporatically, mind wandering the whole time.
• spend 4 days at computer typing & retyping out lines.
• spend every day trying to say lines off my cues.  Fail.  Cheat & look at my line sheet.
• look at script every day.
• flub lines during tech rehearsal the day of festival performance.
• frantically study script in green room in full costume 1/2 hour before performance.
• run lines every day while on treadmill.
• make some errors during performances at home.  Every night.
• thank jeebus it is all over & file my script away with the other. {on an unorganized pile of theatre memorabilia}
  
  I don't know why it was so hard this time.  I don't know why I struggled so badly.  I can only assume it was a combination of age, lack of practice, the unique circumstances of the play {no interaction between characters} & laziness.
  
  BUT!  Now that's over, I can start to really concentrate on my studies!
  
  Let's just hope I fair better on my courses than I did with my lines!