Dracula, or, Paying my Dues

So Dracula has opened! The show is really wonderful and I've already learned SO MUCH about how the theatre world works by being involved.  My job is to run the fly system, which means I deal with all of the things that come in on chains from the ceilings, like lamps and the like.  I do the pre-show video (which for Dracula is mostly images of a Pentagram and some rotating demons). What all of this means, essentially, is that I sit in the booth and watch the show.  When I get a cue on headset, I work the controls so that a lamp comes in, or a chain, or a chandelier.  Surprisingly, this is a lot harder than I had originally thought.  It's not physically challenging, but I am just sitting for hours at a time. There is over an hour between my first cue and my second.  So what I'm working on in is staying aware and alert.  This is challenging. Also, my respect for the backstage crew has increased one thousand-fold.  It is definitely hard work, and requires immense patience and organization. 

In acting news, we had our first understudy rehearsals. Being an understudy is a whole new kind of acting challenge.  You are, essentially, playing an actor playing a character.  It's a sort of two-fold performance that makes you very aware of how  you move, how you act, and how you hold yourself in ways that that are different from the usual awareness.  There's a fine line to be walked between mimicry and good understudy work.  I am trying my best to be faithful to Gisela's interpretation of the role and her intentions without simply imitating her. There is a part, in the script, where the character Lucy comes into the lab screaming and crazy, under the influence of Dracula.  She behaves in a sexually lewd manner.  On the first run through, I tried to mimic Gisela's interpretation of sexual lewdness.  This did not work at all.  Next time through, I just mimicked her intentions and allowed the sexuality to come from within myself, which was much better.  Imitating another actor's interpretation of something so intimately connected with the way your own body moves comes across poorly.  In the end, you still have to use your own body as an understudy.  I cannot adopt her size or shape, and so I work with my own.  Also, I was thrilled with how prepared we all were.  Everybody came in memorized and ready to work.

About a half hour into the rehearsal, however, we received definitive news that the actor playing Jon Harker had some internal bruising in his foot and could not go on.  And so the rehearsal switched from general understudy work to an intense focus on the actor, apprentice Scott Swezey, covering the role.  Then I got to watch a put-in rehearsal.  Put-in rehearsals are extremely focused, with the singular intent of making sure that this one person knows how to work with the rest of the cast.  They are very technical and practical, and not at all like the initial rehearsals that the main cast had.  There is no talk of intention or motive, because there is no time.  It's very much "you need to be standing right here, and then you need to move to the left at this exact time, etc etc."  

So Dracula continues, and will continue for another six weeks.  Wish me luck!

Gisela Chipe as Lucy and James Whalen as Dracula