The Magic of Mistakes

Meg Quinn directing Jacob Kahn & Lee Becker, in The Borrowers by Mary Norton @ Theatre of Youth, Buffalo, NY during a rehearsal.

Creativity and play seem synonymous with one another. As parents we encourage our children to be social and play together. Studies ave taught us that we learn by playing, creativity opens up our minds for thought and question. Actors work is creative play. Every rehearsal and every performance is a new experience, a new moment of learning-about yourself, your scene partners, the story being told. Actors have to use their whole bodies when working, but we start a new project by reading the script, first alone-hopefully-and later with the entire cast and the production team.

Hearing the text is the first connection we make with the playwrights story. Now, actors start thinking about who we want this character to be, ususally the director already has a sketch made up, and that sketch can change over the course of a rehearsal and that's okay, it's all about choices and because I'm focusing on live theater, it's about the "magic"!

The magic is the unknown, the surprising mishaps made perfect.
The magic is also the moment a kid in the audience is so engaged that he yells out to the heroes to "run", as the villain, me, is hot on their trail to try and kill them. I can't tell you how cool it is when that happens!

Mistakes happen in live theater, that's part of the magic. What you and your scene partners do on stage during those magical moments teach and test us as creative beings.

Jacob Kahn as Crampfurl/Spiller/Gypsy Boy, Director Meg Quinn, and Lee Becker as The Boy, rehearsing The Borrowers @ Theatre Of Youth, Buffalo, NY

Loraine O'Donnell as Homily and Marc-Jon Filippone as Pod, rehearsing The Borrowers by Mary Norton

Arin Lee Dandes as Arrietty, and Loraine O'Donnell rehearsing The Borrowers by Mary Norton @ Theatre of Youth, Buffalo,NY

Every performance was different. That's part of the beauty of live theater. But when the beauty and magic of theater is the differences of each performance the causes of these "differences" can wreak havoc or laughter backstage. 

Memorizing lines is always a challenge for me. I promise myself that I won't be the actor who has the least amount of lines and takes the longest to be off of book. Sometimes I have to break that promise. Like on our last dress/technical rehearsal, when I walked out for a scene where I say about 6 lines and exit. 

Simple enough, but I neglected to do my homework the night before or even during my lunch at work...I didn't look over my lines. Now mind you this is not my first scene in the play and I wasn't very concerned with this particular scene since it is so short, I knew the lines, or at least my brain knew the lines but for some reason my mouth and tongue couldn't seem to form the sounds to create the words that my brain was holding. I looked into the abyss of an empty house, and called out the word:

"Line!" 

And there was no answer.

Now let me give you some back-story for the non-thespians. Professional actors are not supposed to call for a line during full tech/dress rehearsals, especially not the last night before opening or previews. If you don't know your line you are expected to figure out how to save yourself as if there was an audience. I stuttered a bit, then I stammered and then I went to the next line, exit stage right. 

I was so embarrassed, when we took a break, Marc-Jon Fillipone, a very experienced actor said, 

"Did I hear you call for a line?"

"Yes Marc, you heard me. I was bound to goof something up."

"But that's good, we couldn't have a perfect rehearsal today, that would just be bad luck!"

And there you have it.

Actors are very superstitious, on the last dress rehearsal we expect something to go wrong in order to believe that opening night will be a success! There were other goof up s that night, but mine was the first, and after I got over my ego being knocked down a bit I was pleased that I could contribute to relief of a not so perfect dress rehearsal!

Yay for me!

Suffice it to say that I never forgot that line again. That I would say is the creative part of learning. We may not learn the way we plan but the best laid plans of mice and men... you get the idea. We have to make mistakes to figure out the successes!

Who'd like to share?

An Actors learning styles.

We all learn differently. That's what we've been told for the last twenty years or so. I'm rehearsing for a play, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, at Theatre of Youth in Buffalo. Our director Meg Quinn, is a patient director with soft, warm, parental looks and voice. So when she asks you to try something different it also feels like it would be alright to disagree with her. I myself am not that kind of actor, the kind who disagrees with the director, I pride myself, maybe too much, in at the very least trying what the director is suggesting, But not all actors, like people are the same. I've seen it. This got me to thinking about the different learning styles that we have been discussing in the arts in education realm of my theatre artist career.

Actors like many artists use a variety of learning styles. Working alone, working in groups, music to learn, writing, visual imagery, physical games...

Watching the cast work through their various choices and remembering Meg state that it looked liked us six actors we were all doing six different plays. we weren't remembering to tell the story. Instead we were all still trying to figure other things out like what's the new/old blocking? Why can't I remember my lines? Was that a Jamaican accent this time?

But actors employ a variety of techniques to get to the different emotional and physical places they have to bring themselves in order to show and tell a story as an ensemble. Sometimes that may not come together until opening night, which is tonight... I was challenged, still am. 

Children's theater is tricky, especially when the material has the elements of comedy and the fantastic. The Borrowers are the little people that live under the floorboards . I play Mrs. Driver, the cook who discovers them and tries to destroy their little lives. It's fine to play the villain, but it's been a struggle to define who she is in the course of the play. I've been more involved in the way I think I should play her, instead of considering what kind of personality she embraces. In order to do this effectively I've had to embrace a variety of learning styles.

Usually I like to get right into the role, grab the script and start playing. I've worked with directors who have enjoyed starting rehearsals with theater games and exercises. That sometimes works at developing trust with actors who haven't worked together before.
 Meg is the kind of director that asks her actors lots of questions about how they feel about the choices they've made. She wants you to think really think about what you are doing and saying and why.
I like that.
But I also like keeping things to myself, using music to recall an emotion and improvs. 
I've been trying to consider the story more as if I was younger, how would I enjoy this?
How can an actor effectively tell the story, engage, entertain, and educate a young audience?
By having fun, and remembering what was exciting for you when you watched a story unfold.
Today as I said is opening night, we are expecting a pretty full house, the theater olds about 400.
We've had two preview morning shows this week with schools with very good responses. So when we break those legs in an few hours, I'm hoping for lots of laughs (kids like to see Mrs. Driver get beat up in the second to last scene) and post show questions!
Check in with me later this week for photos and an update on the continued learning process of a stage actor!