Bovary Tech and Invited Dress

Monday night was tech for Madame Bovary. About 20 minutes into my 2 hour session our master director/playwright, Nagle Jackson, gave me the thumbs up and left. I was a bit concerned at the time, shouldn't he be here incase I mess something up?
The rest of tech went fine. We got a great lighting designer, Sarah Riffle, who really took care of all three pieces. After a long evening, we were ready for our invited dress last night.
Still wondering about Nagle's absence I was pleased as punch to receive a lovely email from him tuesday morning. I wanted to share the opening:

Katherine: I was so impressed with your work last evening; I left because I could see everything was in excellent hands. I admire your artistry coupled with a real professinal discipline. Listening to your conversation with Sara concerning lights I was delighted to hear you ask for "less is more', but was also pleased that you decided to use the window gobo which is very effective for Emma's monologue.
So pleased with the way you've orchestrated the Fair scene; brava! I like the way you choreograph when necessary....
All in all, a most impressive job. Congratulations. - Nagle

An encouraging email during this week of feedback.

Tuesday night was our invited dress both Roger Danforth and Joey Guastella were in attendance. While I was worrying about the details of the big picture it was encouraging that both Roger and Joey were following the story. Joey wrote to me last night with his thoughts, my personal favorite was the following:

Having the men stand about in the background is a good device-- I liked it a lot. To me, it signified how the men in Bovary's life just come and go. And what was also quite interesting, was that even though the men remained present the entire time, I had absolutely no trouble accepting this piece as Bovary's play. She remained a central character throughout, without any distractions.

Yeah! It worked! When I first conceived this adaptation the men as a constant presence on stage was extremely important to me. I cannot say how thrilled I am that it was received that way by an audience member.

For my part-the pacing was a bit slow and the cast, as a whole, were a bit off. That being said, I'll give them their notes via email today, and some encouraging words before the performance today and then let them go. I think tonight is going to be fabulous-a packed house of reservations and some of my favorite people in attendance.

Performances are Tonight and Tomorrow at 7pm at The Directors Company-311 West 43rd Street, Fourth Floor

Bovary Opens in 2 Days

Monday night is the final rehearsal and tech for Madame Bovary, We have two hours of tech and two hours of rehearsal. Tuesday night is the invited dress rehearsal. To remind you all the shows are Wednesday and Thursday at 7pm. If you would like tickets email DirectorsCompany@gmail.com

Bovary and the weekend

About to head into Madame Bovary rehearsal when I get the call that my leading man is ill today. Oy! I need him to be better before Monday night. I only have 2 or 3 more full cast rehearsals before we open on the 25th. Le sigh.

In other news, I had a lovely brunch with Anna this morning. Always a delight to start the day with my best friend. Later tonight I'm meeting with playwright David Rigano about a new group of short plays he is writing. After that its dinner with Alex Krasser, a good friend and actor. We've been trying to get together for months. Ah well, better to be busy than not.
Finally I will be seeing Restoration tonight at NYTW with Nick for The Drama League. Our alumni, Chris Ashley, directed it. I'm looking forward to some good work.

Sunday is a day of fun (either sailing or wine tasting) toped of with a show at The Women's Project and catching up with another playwright Monet Hurst-Mendoza. She is on fire right now-seriously, get to know her name.

It's hard to believe I only have 3 more weeks in NYC.

Madame Bovary and Stagedoor Manor

My adaptation of Madame Bovary opens in a little over a week.
Talk about nerve racking. I am no playwright, by any means, but I believe its going to be okay.
We have been getting good feedback from the other two adaptations in this workshop. I have to say I am excited to see what my colleges have to say about it. It's always good to get feedback about your work.
The adaptation workshop has an invited dress rehearsal on May 24th (Tuesday) and performances on Wednesday the 25th and Thursday the 26th both at 7pm. The performance is free.
If you are interested in reserving tickets please email directorscompany@gmail.com

In other exciting news, I was offered a directing slot at Stagedoor Manor from August 1-24th. While this means I am away from NYC a little longer I am thrilled to be spending a month there.

For those of you keeping track my summer looks like this:

June: Fly to MI in the first week, Directors Lab Chicago the second and third week, fourth week with my brother Andy in PA celebrating hi graduation from high school

July: two weeks vacation in MI to see family, two and a half weeks in Danville, KY at Pioneer Playhouse directing For Better

August: Directing at Stagedoor for three weeks and then back to NYC

September: Directors Lab Chicago from Sept 1-13th, and back to NYC on Sept 13th

I am looking forward to each of these amazing opportunities, and am grateful that The Drama League is very supportive of my work.

My plan is to update this blog much more this summer, hopefully once a week.

Directors Lab Chicago

Good news!
I've been accepted into the 2010 Directors Lab Chicago! It will take place from June 14-20 in downtown Chicago.
I am extremely excited and honored to be one of the 20 selected this year.

Mme Bovary is going well. Casting should be finished sometime in the next 48 hours and I have all afternoon on Friday and all day Sunday to write the script we will start work with on Tuesday.

Now to enjoy the beautiful weather!

Writing Mme. Bovary

Writing an adaptation is harder than anticipated, and I haven't even gotten to the hard part.
I'm working on finding the best place I can work where I have just enough distraction without excuses, so far no luck.
I have written two pages of one of the scenes. Now this is a good start but I still have another ten minutes to write before the end of the week, oy! With four scenes in total it's going to get interesting very soon.

Well, here is to hoping I finish one of the scenes tonight.

In other news I met with two of my favorite collaborators this weekend-Monet (a playwright) and Jill (a sound designer) while both were on separate unrelated occasions both were a delight. Monet had some interesting things to say about American Idiot. Since I am seeing it tomorrow night I look forward to speaking with her further. Jill is always fun.

I saw Anyone Can Whistle on Thursday last. Great music, awful book. Interesting combo.

April Showers...

Well so far two of my applications have been accepted-still waiting to hear back from a few, but that's another story.

Madame Bovary Adaptation
-I am one of three directors selected to take part in an adaptation workshop happening at The Directors Company from now through the end of May. We have a master class once a week with Nagle Jackson to present work and discuss as well as 12 hours of rehearsal time a week to work and build our adaptation. We only work on a 25 minute section of our over all piece but with that 25 minutes I will be able to build it into a full length. Casting is next week and I need to have at least one scene done before the 18th of April. I am so thrilled to have this opportunity

Directors Lab West
This takes place over seven days in Pasadena, CA. It's run by master directors who give lectures, lead discussions, workshops, etc. It's a great place for collaboration, meeting people, and getting to know the CA theater scene, something I know nothing about. This years lab takes place in August.

Two exciting bits of news this week! Im still waiting on Women's Project, Fringe, Playwrights, and Williamstown.