PLAYWRIGHTS CORNER "Surviving rehearsals: The first readthrough."

 Subject:  PLAYWRIGHTS CORNER - rehearsals

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Date:  3/29/2000

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"Surviving rehearsals: 

The first readthrough." 

Playwrights Corner 

Mondays

10:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m. PT), Writers Grill

Playwrights Corner - Topics of interest to playwrights, moderated by HOST WRTR Herone, HOST WRTR Sofie & HOST WRTR LUD.

***file disinfected using Anti-Virus 7.8***

3/21/00 10:39:07 PM Opening "Chat Log 3/21/00"

Herone: Ok, we're logging.

CurtisProd: On 1st rehearsals or new medium for CW?

BludPtl101: the latter

TsPrincess: i just got back from rehearsald for a movie, based on my play

Herone: Our announced topic is rehearsals -- we can move on to other stuff in open chat.

CurtisProd: Congrats are in order.

Herone: congrats!!

Librettist01: That  could be a traumatic e xperience, I bet.

Librettist01: Congratulations!

Herone: and I just had my first readthrough of my new full length last night!

Librettist01: I like readthroughs.

Herone: Me too.  THis was a first -- the director hadn't read the new draft before the readthru!

CurtisProd: Had the actors seen the script before hand and if so how long before?

PHeeren: hey, playwriters

CurtisProd: Hi PH

Herone: so she got to experience the play OUT LOUD -- which is, IMHO, the best way to experience it.

Herone: NO ONE had a copy of the play except me.  She'd seen an earlier draft.

Herone: hi PH

Librettist01: Hi, PH..

Herone: all kinds of things that she'd objected to in the earlier draft she liked when she heard it 

CurtisProd: What kind of "explanation" did you provide the actors before you began?  Or did you?

Herone: out loud

PHeeren: It reminds me of when I first wrote my play in the fifth grade

Herone: They knew the basics of the project in the audition.

CurtisProd: Hi Snw

PHeeren: would you guys like to hear me or not?

Librettist01: Kinda nice when the director is put at a disadvantage instead of the writer.

Herone: and many of the actors had worked with me in the workshop.

Herone: Yes!

SnwWhtDove: Curtis  :)

PHeeren: hi snow

SnwWhtDove: Hi Librett  :)

SnwWhtDove: Tom  :)

Librettist01: Go for it, PH.  Hi, Snw.

Herone: yes it was delightful, Lib! LOL

PHeeren: hern, do you want me to share my story?

SnwWhtDove: Herone, Princess.... hi  :)

PHeeren: ok, here I go

CurtisProd: Worked with you in the workshop on this play?

Herone: pop in PH 

Herone: I had 10 actors work in exploratory workshops. We cast everyone who participated.

Herone: back in OCT

Herone: I partly wrote the play with some of them in mind.

TsPrincess: Hi Snwwht

PHeeren: In 1977 I asked my fifth grade teacher, now dead if I wrote a play

PHeeren: she gave me her blessing

Herone: which is a wonderful way to work, BTW -- writing for specific people

Herone: hi Noel

PHeeren: I wrote a play about the American Revolution and I did write the play 

CurtisProd: Noel, good Eve.

PHeeren: and my mom had to type the play before computers

Herone: TsP -- please chime in about your rehearsal/readthru for your film -- did you do one?

Noel Katz: I love writing for specific actors.  'Twas a great pleasure on Area 51, and the industrial

Librettist01: Hello, Noel.

PHeeren: and my teacher did direct the play

Herone: it's a blessing to be able to do it, Noel

Noel Katz: btw, the latest industrial is supposed to be part of an ABC prime time special Thursday eve

Herone: You can "shortcut" all kinds of things.

PHeeren: and it was a good play and I took the standing ovation

Herone: wow, that's terrific

Noel Katz: Hello, all

PHeeren: I lost the old play

Herone: how nice PH

AD Alvarez: Hi all --are we in protocol?

Librettist01: We'd like to add to that, PH...

SnwWhtDove: AD***

Herone: no -- we're all chiming in

SnwWhtDove: Evening Noel

AD Alvarez: Snw*** Her*** PH

TsPrincess: we did a read thur of the adapted play script...and i wanted to run and hide!

SnwWhtDove: Tom...that must have been fabulous

PHeeren: my mom didn't find the original play

PHeeren: it was lost

Herone: ohhh -- why, TsP?

PHeeren: how disappointed for me

Librettist01: Seems that's a common reaction, Ts, from what I've heard.

CurtisProd: Hi AD/Si

AD Alvarez: hey Curtis

PHeeren: I don't remember the exact script, herone

Noel Katz: On AREA 51, we'd had many a rehearsal before the first read-through

TsPrincess: yes but this that been a fully produced play

PHeeren: now I am 36

TsPrincess: I knew how good it could be

AD Alvarez: bbl

Herone: was it the change in genre? the actors?  all the above>

TsPrincess: , we are 4 weeks into rehearsals...tonight it just started looking like a play

Herone: hi Paul

PHeeren: I am now wanting to finish my play I started 10 yrs ago

Librettist01: It's about time, PH (just kidding!).

PHeeren: it is now in a bludgeoning folder in a drawer

PHarris825: Good evening, Linda, Oh Daughter to Apollo

TsPrincess: Pheeren: it's never to later to finish a play

Herone: guys -- I pulled out a page of script tonight that dated back to 1985!!!

PHeeren: under my computer desk

SnwWhtDove: Hi PHarris

SnwWhtDove: DoveKeeper!***

PHeeren: ?

Dovekeeper: Snowy!!***

PHarris825: Glad to see you drifted in here Snow White

Noel Katz: I can top that - I pulled out one from 1974.  Hal Prince's office asked for a song from it

SnwWhtDove: Thanks Paul  :)

Herone: Substituting an old song I wrote for the other (bad) versions of the "duel in verse"

Librettist01: Can't refuse a request like that.

CurtisProd: Hi PH

Noel Katz: Well, what if you're extremely embarrased by what you wrote at 14?

Herone: LOLOL

SnwWhtDove: Noel..rewrite? Revise?

SnwWhtDove: :)

TsPrincess: i think what frustrates me with rehearsal is that i cast semi-pros and they fart around wors

TsPrincess: that ametures

Herone: interesting TsP

Herone: I have college students -- and they, so far, are really on point.

SnwWhtDove: Amateurs are hungry for the experience, Princess

Noel Katz: I already told them it's something I wrote when a kid, so I can't very well refine it

Herone: Of course the director is their professor!

Herone: and some of them are doing this for a course

SnwWhtDove: Noel...true. But then, you could be genius and how would they know?

Herone: but mostly they are totally insanely excited to be working on a new play

Herone: it's an experience they never get

PHarris825: <--would never dare screw up a line written by Herone..

SnwWhtDove: LOL

PHarris825: instand death...

CurtisProd: Bad reviews or bad grades, take your choice.

Herone: LOL Curtis, yes

PHarris825: instant

Herone: Well, I was in heaven re: how well the first readthru went.

CurtisProd: "your acting was so bad, you stunk and flunk."

Herone: Considering how much script anxiety I had about it and how last minute this draft was.

Herone: LOL curtis

TsPrincess: I must turn in...good Night everyone

SnwWhtDove: LOL Curtis

Herone: nite TSP

SnwWhtDove: Nite Princess

Herone: glad your film is starting to shape up

CurtisProd: Night. P

Herone: but I can't help but feel good to hear the dir exclaiming over and over 

Herone: "god this play is GREAT!

SnwWhtDove: LOL Herone.. wow!

Herone: I wish she didn't sound so surprised, tho... ;-)

CurtisProd: lol H

Herone: I must have scared her to death with my late arriving drafts-in-

Herone: pieces

SnwWhtDove: Kind of the backhand of "god, this play is great" eh?

GreggNYC: HI, everybody!

Herone: hi Gregg

SnwWhtDove: Hi Gregg

Herone: but it's been terrific to be in the position of having a production

Herone: and writing to make it work

GreggNYC: HOw's the new play going, Herone?

Herone: rather than constantly audition the f*ing play in reading after reading

CurtisProd: "Wow, this play is great.  I've read your others and I'm really surprised."

Herone: I mean, plays really become themselves in REHEARSALS, not readings!  

Herone: if you're all doing your work correctly, it works out

Herone: more or less, LOL

PHarris825: "I love the idea of the playwright murdering the director.. Where did that come from?"

Herone: LOL

SnwWhtDove: It must be difficult though, dealing with so many variables, Herone

GreggNYC: I'm sick of plays about the theatre world!:)

PHarris825: PlaywrighT: I'm taking the Fifth..

SnwWhtDove: <~~is not a playwright

SnwWhtDove: LOL Paul

Herone: Gregg -- well, this is a play within a play, but that was the concept from the beginning

Herone: it's very very funny --

GreggNYC: Oh, I'm embarassed now!  Sorry!:)

Noel Katz: Gregg, then come to AREA 51 - now through Saturday

GreggNYC: WHy, what's playiing there?

PHarris825: <--taking Gregg off his holiday card list

Herone: God to hear laughs and laughs in the readthru -- what a relief!

Herone: LOL Paul

PHarris825: How do you spell faux pas?

GreggNYC: Oh, c'mon!  I like holiday cards!

Noel Katz: AREA 51 - the musical

SnwWhtDove: faux pas

SnwWhtDove: <g>

Noel Katz: It ain't about theatre!

GreggNYC: fawu paaa

GreggNYC: NEver could spell!

Herone: I can get tired of them too Gregg -- LOL

SnwWhtDove: foe paw?

PHarris825: Is Faux pas the won with Jono mainelli playing the piano?

GreggNYC: That's better snw!

Herone: There are 14 people in this cast!!!

SnwWhtDove: LOL Gregg

GreggNYC: How do you ever get them to rehearsals?

SnwWhtDove: I like small casted plays

Herone: There are all kinds of lines in the play that I've made people say

Noel Katz: Jono's my musical director

Herone: that they might otherwise say behind my back.

PHarris825: nice guy.. I wrote about him the other day

SnwWhtDove: LOL Herone

Noel Katz: Really?  In what?

Herone: people arguing about the chaos, the constant changes, etc.

PHarris825: He said he was working for a really talented composer/librettist..

Noel Katz: I assume this was about his Duplex show, 16 Bars: Notes from an audition pianist

Noel Katz: No kidding!

PHarris825: who are your composer and librettist Noel?

Herone: It is helping keep that stuff down -- by putting it in the mouths of the gossipy villains! 

Noel Katz: I wrote the music and lyrics.  Libretto is by Tom Carrozza

SnwWhtDove: Herone..rather machiavellian, wouldn't you say?

PHarris825: Oh...

PHarris825: (blushing)

Herone: yes indeed! :-)

SnwWhtDove: :)

Herone: every time the director gives me an unreasonable note, I add more

GreggNYC: :)  (Just wanted to fit in!)

PHarris825: He says nothing but nice things about you two..

Noel Katz: Why are you blushing?  I'm the one who should blush

Herone: Cyrano scenes about "I won't change a comma!"

PHarris825: I wrote a bid piece about solo performers the other week for backstage

CurtisProd: On a first reading, how much info. would you give the actors/

Herone: LOL -- it's very therapeutic

Herone: Curtis -- very good question!

Herone: What do you all do?

Noel Katz: Yes, I read that.  Huge and comprehensive.

SnwWhtDove: I'll bet Herone.. theraputic indeed

Herone: wonderful piece Paul

GreggNYC: Let them discover the work themselves!

Herone: We didn't give many notes.  

Noel Katz: The first reading gives the actors a new sense of the whole play

GreggNYC: That's what actors have to do!

SnwWhtDove: Really, I would think that you want a very fresh take on it from the actors and then

SnwWhtDove: interject if they are off the mark

Herone: And today, 1st rehearsal, the director asked THEM each to describe their characters

PHarris825: It's going to be turned into a book after I do the producing your own showcase book, that's 

Herone: very good technique I thought

Noel Katz: So, PH, are you coming to AREA 51?

CurtisProd: brb phone

GreggNYC: I agree, herone!

Herone: also others got to say things they thought about other's characters

PHarris825: soon.. Jono called me this evening..

Herone: Noel -- how do you handle first read/singthrus?

PHarris825: I am taking hiom to a conference about librettists at the weekend

PHarris825: Bill Hoffman is organising it up at SUNY 

Noel Katz: As I said, the latest first reading was well into the rehearsal period - so, I sang some

Herone: too bad -- I'd love to have seen it

PHarris825: I think I shall do a piece for Backstage about it..

GreggNYC: Hey, everyone, I have to go to sleep...I'll save my shameless plug for next week!

Herone: Gregg -- you can plug early --

SnwWhtDove: Nite Gregg  :)

Noel Katz: of the songs, but many of the actors had learned some of the songs by then

GreggNYC: Thanks, herone!

Herone: good way to do it

GreggNYC: My one-act, "Unhappily Everafter" is being produced by the Emerging Artists Theatre

PHarris825: <--could have trained on the continent as a singer... Neighbors offered to pay!

GreggNYC: from April 13th -16th here in New York.

Herone: LOLOL Paul

SnwWhtDove: LOL Paul!

Herone: congrats Gregg

GreggNYC: Thanks!  Glad to give info to anyone who is interested.

SnwWhtDove: Congratulations, Gregg... break a leg!

PHarris825: what's so funny...?

SnwWhtDove: Heehee

GreggNYC: Thanks snw!  I could use all the support, especially on 2 legs!

SnwWhtDove: LOL

PHarris825: <-- hurt and bewildered

GreggNYC: See you next week!

Herone: oooh poor Paul <stroke stroke>

SnwWhtDove: Oh, Paul...don't be,,it's the way it read...

Herone: nite Gregg

SnwWhtDove: As if the neighbors wanted you far, far away while you were singing..

SnwWhtDove: I, for one, thought you were being funny.. deliberately

PHarris825: some one said I reminded them of Lee Marvin singing

Herone: are we running out of road?

SnwWhtDove: He was a singer?

Herone: I'm so pumped from rehearsal...

SnwWhtDove: I mean..did he sing?

Herone: he sung in that Lerner and Loewe musical didn't he?

PHarris825: He murdered I was born under a wandering star

SnwWhtDove: In Paint Your Wagon, right?

Herone: yes

Herone: couldn't remember title --

Herone: mercifully blocked the memory

SnwWhtDove: LOL

PHarris825: he used to gargle with pebbles before recording sessions...

SnwWhtDove: Strange movie..strange casting (I thought)

Noel Katz: Hey, I don't want to hear what perverse things he did with an underage Flintstones girl

Herone: I just have to say that I have really, really missed the kind of

PHarris825: LOL

Herone: collaboration I'm getting on this project.

SnwWhtDove: Oh Noel  Shame on you... LOL

Herone: This feels much more like the process I worked with when I was writing musicals in the 

Herone: late 80's/early 90's.

SnwWhtDove: Yikes...must run... very nice evening spent here... Bye all***

Herone: more give and take

PHarris825: Prince Philip made the gargling with pebbles comment to Tom Jones once...

Noel Katz: Musical theatre is the most collaborative of all art forms

PHarris825: at a charity concert.. moron!

Herone: yes it is

Herone: The cast is exactly what I'd hoped for.

Herone: that doesn't always happen!

Noel Katz: I feel that our director/choreographer is responsible for one third of what's funny about 

Noel Katz: AREA 51

PHarris825: Noel got a show Sunday afternoon?

Noel Katz: Nope, closes Saturday night.  (Like all satire)

Librettist01: Hi, folks, AOL is mad at me again.......

Herone: yes -- it's really an open give and take

Herone: why Lib?

Herone: good to see you back!

Librettist01: I keep getting kicked off for some reason.

Librettist01: I just started a new acting class that is interested in doing original material.

Herone: I had to run away to log on just as the tech dir/designer/fight choreographer got there 2nit

Librettist01: Those people can really chop up a script, can't they?

Herone: actors? acting classes?

Herone: Does anyone have more plugs for this eve?

Librettist01: Taking a scene-study class, the instructor is very writing oriented though.

Herone: I'm so so so sorry I can't see your show, Noel!!!

Librettist01: Hello, JM.

Herone: If I weren't here I'd certainly try to get to NYC.

Herone: I will be in NYC in May, tho -- MARLA'S DEVOTION will be done at the Flatiron Theatre

Librettist01: I saw Frank McCourt's new musical on PTV the other day.

PHarris825: three plays being produced this year

Herone: May 10-14

Noel Katz: You're doomed to merely hear of the legend

Herone: yes -- are you videotaping?  Not that that really gives a sense...

Noel Katz: Thursday night @ 10 on ABC, there's a John Stossel news special that will include...

Noel Katz: ...some excerpt from my industrial musical comedy video, The Love Contract

Herone: that's fabulous

Librettist01: I'll try to catch that one, Noel!

PHarris825: three books being delivered to publishers this year..

Herone: that should pour some ASCAP royalties in!

Noel Katz: Actors Equity strictly forbids videotaping of Equity Showcases...

Herone: Paul, you are unbelievably busy!

Herone: ahhh figures

PHarris825: my new play was choden by the Unity festival..

Noel Katz: ...AEA would see to it none of us ever works again if we rolled a camera

Herone: that's great

Librettist01: Actors Equity has a lot to say, doesn't it?

PHarris825: Lost and Found opens in NYC in Sept....

Herone: I liked Unity Fest

Noel Katz: We'll see how many seconds of my songs they use.

PHarris825: To have and To Hold is going to play a season in Provincetown..

Noel Katz: Equity is, of course, the most powerful single force in theatre today

Herone: they did a good job with 2 shorts of mine and a stunning job with the 3rd

Herone: great Paul

CurtisProd: Back

Librettist01: Next to the tech unions.

Noel Katz: Where is Unity Fest?

Noel Katz: No, Equity controls all the tech unions

Herone: will they be at Altered Stages again?

PHarris825: a book on producing your own showcase gets delivered July 31st for publication next March

CurtisProd: What about the stage hands union Noel?

Noel Katz: I included the tech unions in my assessment of Equity's power

PHarris825: Vichyssoise for the Gay and lesbian Soul comes out in time for the holidays

Herone: LOL == love that title

Noel Katz: That ought to be a hot item.  Er, or - I guess not

CurtisProd: PH, There was a great article on that in backstage last year.

Herone: LOL - yes, Paul wrote it!!

CurtisProd: Producing showcases.  

PHarris825: I am thinking of putting together a collection of my humorous writings under the title "I wa

Herone: That's how he landed the book contract.

Noel Katz: Yes, we read that too.  Very helpful

PHarris825: "I was Dr Laura's love Child"

Noel Katz: Now you've mentioned evil incarnate

Herone: Paul you are on a roll.  

Librettist01: I think she would love that....

CurtisProd: Congrats Paul.  It was a great article.

Herone: congrats on everything

Herone: we are churning in here 

PHarris825: except I don't think "Love" and "Dr Laura" should really appear in the same sentence

Herone: yes 

PHarris825: thanks Curtis...

Noel Katz: I have trouble enough with Dr. and Laura appearing in the same title.  She's not a doctor

PHarris825: the solo book will be out fall of 2001

Librettist01: Actually, all the protests against Dr. Laura have guaranteed success of her new TV show.

CurtisProd: Title?

Herone: folks I have to go early -- I have to type up script changes AND deliver a new one act 

Noel Katz: Assuming the studio doesn't pull the plug

Herone: to a producer this wk

Herone: so 'til next week...

PHarris825: I'm going to use the title I used for the Backstage article I think...

Noel Katz: Continued good work, Herone

Herone: thanks -- you too, all!

PHarris825: "Going It Alone : Writing, Performing and Managing Your Own One Person Show"

CurtisProd: I have the article somewhere in my files.

3/21/00 11:19:48 PM Closing "Chat Log 3/21/00"