Week 2 DAY 7 MAY 31st

Ok, so that first post was a doozy and now I'd like to post on a day to day basis, covering in detail what went on in rehearsal.
We hit the ground running this morning, it was awesome. I picked up some large newsprint before arriving at Meg's, we had a cup of coffee then got right to work.
We spent an hour or so going through our masks. This warm up is incredibly effective to get into the mindset of not only our characters, but also the world they live in. It's funny, I don't discover something new with each mask (even though I really want to) but I definitely find new emotional connections, character connections and plot ideas every time I put them on. It also allows your impulses to start flying and be heard. This is invaluable once we sat down to start working things out. What are your thoughts Meggie?

Once we both took enough time with our masks, we rolled out the newsprint and began plotting out the plot of the story. Meg was really good at pulling out the key points of action. We knew where we were starting, and we knew where we wanted to end up, but there was still a ton of grey in the middle. So we began to discuss ideas we had had the week before and slowly by process of trial and error began to discuss what was working and what wasn't. Which characters made sense and which did not.

For example, we had a neighbour whom we named Blow Job Betty that comes by to ask for a cup of sugar. Although we both liked the idea of her, we were in agreement that there was something a little too obvious, a little too trashy. Neither of us want this to come across as a judgement on people who actually live in the real world that our surreal world is based on. We don't want to slum it, we want to get to the heart of the lives of Phyllis and LeSucre and all the people who surround them. Long story short, we scrapped her, and replaced her with ShyBlush, a character we were previously having trouble fitting into the arc of the play. Exciting!

We somehow managed to work through the entire outline of the play, solving almost all of the problems we came across last week. It is amazing what a little space and rest can do! So looking at our plot map, we each picked an area that really spoke to us to write about.

This is where a big challenge presents itself to me: I am really good on my feet, but do not have much experience writing things down. So I did what I could, and as soon as I became stuck, I did another God poem. It is amazing- they take a lot of time and energy, and by the end of my poem there was only one image that I really liked. But I think that image will help my scene immensely. Not only by helping me move it forward, but by adding some weird richness that was missing before. John talked last summer about how with your masks and with God poems you never have an excuse for writers block. I really believe he is right.