SITI Day 22
SITI 15th anniversary reunion this weekend. Past participants were invited to come back and see Radio Macbeth on Friday and take part in the Suzuki and Viewpoints Jam on Saturday and have a big gala dinner that night.
Radio Macbeth was wonderful. I had been wanting to see a show by SITI that wasn't written for them specifically. Everything that I have seen of theirs ( House, Bobrauschenbergamerica, and Hotel Cassiopea) has all been created by them or written specifically for them. I wanted to see Midsummer and Macbeth because despite my undying love for this company everything I have seen has come off as cold and unemotional. They are virtuosic, no doubt. They are beautiful, no question. But every time I leave the show I think "Hmm, that was nice. Where should we eat?" I'm not touched. I'm made to think, a lot. And I appreciate that. But, I also want to feel. I thought it had something to do with the writing and wanted to test my theory out with the two shakespeare works.
Radio Macbeth was wonderful. It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but it came very close to fulfilling what I look for in a great show. It was virtuosic, Beautiful, Smart, and made me feel. SITI once again proved why they are the preeminent American Theatre Company. I want to see Midsummer.
The weekend was mostly taken up with rehearsal for the second composition. Saturday night at the party the company was showing a slideshow of pictures over the last 15 years and clips from all of there shows. It was amazing. It was very emotional for them and the idea of having a company around after 15 years and living and working together on such a personal level became very emotional for me as well. There was a noticeable absence though. Anne was still recovering in the hospital, and everyone was missing her presence. Ellen said that Anne kept drunk dialing her as the anesthesia wore off.
Sunday we threw away our script and started over. We present tomorrow (Monday) and after a week of accomodating each other and avoiding conflicts, we realized that we had a piece of shit that nobody wanted to do. So we started over with 18 left. We needed to come up with a story, Write that story, block that story, rehearse that story, and tech it all in 18 hours. No problem. We came up with a pretty great idea that we meshed together into a really nice composition piece. Anthony and I stayed up until 4 AM making all the sound cues for it. As we didn't have any time for memorization we decided to do voice overs and go heavy on the tech. We would be presenting these again on Thursday for an audience so we knew we had time to fix the problems and re-rehearse after monday. We ended up with 68 soundcues in a 10 minute piece.
I skipped morning classes the next morning to continue working on things ( and sleep)
Composition
Always listen to your designer, they do more shows than you
Don't just address problems, reinvest in the good.
When you go to a restaurant on the trip there you are remembering to take a left on 55th, right on 5th ave, half a block, stop before the ivy club. Your not tasting it in your mouth. Don't go after the experience, go after the work so you can have the experience
Robert Wilson has a very simple and stupid structure. He tells you what he is going to do. He does it. Then he tells you what he just did.
Every actor should be able to go onstage and perform the show. Not the entire piece, but their thread, their piece. Without anyone else. Specificity.
Overall good notes, mostly what we thought we would get in the way of memorize for thursday and clean this up, but some things that really stood out:
When using Voice over, don't disconnect it from the actors. The audience just ends up listening, like the radio, they don't have a third experience. Seeing, hearing, then what?
Put your fingers on what matters
The piece was sleepy, wake it up.
Throw the weight on the acting.
Take care of each other, Here's to a better tomorrow.
Radio Macbeth was wonderful. I had been wanting to see a show by SITI that wasn't written for them specifically. Everything that I have seen of theirs ( House, Bobrauschenbergamerica, and Hotel Cassiopea) has all been created by them or written specifically for them. I wanted to see Midsummer and Macbeth because despite my undying love for this company everything I have seen has come off as cold and unemotional. They are virtuosic, no doubt. They are beautiful, no question. But every time I leave the show I think "Hmm, that was nice. Where should we eat?" I'm not touched. I'm made to think, a lot. And I appreciate that. But, I also want to feel. I thought it had something to do with the writing and wanted to test my theory out with the two shakespeare works.
Radio Macbeth was wonderful. It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but it came very close to fulfilling what I look for in a great show. It was virtuosic, Beautiful, Smart, and made me feel. SITI once again proved why they are the preeminent American Theatre Company. I want to see Midsummer.
The weekend was mostly taken up with rehearsal for the second composition. Saturday night at the party the company was showing a slideshow of pictures over the last 15 years and clips from all of there shows. It was amazing. It was very emotional for them and the idea of having a company around after 15 years and living and working together on such a personal level became very emotional for me as well. There was a noticeable absence though. Anne was still recovering in the hospital, and everyone was missing her presence. Ellen said that Anne kept drunk dialing her as the anesthesia wore off.
Sunday we threw away our script and started over. We present tomorrow (Monday) and after a week of accomodating each other and avoiding conflicts, we realized that we had a piece of shit that nobody wanted to do. So we started over with 18 left. We needed to come up with a story, Write that story, block that story, rehearse that story, and tech it all in 18 hours. No problem. We came up with a pretty great idea that we meshed together into a really nice composition piece. Anthony and I stayed up until 4 AM making all the sound cues for it. As we didn't have any time for memorization we decided to do voice overs and go heavy on the tech. We would be presenting these again on Thursday for an audience so we knew we had time to fix the problems and re-rehearse after monday. We ended up with 68 soundcues in a 10 minute piece.
I skipped morning classes the next morning to continue working on things ( and sleep)
Composition
Always listen to your designer, they do more shows than you
Don't just address problems, reinvest in the good.
When you go to a restaurant on the trip there you are remembering to take a left on 55th, right on 5th ave, half a block, stop before the ivy club. Your not tasting it in your mouth. Don't go after the experience, go after the work so you can have the experience
Robert Wilson has a very simple and stupid structure. He tells you what he is going to do. He does it. Then he tells you what he just did.
Every actor should be able to go onstage and perform the show. Not the entire piece, but their thread, their piece. Without anyone else. Specificity.
Overall good notes, mostly what we thought we would get in the way of memorize for thursday and clean this up, but some things that really stood out:
When using Voice over, don't disconnect it from the actors. The audience just ends up listening, like the radio, they don't have a third experience. Seeing, hearing, then what?
Put your fingers on what matters
The piece was sleepy, wake it up.
Throw the weight on the acting.
Take care of each other, Here's to a better tomorrow.
posted by The Necessary Theatre at 1:46 PM
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