NOTE: For the next two months, I will be working as an assistant director for a play with an all-male cast at an off-off-Broadway theater for part of the week, and working as a server at a French restaurant with an all-female wait staff the rest of the week. Hilarity and drama may very well ensue, so just in case, I’ll be documenting my experiences in this series of posts. Details on the production – The Changing Room, directed by Terry Schreiber at the T Schreiber Studio in New York City – are here. The names of the restaurant and my coworkers are withheld for privacy.
Okay, so we’ve already been in rehearsals for two weeks now, and I had meant to post something before we’d even started, but hey, the best-laid plans of mice and… women?…
I had intended for this fantastical first post which never happened – my unicorn first post – to be a “predictions” post of sorts: a kind of listing of things which I and others believed I would discover during this whole experience. I went around in the weeks prior to rehearsals telling all the people in my life about my exciting new project, and I solicited their predictions, if they had any. I even took notes! But then the new year came, rehearsals started, and this whole working-six-days-a-week-plus-going-to-the-gym thing was really kicking my ass… and I am also, in case you didn’t know, a world-class procrastinator. So that sad little unicorn first post just sat there on my laptop, neglected and unpublished.
But hey, better late than never, right? And since we’re only two weeks in, it’s still early enough in the process that listing predictions may not be entirely ridiculous; so here are, in no particular order, my (and others’) predictions about my new adventure in directing and blogging:
- No one will read this blog. HA! Well, you just disproved that one, didn’t you?
- No one will CARE about this blog. Hrm. Harder to disprove, but I suppose if you’ve read this far past #1, then perhaps you care just a tiny bit…
- There will be more drama at the restaurant than at the theater. I’m not entirely sure about this one. Yeah, serving can be kind of a shitty job, causing undue stress among the people who have to do it together, and whenever you put a bunch of young women in their 20s and 30s together in a stressful environment, you’re bound to have some drama. But let’s not forget that: a) the men of The Changing Room cast are all ACTORS, and let’s face it, whether they’re gay or straight, actors tend to be a little more self-involved and prone to drama than other men; and b) there is FULL nudity in this show, and some of the actors, although they all know what they’ve signed on for, are bound to be self-conscious and nervous about it, thus potentially creating some drama. We shall see…
- As is the case with women who work together, the men in the show will all get on the same hormone cycle. This one seems specious, but I’ve heard from a number of people that men have a monthly “cycle” just like women do (after a cursory Google search, I can’t find any hard evidence for it, but if anyone would like to take a crack at some more in-depth research, please let me know what you find in the comments). But it’s certainly true that women working or living closely together will tend to get on the same cycle: those of us girls at the restaurant whose cycles are not regulated by medication or other factors have definitely all “synced” up. There is a certain week each month when passions seem to flare in that place, and it’s usually just a good idea to keep your head down and keep your purse stocked with plenty of chocolate until the week is over. Whether the men will end up the same way, well, should be interesting…
- The men will be better at working together than the women. I suppose this is sort of a corollary to #3, really, but this gets into some stereotypes about men and women which I have always wondered about. Yes, girls can be pretty mean to each other sometimes, but we do have some examples of women working well together as a team. And there are certainly plenty of examples of guys working together as teams and committees and such like – I mean, they kind of ran the world for most of recorded history, and to a certain extent they still do. But they also had wars and such, so… It’ll be intriguing to see who gets along better with each other, the boys or the girls…
- I will hate and/or be bad at directing. Entirely possible. This is my first time doing anything like directing since I took a course in college. I have a mouthy, bossy streak, and it’s something I don’t like about myself; so that’s always kept me from pursuing directing. I never wanted to be “that bitch” Olivia who’s always telling people what to do; I’d rather just keep to myself and do a job that doesn’t require me to have any authority over or responsibility for others, so as not to cause any problems. But I have strong opinions, especially about theater and acting, and inevitably my big mouth gets me in trouble. Lately though, it’s seemed to me that perhaps there might be a way for me to pursue directing without letting my stupid mouth get in the way, so I’ve decided to give it a try again by taking this assistant directing assignment. So far though, I have HATED casting, which is a pretty important part of directing: mostly because, for this particular show, there were so many actors who auditioned that I loved, but who didn’t end up getting cast! It broke my heart. As for the actual directing part, it’s hard to say: it’s still early, and assistant-directing is very different from directing-directing. More on that later…
- I will learn a lot. Very likely. Terry Schreiber is a great director, and I have already learned so much from him as an acting teacher, so there’s probably a lot more to glean from watching him work in rehearsals. Again, more on this later…
- I will become distracted by the nudity and develop inappropriate crushes on the cast. I thought this might be a problem for me, because I am single and do tend to fall in love with people I work with (though that hasn’t been a problem with the girls at the restaurant, since I was straight last time I checked – but you never know: I mean, did you see Black Swan?). But it’s strange: so far, although we have an incredibly good-looking cast and some of them are indeed single (and TOTALLY work out!), I’m finding that seeing these guys fully naked during rehearsals is actually a bit of a turn-off. Now I am not one of those girls who thinks male genitalia is gross or icky – yes, penises are beautiful, thank you very much. But there’s something about seeing a guy when he’s unintentionally at his most open and vulnerable – perhaps craning his head to hear a joke that one of his teammates just made, in the middle of getting his jockstrap on, completely unaware that the way he’s just bent himself around has completely exposed the family jewels to the audience – that makes it almost a sacred experience; and in that context, it’s almost impossible to think of these guys in a sexual way.
That’s plenty for now, I think. I’ll probably be back next week with a second post, most likely about some of the parallels that I’m finding between the team of girls at the restaurant and our team of boys at the theater. But if I’m going to get that done by next week, I’ll have to start procrastinating now! So much loafing to do, so little time…
Greetings from sunny California, where Santa (wearing huaraches and board shorts) has come and gone, which means it’s time for new year’s resolutions! This year, I’ve decided to be more me: I’m going to let my authentic self shine through more in my career, craft, and personal life. That’s why I’m calling it “2012: The Olivia-en-ing!” (it’s even got its own theme song) – what’s your theme for 2012?
