Wow, where did the time go?
We opened to a very happy audience on My 17th and wrapped our final production of The 39 Steps on June 2. Between the NAB trip, generally trying to get the show up, and a lot of work for TPC, I've just been up to my eyeballs in it since my last post. As it is, I didn't have time to even put these thoughts down until a week after we closed while relaxing in a hotel room just outside Amsterdam (work thing - don't ask), at which point I realized I had taken all the pictures off the computer since the show had wrapped....So now that I've finally had a moment to breathe, lets look back over the last few weeks/months/whatever: Short post this week, though I could write a lot about what we've gone over and worked through, some of that would spoil the show, and we wouldn't want to do that. So anyway, we're now two weeks into our rehearsal process. So far we've just been working through the script via table reads. Its a longer set of table reads than I normally would do, but with 40+ characters played by only 4 actors, I wanted to really take the time to focus on finding the voices of all these characters. And at this point we're pretty close to being "there" and its been a fun ride so far.
So last week we held auditions for The 39 Steps at CCCT and this week we jumped right in and began rehearsing. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you probably missed my first "production blog" entry - check it out here.)
Auditions - especially for a volunteer project at a community theatre - are always exciting to me for a variety of reasons: For starters, because its a volunteer project there's always this slight, little fear that no one will actually show up. Right up until I was looking at all the talented actors that came to audition, I had that little voice in the back of my mind: What do you do if no one comes? What if you end up being forced to cast someone who can't handle it because you didn't get enough people? What if no one shows up at all? So this has been a busy week, not that that's a bad thing necessarily, but sometimes you have so much going on its hard to decide what to focus on and this past week has definitely been one of those:
So before we even get into the work week, last weekend Aeryn and I took a semi-last minute day trip up to San Antonio (a 4ish hour drive away from Houston for those who don't know Texas) and by the time you account for the drive, it was a little exhausting, and I slept most of Sunday, but we had fun. We spent the evening on the riverwalk and had dinner before driving back - and while we were waiting for our table, I took the opportunity to play with my iPhone in the low light of the riverwalk at night: If you read this blog regularly, you probably already know that my next significant project is that I’ve volunteered to direct The 39 Steps at Clear Creek Community Theatre. With my auditions coming up in the next week or so, I’m really starting to get ready for this show. Its a fantastic blend of cinema and theatre and I can't wait to dive in.
Something I've wanted to play with for a while now is writing a behind the scenes "Production Blog" as I work through a project. So what better place to play with that than my own blog? I'm going to try to get back into posting regularly again in general, and while most of my new posts will be BTS on 39 Steps, I will still write about other smaller projects as I work through them, and other film/TV related things. (If nothing else I'll have a pile to write about from NAB when I go in just under a month!) Even though I haven't even held auditions yet, I'm really excited to be working on a project of this scale again. The last project I directed was the short film Behind the Door for Houston's 48 Hour Film Project in summer 2017, and the last stage show I directed was No Sex Please, We're British also at CCCT in spring 2016, (which I did while still working on the last season of Stop The Threat!). But anyway back to this... |
AuthorThomas Meek is an independent filmmaker living and working in Houston, TX Archives
March 2021
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