Wake Me Up!
I felt good when I arrived at the theater before the matinee today and went through my usual warm up:
1 hour--prep water/gatorade for the show, get humidifier and shower going (to steam the room). Clean up dressing room from previous show.
45 minutes--start physical warm up (warm up my legs with squatting and lunging, plyometrics; warm up my whole body with jumping jacks/push ups; then do some light yoga for breathing and stretching; roll out on a foam roller.)
Half-hour--start make-up/hair and depending on how voice feels, light humming.
5 minutes--read through a passage of Romeo and Giulietta in Italian and do short vocal warm up.
By the places call I'm still warming up my voice (I have about 3 minutes extra before my entrance) and then we're off!
Only today I got out on stage and just had nothing. After a great warm up I got out on stage and felt like I had heavy legs, heavy eyes, and difficulty keeping my energy up. Because Fabrizio is such a physical role, I was not looking forward the next 2 1/2 hours.
Instead of faking it or pushing an energy I didn't have, I took the opportunity to try and find new things in the show. I figured it was a matinee audience and maybe they'd be a bit sleepy as well? :) But despite my efforts to just let things be, I kept having to push through my body's feeling of being asleep. It was such a struggle. I whined backstage the show about how tired I was and yada yada yada.
In the second act, things brightened a bit. And by the end of the play I felt more myself.
Ultimately I realized that without my energy Fabrizio just isn't the same and the story isn't nearly as strong. Romeo and Juliet can't possibly grab our interest if Romeo is a zombie when the two lovers first meet.
By the time I got back to my dressing room I just wanted to put this show behind me and gear up for show number 2. Of course as I'm leaving to grab some dinner, I see Rob Marshall in the hallway who introduces himself. You never know who's coming to the show and when right?!
So I did exactly what I just wrote about not doing and I beat myself up and felt it difficult to accept Rob's compliments. But you know what, with 8 shows a week, they ain't all gonna be perfect. I'm proud I got through it and went on to have a better show at night.
6 Comments:
Aaron,
Once again, thank you for taking the time to share your experiences and insights . . . and great advice. For a beginner, like me, one danger is to imagine that professional actors live in this perfect world, 'gods' inhabiting a world unattainable to mere mortals. Your writings, interestingly, make it seem like what you do is potentially doable, subject to the range of my talents and gifts. I may never be as successful as you, but your writings somehow inspire me to use fully what I've been given . . . and to always push to grow & learn & stretch beyond what I think is possible, which I'm beginning to think is what I'm really here (in life) to do. Thanks again Aaron.
- C
Aaron,
I saw you during the night show, and no worries. You were fabulous :o) I can't wait to see and hear more of you in the future!
-Sara
I know that you told us last time to stop beating ourselves up about our imperfections, and then, i read this entry, and, basically...all i want to say is thank you for caring so much about what you do. It means a lot to me as a theater goer when an actor is so passionate about what they do, as you obviously are. (especially when it begins to inhabit their everyday thoughts!) Thanks!
Wow!!nice blog and websites. I found my way here thru an actorsjourney. Good luck in the future.
Wow, the past two entries were really fabulous, because first came your valuable advice, and then there it was being tested! It doesn't get much more real than that.
The inner critic is such a problem for actors who are also overachievers (and I think so many of us are...), and it causes us so much grief. It sounds like Piazza is helping you slowly begin to conquer your inner critic, which is fabulous. I think I'm getting better, too, thanks to Vicki, who once told me at a voice lesson that a baseball player doesn't hit a home run every single time, and we shouldn't expect to either. When I start to beat myself up, I try and remember that, and it helps 90% of the time...and I think I'll take that rather than seethe over what I did wrong or could have done better.
I haven't seen the show in a couple of months, but when I saw you in November, I could see you'd come a very long way, and since I was so enamored with your performance when I first saw you at the beginning of your run, that's saying something! You're on a fabulous journey, and it's amazing to read about what you've learned.
I was at that 2pm show on January 7th and thought it was fabulous...matinee audiences are often full of "blue hairs" (my family's endearing term for senior citizens), so I can imagine they are hard to get through with a low energy level feeding off of you. But I was there with my family (including my Gram, who LOVED it) and we thought you and the rest of the cast were terrific! Sorry if we were kind of a crappy audience. :) As a musical theater performer myself, I was stunned with what I saw up there from you all. That's probably why I, for one, was a little quiet.
I recently purchased the cast album in hopes of learning Clara's solos and can't wait to see it again. Magnifico!
-Aly
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