Dispatches

The Love List: … Go

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Over four weeks of rehearsing The Love List, we had a list of our own to work on.  And with each run-through, we refined and tweaked it, checking and re-checking each item.

It goes without saying – so of course I’m saying it anyway – that the dress rehearsal is one of the last, and therefore most important, steps in that process.  It’s where we take all the pieces we’ve created and collected and put them together to see how they work as a whole.  Set: check.  Props: check.  Costumes: check.  Blocking: check.  Lines memorized: check.  Sound and light: check.  MaMaLu Olivo as our stage manager: check.  It’s our best chance to see how the show will play before we bring the audience into the theater. Continue reading →

The Love List: Ready Set…

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As I write this, we’re nine days from opening night for The Love List.  And in our third week of rehearsals, the play continues to take shape, each run-through bringing us closer to that one moment we’re all striving for. Continue reading →

I’m On The List

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Working on last year’s Renaissance Guild/PDP co-production of Rumors was really an incredible experience, as you likely remember from my Rumors Control series.  I’d learned so much, gained some great new friends, and was pretty sad to see it all end.

But now I get to go through it all over again. Continue reading →

So These Kids Walk Into A Comedy Club…

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One of the great things about Stone Oak Youth Theatre is its commitment, the commitment of everyone who works there, to introduce their students to the full arts experience.  Just visit that website and you’ll find programs for drama, programs for musical theatre, programs for improv, programs for film acting (which will start up again tomorrow), programs all about the art, craft, and business of show.

This spring, SOYT added stand-up comedy to the list, with a class called Punchline.  The class was designed to teach kids the ins and outs of being comedians.; it was a great idea for SOYT, and a great opportunity for the kids. Continue reading →

A Fool And His Honey, or: On The Hazards Of Sitting In The Front Row When One Of Your Best Friends Is The Star

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It’s likely an obvious statement I’m about to make, especially if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, but one of the things I love about my job is getting to follow, chart, even influence the evolution of a creative work.  When the film premieres, when the play opens, that’s the beginning for the audience, but for those of us on the other side of those seats, it’s just one more step in a process that never really ends.

And when you’re in on that process from the beginning, you know that from conception to reception, the slightest change can make all the difference.  Which brings us to the Cameo Theatre.

Continue reading →

Three Yellow Roses, Day 2: Shop Talk

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Given the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nature of production schedules, it’s pretty standard for effect to precede cause when you’re putting a story on film.  The cast, crew, and locations you need for Scene 3 might only be available before those you need for Scenes 1 and 2, so it’s often a necessity to work out of sequence.  So it’s been with Three Yellow Roses.

Having filmed a steak dinner on our first day of production, Tuesday evening brought us to Green Fields Market to film the shopping trip before said dinner, and another trip taking place some time after it.  Given that one of the themes of the film is the relationship between past, present and future, it seems fitting that our production schedule brings them together as it does. Continue reading →

Three Yellow Roses, Day 1: Slating & Plating

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In the tongue of our trade, the last set-up is known as the Martini Shot.  When we were working on La Vida de Noche, as Pete and Wes were setting up our first shot, I wondered if there was a similar name for that first set-up.

After last night, I may have to start calling it the Steak Shot.

Continue reading →

The Road To “Action”

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The slate we’ll be using on our next film is a really nice affair.  It’s a dry-erase clapboard (very like the one you’ll see to your left) that Nikki picked up at MPS Studios in Dallas as a birthday present in 2009.

And tonight we’ll be using it to call “action” on one of our projects for the first time. Continue reading →

Always A Learning Experience

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One of my earliest experiences in the PrimaDonna universe (or could I say “PrimaDonniverse”?) was a table read for a film then known as Dream Healer (which ultimately premiered as Dream Healing).  It was a great experience, and looking back, the foreshadowing of the moment was so blatant only someone like me could have missed it, as I met so many people I’d ultimately come to know as friends and colleagues.

Among those actors (as the Dream Healer herself) was a girl by the name of Gabi Walker.  I was genuinely impressed by the talent she showed at that reading, and even more impressed with her poise and character.  So it was hardly a surprise to learn that she was one of Nikki’s students.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that working with kids was an important part of my PDP experience well before the beginning of it all.  And as you’ve probably figured out from recent posts, that continues today. Continue reading →