It has been two weeks since I last wrote. In these two weeks it has just been incredible to see the show progress from actors buried in scripts mumbling around the stage with their bodies to a hilarious, moving, (relatively) smooth-flowing story on stage. It all has come out of these alum's hard work, dedication, and talent - and I guess the theater process too. We have the acting almost ready to show to the public, and that is amazing one whole week before opening!
It is always so refreshing to see how it is possible to coax a story and such humanity from a group of actors in an unadorned rehearsal room. They come in with their cell phones, flip-flops, and jeans chatting, joking, eating food from the Co-Op. As rehearsal begins they all transform into pitiful plague victims, arrogant aristocrats, conniving clergy and riotous Red Noses! As we work through scenes I look around and notice Kario Periera Bailey practicing his recorder (a skillhe is learning for the show), Nick Bombicino juggling against the backstage wall (one of three new skills he has had to acquire for this show), and Noah Smith listening to the music in his head and jotting notes furiously on his compositions. Moments like this I get all warm and fuzzy feeling inside. The passion that each NEYT actor has for each production they are in is so evidently strong in these rehearsals.
It's that passion that connects us to the material of this particular play. Red Noses is about revolutionaries, extraordiarily passionate about their missions. They are passionately fighting to overcome the misery of life during the black plague, the preceeding famine, the corruption in the center of their spiritual world, and the inhumanity of an unreasonable class system.
