Table work

As co-dramaturge on Spring Awakening, I am obligated to attend the first few rehearsals to participate in table-work, where the cast gets to ask questions and begin to form collective answers. And the dramaturges play with the copier and hole punch and occasionally throw in a fact or two.

On one hand, this is my favorite part. Because it is my job to answer questions. To use research to provide creative options. To know the details of the script as well as the context to be able to pull things together instead of take them apart. I love it as a dramaturge, and I love it as a director. Especially when you throw out a nugget that really launches an actor's thought-process. Tonight that factoid was that allegedly, after 72-hours, you can be declared legally insane. And that you do start experiencing hallucinations. And the actor playing Moritz really ran with it.

On the other hand, it is alot of bullshit and grandstanding and dissecting. I'll go out on a limb and guess that Wedekind did not obsess about all of this stuff. It's like the director puts a horse in the middle of the room, shoots it, then lets everyone beat it with a stick. Given, I got in a couple of good whacks, but really, how much beating of a dead horse does one play need? We didn't even make it halfway through the script!

Then again, this was the only genuinely productive thing I did all day. I have no classes on Thursdays, so I slept in, walked to the post office to pick up a package, made pancakes and watched Grey's Anatomy with Smokin' Fairy, who would like to remind the reading audience that he is NOT gay despite the fairy moniker I have bestowed upon him. AND I live on "Street of the Week" which means that all of Papa John's is half off! I see lots of pizza in my near future!