My Acting Life – Twas the Night Before Laramie…
Vigil for Matthew Shepard
Hell week has lived up to its name. It’s always a challenge, but this has been more challenging than most as we had one rehearsal venue and two performance venues. This week has been about working in both new venues and learning the quirks and foibles of each. It’s a credit to our director that he hasn’t had a meltdown yet (at least not in our presence), we still have a very tight and together cast and some of us discovered costuming skills we never knew we had. And we are convinced we can do this show anywhere at any time and make it work. (We made a game of that last night – where can we do this show? – a cave, on Mars, and on a pool table at a bar during happy hour were the top three responses.)
We’re not going to know what to do with ourselves next week when we’re in the same venue for every performance!
If you’re in Orlando this weekend and next, come see us!
It sounds like such great fun; it sounds truly special.
We had our preview night last night – this is a risky show because we do it as an interactive with audience members volunteering to play some of the roles (reporters, angels, protesters etc). It went very well. Our audience was great, they had a good time, we had a good time. I didn’t realize until I read the article about the show that it hasn’t been done as an interactive before. Our director (who played the other adult role with me in Spring Awakening) decided to try it that way. The Matthew Shepard Foundation has been great working with us – one of their members Skyped us at a rehearsal and answered questions we had about our characters. Judy Shepard herself wrote us a beautiful letter for opening night. It’s been a great experience. After our Sunday matinees we’ll have talk backs with student groups. Looking forward to those.
We also got a great opening night message from Tectonic Theatre Project in New York – the originators of this show.