The Benefit of Rehearsal Notes.

Rehearsal Notes Reflection

The documentation and delivery of rehearsal notes is something that I really struggled with achieving the right balance between. On the one hand I did not want to overwhelm the actors with vigorous notes straight after an intense rehearsal however, I did feel this was necessary in order for the actors to go away and think about the notes I had provided.

The rehearsal process was long and I found it important to document the whole process from its initial conception to the final few days. It is interesting looking at my original posts (see character development workshop) to see what the actors and director were doing whilst waiting on the finalisation of the script. I thought it was important to keep momentum and to not simply wait for a script to be handed to us, as it is devised we needed to create back stories to the character which is why I produced the document with my initial ideas that the actor’s could then go away and develop, I even made sure to include questions they should be able to provide answers for in our next workshop. Those who embraced this task produced an excellent character profile that you can tell really helped them with their role in A Gothic Tale. (See blogs of particular characters)

Overall if I am honest I believe the rehearsal notes worked for some of the actors, and perhaps not others.  I initially started working one on one with a few characters on any particular scenes they were having trouble with, or struggling to find their characterisation in. This also happened on rehearsal days where perhaps not all actors had arrived or were absent, one example would be the monologues of the Ex Wife and the Countess, these were especially difficult to stage and required more time and dedication from the actors and director when taking these from page to stage. The Ex Wife’s monologue for example  required intense movement and planning that obviously with a completely new script, had no stage directions. I found that when working one on one with a character in a more calm environment the actor really found their characterisation and from then on performed wonderfully in every rehearsal with clear intention throughout, this in turn spurred other actors on to do just the same.

There were a few occasions where the rehearsal would be not be as productive and i had to decide quickly how to deal with this. I then decided to post rehearsal notes on the blog with out any editing to show the amount of times people came out of character, were on their phones or just generally talking off stage and disrupting the rehearsal process (*Appendices Rehearsal Notes 17/05/2013 Studio X).

Overall the notes I have taken were for both actors and the tech team, they were a time saving technique in those rehearsals where we had run out of time and the efficiency of the tech and set design team especially was noticed when they would come to the next days rehearsal with answers to any questions I had asked. They are also there as a reminder to actors to look back over when they are feeling confused or have any questions when I am not available to answer straight away.