Monday, March 16, 2009

Zombie rehearsal

I had so much fun tonight at rehearsal, that I had to write about it as soon as I got home. I'm in a short play that is part of a larger, zombie-themed play-reading series. The performance is of three original plays that feature zombies in different storylines, selected by a theatre that is currently performing a zombie play itself. In the show, I play a discerning zombie with taste, frustrated by the mindlessness of his friends and loved ones. It's a pretty hilarious script, and it's just wacky enough to be a lot of fun. We blocked the show tonight and ran it until it was more-or-less solid, and we meet again on Wednesday night to work on some more elements for the first performance on Friday.

But instead of taking you on a play-by-play and joke-by-joke tour of the evening, this post is taking another direction to look at why the whole night was so much fun. Four actors, writer, assistant director and director were the assembled crowd tonight, and after introductions and get-to-know-you-moments, we all got along really well. Finding comedy and cultural touchstones so quickly meant that we were very soon joking around like old friends. And that worked out to be a really strong group of people that our director assembled.

Since the show is about zombies, there is a lot of physicality in the script. People trying to eat each other, people feeding each other brains in sexy ways. People making out zombie-style. That sort of thing. So we were very lucky that our four actors were willing to dive into the work on the script. So there I am, being attacked and almost eaten by two people that I've only just met an hour ago, and I'm trying to fend Chris off with one hand while Dawn claws at my ankles. Everyone involved was willing to go into the work at 100% percent right away, which made the entire process so much fun.

3 comments:

JParis said...

Your new nickname at the window mill shall now be Zombie.

Nick said...

If you haven't noticed, I think most of us at the window mill should be nicknamed "Zombie..."

JParis said...

so true!