Props...

...are beginning to appear in Holiday Follies rehearsals. As a result, the dance numbers are coming together nicely. We have all the paddles for the "Twelve Days of Christmas" number (these paddles, by the way, are crucial for a bit of audience participation) and nearly all the cell phones for the cell phone number (an original song by the incomparable Steve Goers).

It's very exciting.

Especially when rehearsing original plays like Follies, it takes longer for the cast to get a "feel" for the flow of the show--that is, we have to rehearse for more time before we realize just what story it is we are telling. With a pre-existing show, like Beauty and the Beast, a quick watch of the animated movie can give you a pretty good idea of what the show will be like. But when no one has ever done the play before, the only way to get that idea in your head is to rehearse. And rehearse. And, you guessed it, rehearse.

So when costume pieces and props come into the picture, it makes everything more real, concrete. It's the difference between walking in a dark room pretending to have a flashlight and actually having a flashlight.

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As for me personally, these props are a welcome addition. I'm one of those actors who needs to physicalize my character--in other words, I commit much of my performance to muscle memory--and going through the motions of dialing a cell phone, or throwing a scarf, or signing clipboards, presents a new kind of challenge. Precision meets with gesture, actions meet with words.

So, in a weird trend that is hard to explain, as props and costumes can make things more complicated, at the same time, things get simpler, too.

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I'm on the flip side of things for another holiday show, The Fantastic Toy Shoppe, which will tour throughout December as our ArtReach traveling show. You can read about the ArtReach actors on their regular blog.

For this show, directed by Roderick Justice, I am one of the co-playwrights (along with ArtReach Artistic Director Kelly Germain) as well as the properties master. I'm in charge of making the props look the way they should, and getting them to the actors so they can rehearse and perform with good props. I also did many of the props for Anne Frank and Henny Penny, which toured earlier this fall.

Hopefully, by the end of today, I will have all of the props either pulled from the shop, or bought. Among other things on my list of things to find are an attractive set of paintbrushes and a beautifully-wrapped gift box. As someone who always has trouble wrapping even the simplest of boxes, I'm setting aside extra time to give the gift box extra attention.

Watching these ArtReach rehearsals have been a leisurely revelation for me--fun and informative. It's a great learning experience to see one's script come to life. I've already learned quite a bit about how to make each character sound different. The main lesson I'm taking away so far is that I need to work on giving each scene specific purpose and action; in other words, each character has to change in some way in every scene they are in, so that each scene is necessary to the overall story. It's easy to write dialogue between two people who are just sitting around, but audiences find that boring to watch. It's much harder to create dialogue that shows how each character feels, what they want, and how they are changing.

In children's theatre, as in all things, people are constantly changing, learning something new every day. Plays should reflect that.

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As a final note at the end of a lengthy post (sorry!), I want to encourage you once again to buy tickets to our Breakfast with Santa as well as our holiday show Holiday Follies, which opens Dec. 4. Come see us!