The Process

Caryl:
I love these rehearsals.
The third floor classrooms at First Baptist church feels like a hot yoga studio by 7 p.m. The Bacchae Chorus and production staff have all just finished long days working on other things. But in those close, muggy rooms where the summer light means we won't need the overhead fluorescents until nearly 8:30, everyone seems to get a fresh start.
Good humor is contagious. Adversity brings out the best in us. You couldn't plan the kind of bonding that came from our odyssey in the Dionybus - the night I packed 6 cast members into my Honda Insight to carpool them to rehearsal and got lost in a business park in a violent rainstorm. And then arrived at the church to find that another cast member was waiting for us at a different location. We had about half our normal work time, but what we did get done was very good and we enjoyed each other tremendously.
And that's the oil that runs the engine of a good rehearsal process. Yes, everybody needs to get memorized in a "timely and professional manner," but when the project is one that delights you, you're more likely to do that without nagging. And yes, the hours spent going over and over the lines and moves is most necessary, but they're more fruitful when you can feel each other's pleasure in interacting.
Of course, it IS a very special group. And even when we're not all there, those absent members are remembered, referred to, included. It feels like a family.
We're missing Ayeshah (in New York) and Laura (in Italy - nice) but we're also a little nostalgic for Dionysus' boots. When Anna returned from London to take her place in the center of the maenad circle, everyone realized how fondly they felt about the shoes on a chair they'd been acting with.
From my viewpoint at the end of the room, there's something consistently exquisite about these rehearsals. Laura, or Anna, or Cheris, or Ronnie will invariably have some warm-up music that takes you out of time or puts a smile on your face. We indulge ourselves occasionally with treats from the Whole Food down the block. And then there's the sheer beauty of the dancers and the dance. Laura Brandt has come up with some evocative patterns for the Bacchae and as the dancers weave in and out of their circles and do their call and response-like lines, I feel like I'm in some special timeless place.
But now that July is upon us, we must remember to bring at least one electric fan!
For pictures - see our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Bacchae/258922040961490?fref=ts