We received the nearly final final draft of the script today, and we so we spent a chunk of this evening’s scheduled rehearsal scrambling to assign people to some of the new bit parts that have been created. Scenes have been sliced and diced and rearranged, to the good, I think. In one of my sections, in particular, the point that my speaker is making is much stronger, more sharply focused. Of course we already miss some of the little moments and characters from the earlier draft that we’ve become attached to.
It’s challenging—our production will be lightly staged (midway between the full productions and the readings from music stands that we’re hearing about), with our cast of fourteen seated in two rows of chairs when at neutral position, standing and coming forward to play the moments—to adapt to the rearranged script. We have only three more meetings scheduled between now and the 12th, and that’s probably the only date when all fourteen of us are in the same room together. But what an opportunity to be part of the evolutionary development of this text, to try to ride this bronco of a script.
A small online community of participants in the project has also sprung up.