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So, it’s that time of year again.  You know, that time when you look back at the past year and wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?”  In order to answer that, let’s do a quick recap of the year:

• Taught at a local high school - loved it
• Concurrently performed in Seussical as Vlad Vladikoff
• Met my current girlfriend and started dating her
• Wasn’t rehired at the school due to a lack of positions available
• Enjoyed the summer off work
• Tried to find another job
• Performed in Dearly Departed as Royce
• Proposed three different plays to direct
• Rejected twice, the third was approved
• Found another job at another school
• School started back
• Auditioned for And Then There Were None and All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
• Didn’t get cast
• Hated my new job (What was I thinking?)
• Received approval to direct The Faculty Room with a 32 day production time
• Days later, I resigned as teacher
• Spent the next 32 days (including Thanksgiving break) putting together a play, from start to finish
• Tore a ligament just before Thanksgiving
• Spent Thanksgiving alone since I couldn’t move
• The Faculty Room opened to moderate succes
• Christmas break begins

So, looking back, here are my resolutions for this year:

1)  Get the hell out of Dodge.   I’ve been stuck in this town for seven years now — it’s time to go.  Sometime in the next few months, I want out.  Hopefully, as soon as Fiddler on the Roof is over, I’ll find a job somewhere else.

2)  Get into grad school for Directing or Acting.  This will definitely help with #1.  I love the theatre with a passion (some say it borders on obsession!), and I want to pursue it as a career option.  Getting my MFA in Theatre is the next logical step.

3)  Failing that, work professionally in the industry.   I can’t guarantee I’ll get into grad school, cause I may not have the qualifications — but I can use this year to gain some meaningful professional experience in the industry, to better improve my chances of getting into grad school this year.  I did get a letter from a grad school that I applied to earlier, that basically said “You don’t have enough professional experience to get into our school program.”  To which my mind replied, “If I could get a professional gig, why would I need your school?”   –but that’s another blog.

4)  Enjoy my time with my friends.   As focused as I am in getting the hell out of here, I need to take the time to enjoy what I have here — my friends.  I know I’m going to miss them when I leave, so I should remember to enjoy them while I’m with them.

5)  Stay active.  The worst part about my situation is that I’m in an area where there are few theatre opportunities outside of an academic setting — it’s a struggle to stay involved.  I need to stay involved, for the sake of my sanity, for my blog, and for my career.

6)  Get fit.  I know everyone makes this resolution.  I’m not trying to get uber-buff, or lose serious weight, but rather to just improve my overall health through moderate exercise:  crunches, pushups, walking a little more, etc.  Physically, I’m close to where I want to be.  It’s just a matter of getting that extra bit of muscle (like, 5-10 lbs), and staying there.

7) Keep blogging.  I’m not entirely sure how many dedicated readers I have, but I do know that a few people read whenever I update:  to you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I resolve to keep blogging for the year of 2008, and hopefully gain some insight into my profession, as well as offer some insight into others’.  I know the biggest struggle with bloggers is maintaining the commitment to do it.

Here’s to success!  May you all have a happy, happy new year!

-Director

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One of the most brilliant things about art is that you can very rarely (if ever) be wrong. Art is ultimately subjective, its beauty only seen through the eye of the beholder. That’s why it irks me when people say others are wrong.

I don’t particularly enjoy Picasso. I don’t particularly enjoy rap music. I don’t particularly enjoy Italian operas. But I don’t consider any of them to be wrong. What I find enjoyable is certainly not universally enjoyable.

If I were running for office, my platform would be tolerance, I guess. Using an obvious parallel example, I consider, say, Hamlet to be the “Word of Shakespeare.” Hamlet is the most popular literary character in history. Not only that, but Hamlet is the most popular person in history, having the most books written about him ever. Astonishing, considering he’s a completely fictional character. At any given time, there is at least one production of Hamlet on stage in the world.

That’s a lot of Hamlets out there. Let’s say there are 500 productions of Hamlet going on in the world right now. That’s at least 500 directors with at least 500 different interpretations of Hamlet.

Are any of them wrong? No, not if they stay true to the original source. Are any of them poorly done? Probably. But poorly done does not equal wrong.

This sort of thing flows into all kinds of different genres and categories in life, from politics to religion, from art to music, from cooking to raising a child. There are all kinds of different ways to reach the same ends, all kinds of different ways to tell the same story, and all kinds of different ways to express ourselves.

From a director’s standpoint, I don’t think there is such thing as a “wrong” way to interpret any literary text, so long as you try to remain true to the original source. I think there are certainly ridiculous interpretations, innovative interpretations, and offensive interpretations. But is there really a wrong answer?

I suppose some day I’ll find out.

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Ask any director you know. There’s always one of those people. You know, one of those people who can’t seem to do anything right. One of those people who can’t seem to focus for one iota of a millisecond. One of those people who have never heard the phrase: “the show must go on.”

But I’ll not harp on the stupidity of these imbeciles, nor shall I belabor the point that they haven’t an ounce of talent to their name, nor shall I beat you over the head with their empty skulls. No, I shan’t.

…

But, if you were to, perhaps, portray one of these unfortunate souls in a play about, oh, I don’t know, bad actors, then I have a guide for you to follow. It is aptly titled “How To Annoy Your Director.”

Here we go!

1. Be late. Be late to every rehearsal. Directors, and everyone else for that matter, are here simply for your convenience. We’re not under a deadline, we’re not under any pressure, and we certainly don’t have anything better to do with our time than wait for you to finish getting that phone number from the girl behind the counter at the local gas station. If you truly want to annoy your director, have an excellent excuse each time.

2. Be lazy. I once performed in a Christmas play at church. I played one of the Apostles. The guy playing our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, showed up to our final dress rehearsal and still didn’t know any of his lines. Our Almighty Director was furious. I’ve never seen anyone so angry or so devoid of hope (except for maybe the time when my costume designer discovered his Armani suit on the floor with footprints all over it — you’d think his parents had just died). So if you truly want to annoy your director, don’t even look at your script.

3. Ignore blocking direction. When the director says “Go over here, face downstage and deliver this line to the audience,” ignore him. Yes, you read that — ignore him. Ignore your director, face across the stage, stare directly into the face of your co-star, and deliver your line to them. Directors almost never have good reasons to block you in certain ways. They probably haven’t even read the play as many times as you have. Yes, let’s annoy the director and ignore the blocking.

4. Be dull. Don’t show any enthusiasm or have any energy whatsoever. Why use up all that valuable energy? You’re going to need it to go out partying all night! Why waste all that energy when there’s no one to appreciate it? That director fellow is just going to tell you how badly you screwed up that scene. The best idea here is to just do the bare minimum needed to get through the scene. After all, that director can see what you’re really capable of on opening night. That is, if you can be bothered to care.

5. Be loud backstage. Never, ever whisper backstage. After all, you’re an actor! The audience came here to see and hear you! Nobody cares about those other actors on stage (besides, to be quite honest, they suck anyway!). Just keep on talking even though you have been reprimanded quite often by the director (who doesn’t appreciate your talent, anyway). Eventually, everyone will realize that you’re the only person that matters.

–

If you follow my four-step guide, you will wind up being the most annoying actor in the history of actors! Break a leg!

Stumble It!

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“You know what kills me?” Casey asks, while we’re eating at our favorite fried chicken joint. “When you care so much about something, and nobody else gives a shit.” I nod. He’s talking about an improvisational theatre group he tried to start last year that pretty much bombed. Not for lack of trying, though. Casey hit the problem right on the head: nobody cared, nobody participated, and nobody put forth any effort.

That has been an ongoing problem in the theatre here. Too many new people come in, expect to get lead roles, and when they don’t, they stop paying attention, they stop participating. Even if they get roles they want, they participate only as much as necessary.

One of the biggest ways to piss me off is when you find out I’m an actor/director, you say “Oh, I was in Grease when I was in high school…”.

No.

No, no, no, no, no. Don’t even try to compare your little fun high school popularity stunt to what I want to do for a living. Theatre is my passion, it’s my life, and it’s my career. The same goes for Casey and numerous others in the profession.

These new people, they come in and think because they were Annie in the high school production that they only have to participate if they want to. If they feel like it.

I hate to break it to you folks, but you’re never going to get anywhere with that kind of attitude. People like Casey and myself do our best to further our own careers, to offer opportunities for people to perform, to work within the profession we love, to have a chance to participate. And what do most people do? They give us assurances that they’ll participate, then haul ass the other way.

That’s the problem. A big problem. The next question, obviously, is what to do about it. How can we fix this? How can we improve our situation? How can we get these apathetic individuals to care? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some suggestions.

1) Have a plan. When I decide on a project, the first thing I do is figure out exactly what I want to do with the project.

• How many people do I want to be involved?
• How much resources do I want?
• How long do I want to get the project completed?

2) Have a backup plan. Once I’ve asked myself those questions, I come up with my backup plans. This is just in case I can’t get what I want. I ask myself some more questions:

• How many people do I need to complete the project?
• How much resources do I require?
• What is the minimum amount of time I need to devote to this project?

3) Offer incentives. For example, if I can’t get the minimum number of people that I absolutely need to complete the project, I need to figure out a way to encourage and entice people to participate. Perhaps I could offer some sort of financial compensation, a letter of recommendation, or some other sort of reward.

4) Offer to combine your project with someone else’s. One of the blogs that I’ve begun frequenting lately is Sobrietyland by madmargaret. In a recent entry, Margaret complained that the other local theatres are terrible. This is also the case around here. A possible solution would be to create a local one-act contest or scene contest or playwriting contest — whatever fits your project. Perhaps rather than starting your own project, you could offer your expertise to local theatres to help them become better. After all, we shouldn’t just be out to make ourselves better, but the entire profession.

Those are my suggestions for fighting apathy and non-participation in the theatre. Casey’s big mistake was that he hadn’t planned for a lack of participation. His project essentially failed, and he had to explain himself to the producer. Had he planned for this contingency, he might have been able to salvage the project.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do claim to have some knowledge of failure and success. Planning, ingenuity, and open-mindedness will help you succeed more than putting all your eggs in one basket will.

So what do I do to help my buddy Casey out, when the weight of the world has crashed down on his shoulders, when he’s looking for assurance and support, when he needs a steadfast friend?

“That blows, man,” I mumble, as I take a bite out of some delicious fried chicken. Mmm.

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First, let me say that I’ve been looking forward to this film for quite some time. Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite Broadway musicals, and the fact that Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Stephen Sondheim were bringing it to the big screen just made it even better. Now, on to the review:

(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t seen the movie, you might not want to read any further!)

Music. The music in the movie was awesome. Not just my favorite numbers like “My Friends”, “Poor Thing” and “The Contest” and such, but even the ballads as sung by Mrs. Lovett (which weren’t ever really my favorites) were done exceptionally well. I even found myself tapping my foot along with the music the entire time, which definitely means it was catchy. If it weren’t, I would’ve been asleep. I’m sort of surprised at Johnny Depp’s singing ability, and I’m surprised that I’m surprised, considering he was in Cry Baby (although I recently found out his voice was dubbed for those rockabilly songs!). His voice was surprisingly strong and solid. I give the music a 10/10.

Acting. The acting, too, was completely solid. There wasn’t a weak moment in any scene that I could detect. The characters are unspeakably memorable, from Depp’s extraordinary character development to Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Mrs. Lovett as despising of London as Sweeney Todd is to Alan Rickman’s flawless portrayal of Judge Turpin, whose turpitude created Sweeney Todd’s demon spirit from the ashes of the nice barber Benjamin Barker. Even the kid, Toby, had a flawless performance. I truly bought that Sweeney Todd wanted revenge, that Mrs. Lovett was in love with Todd, that the old hag was crazy, that Anthony loved Johanna (in a slightly creepy, stalkerish way), that Judge Turpin (the old perv) wanted to bang the daylights out of Johanna, that Toby was scared of Todd, that… well, you get the point.

Cinematography. Awesome. Simply awesome. Burton’s vision of Sweeney Todd is reminiscent of his Sleepy Hollow, but instead of faux-comic horror, this time it’s real. The streets of London aren’t dark to scare you, they’re dark because the denizens of London are evil bastards with true criminal hearts. There’s not a single good person in London, except perhaps Johanna. Everyone is self-serving, deprecating, and twisted in their own ways. The cinematography reflects that, with harsh lights, shadows, dark scenery, rotted sets, and horrid people.

I found several instances where lighting changed where it shouldn’t have. For example, when Mrs. Lovett is telling Sweeney Todd about how his wife took poison, they show the scene from two different angles — looking at Mrs. Lovett and looking at Sweeney Todd. When you look at Mrs. Lovett, you can see Todd off to the side. The right side of his face is dark. When they cut back to Todd, the lighting has changed — the right side of his face is now bright, while his left side is dark. There were at least a dozen other instances similar to this.

Doing a movie with such dramatic lighting will inevitably cause this kind of thing, so I’m not terribly upset about it. It’s just that usually I don’t notice those kinds of things, so for me to notice, that’s not a good sign. Other than that, no other issues with cinematography or lighting or anything like that. Amazing work, really.

Directing. Okay, up until now it’s been mostly roses and happiness. Now I’ve got a serious nitpick with Burton. He has this annoying habit of stopping the action when the actors sing. For instance, when Anthony sees Johanna singing in the window, he should have been trying to get her attention, running down the street to get flowers, and trying to show that he’d been struck by Cupid’s arrow. Instead, he stands there and stares at her.

When Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd sing “Like A Priest”, they stare out the window. There is no interplay between them, there is nothing interesting — they simply stare out the window and sing. They should be having fun — they’re devising the means of their revenge against the blasted denizens of London! Mrs. Lovett should be flirting with Todd, he should be ecstatic that he now has a way to get back at the bastard Judge Turpin. Instead, they stare out a window. How drab.

When the kid, Toby, sings to Mrs. Lovett about how he’s not going to let anything happen to her, he’s just sitting there singing to her, and she’s singing back. Let’s have some action, folks! I’ve heard the soundtracks before. I know the songs. I don’t need to sit there and watch a person sing. I can imagine that well enough on my own. Bring on some action, bring me something new to happen!

This was a huge fuckup on Burton’s part, as far as I’m concerned. If they can fill these songs with action on Broadway, then they can certainly do even better on screen. The budget, at $50 million, is many times that of the Broadway version (less than $10 million), so they could definitely have improved upon it.

Overall. At any rate, I’d have to say that Sweeney Todd is one of my new favorite films. As I mentioned before, I love the story, I love the actors, I love the songs, and I love movies. Put them together and what have you got? Bibbity-bobbity-Sweeney-fucking-Todd.

I love it.

Final Rating: 9/10

Here is another review of Sweeney Todd that I read. Excellent points, all.

What did you think of the movie?
Do you agree with my review?
Did you agree with it at all
Or should I agree with you?

Why or why not? Let me know!
Click on the Comment link below!

(What do you know… I’m a poet and I didn’t realize it!)

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“I am impressed,” I said to my girlfriend, as we exited the theatre. “I am very impressed with ‘I Am Legend’.” Ironic, eh?

The story starts out simply enough: a doctor has developed a virus that will work to benefit humans (rather than hurt us) and actually cures cancer. Fast forward three years and we see Dr. Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) driving through the empty streets of New York City with his dog. It is very clear that New York City has been empty and abandoned for years and Nature is taking over. Very shortly we discover that Neville is immune to the virus and has been the lone survivor in Gotham for three years. We also discover that 90% of the world died due to the virus spiraling out of control, 8% of the world turned into what were called Dark Seekers (some sort of zombie), and less than 1% of the world population is immune.

Neville captures Dark Seekers to experiment with a cure. We witness him capture a Dark Seeker female, and the alpha male gets pissed off. Apparently, the female was his girlfriend. This particular Dark Seeker becomes the main antagonist for the rest of the movie.

The plot was pretty solid, with no major goofs that I could detect. The visuals were absolutely stunning. There was nothing left untouched, nothing left unfinished. New York City was mind-bogglingly empty. When I normally think of New York City, I think of people walking constantly, streets jammed packed with cabs, and a cowboy walking around in his underwear. Okay, I normally don’t think about the cowboy. But my point stands — NYC is non-stop movement. To see NYC completely empty shook me to the core of my being — this is it: the end of the human race. The special effects were pretty damn good, too. It was extremely difficult to tell what was CGI and what was real (with the exception of the Dark Seekers — CGI is getting good these days, but for some reason they still have trouble with humanoid figures).

The best part though was Will Smith’s performance of Robert Neville. Smith completely carried the entire movie from the first scene all the way to the end. His acting was impeccable. I truly believed he was the last man on Earth. I read that he talked to convicts who spent long periods of time in solitary confinement, P.O.W.’s, and hermits in order to identify what it is that people who spend that kind of time alone do. He mastered those details perfectly. He essentially created a routine and other people to react off, even though they were all in his head.

Simply an amazing movie. I give it a 9.5 out of 10. Go see it today — you won’t regret it!

“You know,” David says. “At the school where I used to work, auditioning for performers and working in the shop for techs were mandatory.” I look at him and sit down on the sawhorse in the scene shop. All around us are the technicians working on the set for the next mainstage show. All three of them. The work-study students never show up, and the students taking the shop classes don’t show up either. Needless to say, David’s not a happy camper.

“Really?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at me with a sideways glance. He scratches his balls. He does that a lot. “Of course, the program there’s a lot bigger. The students there actually have to apply to get into the program, and if you don’t participate, you’re out.”

“That’d be so nice,” I say. “It’d be great to have an actual choice when casting.” This is true. Whenever we hold auditions for a play with, say, twelve roles, only about fifteen people will show up. Often, the director is forced to cast everybody who showed up. Having mandatory auditions would allow the director to actually have a choice in who is cast.

“You could sign a waiver that said you weren’t interested in a part,” David continues. “But you still had to audition.” Of course. Auditioning should be mandatory. It’s a process that you have to do if you want to be successful in the theatre world. It’s a crappy system, but nobody has managed to come up with a better one.

I nod as David keeps talking. My mind drifts off a little, as I think about the ramifications of this type of system.

In the department in which I have worked for several years, there are about fifty theatre majors. Roughly fifteen of them are techs, the rest are performance majors. That is, they’re actors. The sad thing is that only about fifteen or twenty of them are active in any capacity. The other fifteen or twenty rarely show up for strike, much less for auditions.

I mention the idea of mandatory auditions to someone I know who is a major but has never participated. She grows indignant, as if to say, “What? Me? Audition? Never!” In fact, I have yet to see her audition for anything. It blows my mind. Why major in a field in which you don’t intend to participate? Why take classes in a field that you don’t intend to pursue? Why waste your own potential and someone else’s time and money?

Here I am, a graduate stuck in this shit-hole town, struggling to stay active in the local theatre, but keeps getting pushed aside by the faculty because I’m no longer a student. Here I am, trying to further my career, and I’m getting pushed aside for people who don’t show up for auditions, don’t show up for work-study, don’t show up for set strikes. Here I am, a thespian, being denied my calling for the sake of people who would rather use their creative energy to think of new places to sing karaoke and get wasted.

“I think it’s a good idea,” I say to David. He looks back at me and scratches his balls again.

“It is a good idea,” he replies. “Too bad it’ll never happen.”

Too bad.

I often get into discussions (I guess you could call them arguments) about the best actors and whether so-and-so is a good actor or not. Usually, my definition of a good actor isn’t the same as the other person’s. In fact, I would go so far as to say that my definition is not the normal definition of a good actor.

I consider a good actor to be one that can change personalities, change physical behavior, and change their reactions to fit the part of each character. In other words, a good actor is someone who, when you see them in two different roles, you don’t recognize them.

There are plenty of good actors out there — unfortunately, most of them are not in movies or on TV. In fact, I’m going to go out on another limb and say that most movie actors aren’t good actors. Popular favorites like Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, and Denzel Washington aren’t good actors. Before you jump up in horror at my blasphemy, take a minute and see my reasoning here.

Let’s take Julia Roberts as an example. There is no doubt in my mind (or anybody’s mind) that Julia Roberts is a movie star. She’s a very bankable actress. Actually, she’s one of the most bankable actresses out there, making something like $25 million per film (Julia Roberts’ Salary). This is not an opinion, this is fact. Julia Roberts is a movie star.

Is she a good actress though? I sincerely doubt it. You can find a sampling of reviews at Defamer.com. As you can see, they’re pretty negative. She was boring and intimidating, she couldn’t maintain her Southern accent, she was awkward and tense, and she was unsatisfying and ultimately ruined the play.

You see, the difference lies in the method through which the audience sees the performance. Julia Roberts has been in several blockbuster movies, including Erin Brockavich and Runaway Bride. She did a pretty good job in those. However, for any given shot, she had to maintain character for as long as that shot lasted. Should she make a mistake, no problem! Just reshoot the scene.

On Broadway, or any live theatre for that matter, you only get one shot. You have the whole rehearsal process to screw up, but come opening night, you better have it down. And it’s not just for a few minutes either. You have to hold that character in your mind for hours. It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be.

There are plenty of actors out there who have made it a point to be different, to be able to carry a variety of roles. Some of my favorites include Leonardo DiCaprio (salary), Kevin Spacey ($4.5 mil for The Negotiator), and Michael Caine (no salary listed).  These guys are definitely paid what they deserve, if not too little.  There are plenty of others, sure. Johnny Depp ($20 mil for Pirates 3) is amazing, but he has what I call “Tom Cruise Syndrome.” TCS is when I can’t stop thinking of the character as the actor.

When I see a Depp movie, I always think of him as Depp, not Willy Wonka or Sweeney Todd or Inspector Whatever-his-name was. When I see Mission Impossible, I don’t think Ethan — I think Tom Cruise. Kate Winslet has TCS (for me, anyway), as well as numerous other actors. Morgan Freeman, Adam Sandler, etc. I will admit that each of these actors I’ve mentioned has had performances that completely blew me away (Adam Sandler in Spanglish, Tom Cruise in Collateral, Depp in the first Pirates of the Caribbean, etc). But by and large, I attribute those changes to directors, not to the actors. I could be way off on that, though.

A friend of mine has this terrible habit of rocking on his heels when he gets nervous. Every single time he’s on stage, he’ll rock on his heels at some point. He also has some other mannerisms that repeatedly show up in his performances. Often, I’ll point those out to him, and he works hard to reign those nervous behaviors in. When he manages to reign them in, he is a phenomenal actor. It’s distracting, though, to see six performances in six different shows, and he has the same physical mannerisms in each one, when the characters are completely different characters. Sometimes the rocking on heels works — like Nicky in On the Verge, but sometimes it doesn’t, like when he played General Whats-his-name in Arms and the Man.

Of course, my definition is slanted towards stage acting, but theoretically, it should be able to carry both ways. After all, many actors have transitioned from film to stage and back again with no trouble at all. The trouble truly lies with the producers and with the fact that some actors are hired because of their performances in other movies. I’m sure Tom Cruise could be a phenomenal actor if he chose — but people don’t want him to play Collateral roles. They want to see Cruise in roles similar to Minority Report and Mission Impossible. They want Maverick back. And until he pushes himself to become a better, more diverse actor, that’s what they’ll get.

This why I love Hank Azaria:

“Wow. What do you enjoy most about stage acting?
It’s my favorite thing to do, on many levels. First of all, it’s an actors’ medium. In film, it’s the director and the editor who make their final cut, and pretty much the same in television. Onstage, it rests in your hands. You’re driving. Each actor entering the play is a living, breathing character; every single one has a different personality. Especially in a play like this, it’s a phenomenal experience to share that with 1,000 people every night. (Broadway.com)

That’s exactly why I love theatre. Thank you, Mr. Azaria, for articulating my thoughts as well!

The best part about theatre is that you have the potential to have a different dynamic each night. The script doesn’t change, the lines don’t change, the lights don’t change, the set doesn’t change, the people don’t change… the audience changes, the energy the actors feed from changes, and the whole experience changes. It’s like magic.

Go see a great show like, say, RENT or Jersey Boys. Then go back a week later and see it again, and it’ll blow you away just the way it did before. Nothing’s changed but the audience dynamic — the way the audience and actors interact — and it’s an entirely new experience. It’s like magic.

Mr. Azaria, my hat is off to you. Break a leg in The Farnsworth Invention.

“Hang on!” I called out. I stepped down from the risers and approached the woman playing the character of Zoe. The other two characters were Adam and Carver. We were only a few days into rehearsal, but the five or six times we’d run this particular scene, Zoe had delivered a line in a way that left me cringing inside. It wasn’t necessarily the wrong read on the line, it was more like she was missing something. Hopefully, I could clarify.

“Hang on a sec, Zoe,” I repeated. “Let me ask you a question. How do you feel about eating junk food all the time, watching movies where everything explodes, and listening to music that cracks your skull open?” She looked at me for a second.

“What?” she asked, a little confused. The character of Zoe is an interesting one. She’s sleeping with one of her students, Raphael. Adam, who is deeply and madly in love with Zoe, isn’t too happy about this. Carver is appalled.

“How do you feel about doing that stuff?” She rolled her eyes at me.

“Are you some kind of shrink?”

I continued. “Who are you doing these activities with?”

“Raphael,” she answered, with a “duhh” look on her face. I raised my eyebrows. She stared back. Her face changed in the space of a heartbeat. “Ohhhhhhhh,” she said. “I see.”

“Good. Let’s try that again.”

She delivered the line perfectly. Adam followed up with another line. The scene continued, and I relaxed. I settled back into my nice, comfy director’s chair and watched the scene unfold. So far, so good.

A minute later, I jumped up again.

“Hold it!” I cried. “I know I have you blocked over here, Adam, but it’s not working. Something isn’t working. How about instead of just holding her hand, you stand up and… ah, shit, that’s not going to work either.”

“I think he should scoot the chair around and put an arm around me,” Zoe blurted out. I looked at her for a second. I nodded.

“Good idea, Zoe.”

I have to be careful sometimes. Like all theatre people, I have a big ego. It is precisely that ego that makes us good — it makes us want to be in the spotlight, the center of attention, the grand fromage. But it’s not always a good thing. Sometimes professionalism comes into play.

The woman playing Zoe is an excellent actress. She wants to be a director, too. I get the feeling sometimes she thinks she knows better ways to do things, but then, I always thought that when I was being directed by someone else. In that light, I try to always stay open to suggestions, but in the end, I’m the director and she’s not.

For the sake of the show, I have to put my ego aside and think of what the best action is in any given situation. Sometimes I agree with people’s suggestions, sometimes I don’t. I will gladly say that she does a very good job of accepting and following direction, even if it isn’t the way she would have done it. Zoe is a true professional.

In fact, Adam and Carver are true professionals as well. The three of them have worked their asses off every day trying to memorize 98 pages of lines in a little less than four weeks. So far, so good.

Once again, I backed up the scene a little bit and said, “Go.” The scene unfolded again. Many times this night I stopped them and gave direction and ran the scenes again.

Towards the end of this rehearsal, I let my mind drift back to my earlier thoughts regarding Zoe. Professionalism is one of the qualities I most highly prize in actors and directors. Or anyone I work with, for that matter. The ability to contain one’s ego for the sake of the greater good, to accept criticism for what it’s worth, to follow instructions without undue argument is highly desirable and even necessary for actors, directors, and technicians if the show is to succeed.

I thought to myself as the scene wound down: So far, so good.