It Begins (Bug)

2011-08-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

I found myself tossing and turning in bed this morning, only to look at the clock beside the bed and realize it was 5:30 in the morning. Thoughts of tin foil, schizophrenia, practical lighting vs. traditional lighting and more interrupted my ability to fall back asleep and worse, invaded and overthrew any other thought occupying my headspace.

Probably sounds weird. It isn't. It means it's time to start working. Like clockwork, my brain and body indicate when it's time to start working on the next play. Even if I attempt to control my own work and set my own schedule or establish my own creative process, my mind will drift. I'll think about the last good movie I saw, stare at the book I swore I would read and am only 11 pages into, consider trades I should make in my NHL 11 Xbox league, etc. I don't get to decide when I work, my brain and body simply announce that it's time and my creative brain sets up shop and won't leave until the show opens. It's demanding and exhausting, but I'm thrilled every time it rolls around.

With 'Bug', it's a little earlier than usual. I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that I've had more time away from the stage than at any other point in the past 7 or 8 years or if this force or drive is aware that more time is necessary to properly and effectively wrap my brain around what is sure to be one of the most challenging productions we have ever produced and I have ever directed.

I rolled out of bed this morning around 5:45, came downstairs, put on the coffee pot and tweaked the production poster before pouring myself a cup of joe and heading into the living room where I sat in front of the computer to hammer out the rehearsal schedule.

It's a bizarre thing - but my process doesn't begin with research, it doesn't begin with re-reading the play for the fourth or fifth time or even visualizing the environment, it begins with the rehearsal schedule. Not having considered the demand or weight of certain scenes or moments, the schedule is pretty arbitrary in nature, but it gives me a strange sense of structure. Creating the schedule relies on trusting my gut to guide the rehearsal process - as if, having read the play (even weeks before in some cases) was enough to inform how and when we will rehearse. I've rarely, if ever, made a change to the schedule following this initial sit down. And am always amazed at not only how different one schedule is from the next, but how effective it has always been.

By about 7:30 I had stared at the schedule long enough (another bizarre practice - I just stare at the screen until the schedule sinks into my bones) and went to grab my second cup of coffee before sitting down and reading about the play.

I like to scan as many past reviews as I can - to try and get a sense of how the play affected other people, consider what nuances were more prevalent in certain productions and why. Try and figure out why some productions seemed to succeed where others failed (sometimes the answer in a critics indigestion - not a metaphor - if I had to take shit while sitting through a play and knowing my getting up would create a stir, so I had to sit tight until intermission or god forbid, the entire play, I'd probably be a bitch about it too) and simply get a sense of the arc. Good journalists, or at least journalists worth their salt, can effectively communicate the arc of the play in two or three sentences. I look for consistency in these three sentences between articles to make sure that my path doesn't stray too far from the trail blazed before it and risk misguiding the audience and distorting the playwright's intentions. I really don't need itt, but insecurity can be overwhelming and it's a habit.

Then I scan interviews with the playwright and get a sense of what they MOST wanted to communicate. Part of my job, as I see it, is to do justice to that. Some will say that it a director's ONLY purpose, but the needs of the audience and their ability to gain access to the play are my top priority and sometimes (rarely) that doesn't align with the playwrights intentions. Usually, playwrights are pretty consistent and will talk about the same main points in each interview and you can easily get a sense of what they want to get across. Sometimes the answers I find are surprising and force my to re-consider my initial impressions, sometimes the answers are surprising and full of wasted potential in which case my initial impressions are used to elevate the piece, but most of the time they are, again, a confirmation of the direction the work was already headed. Unlike developing a play from scratch with the playwright in the room throughout rehearsals, this is as close as I can get to re-creating that process/experience.

Then I gather information from less formal sources. I read Amazon reviews, blogs, message boards - gathering information from people who have no investment in the piece. Some of the most fascinating information comes from this process (though you need a hell of a filter, because the contradictions are endless).

Third cup of coffee...

No computer this time. Just thinking. Tangents mostly. I think about a simple concept or idea or detail and it will veer into territory that will take me far from the play. I fight my way back into the play, sometimes successfully, other times it is met with futility. It's these thoughts that will wake me up early for the next few weeks and pair me with a pot of coffee, some pens and pencils, scrap paper, a notebook, a script and get me attacking the play scene by scene in anticipation of introducing the world of the play to the actors and designers and beginning the hard/fun work.

Until the next time...

Matt
Director/Set Design
BUG

Imagination. Inspiration. Innovation. Ignition.

It Begins (Bug)