Post-Mortem

The Odd Couple is over. Closing night is done, the costumes have been turned back in, and the props (and garbage) have been put away.  The theater will again be dark.  It's the time that I spend looking back at the whole experience and see what I can learn.

First the bad: the director. I'm not going to mention her by name. The point of this isn't to humiliate her. It's simply to vent and get it over with.

I haven't ever worked with a less professional director. She very rarely showed up on time for rehearsals. It's a serious pet peeve of mine. When rehearsal is scheduled for a certain time, it shows a fundamental lack of respect when you show up late, especially when you're the person in charge. When she finally DID show up for rehearsal, we would spend the first 20 minutes to half hour "checking in," which basically meant that we would all answer some question that she would come up with, like "How did you get started in theatre," or "Tell us something good that's happening in your life right now. I'm all for getting to know fellow cast members, but that might be more bearable if it started when rehearsal was supposed to start. After a while, cast members started showing up later and later, because they knew that the director wasn't going to show up on time anyway.

The director spent lots and lots of time rehearsing with the Pigeon sisters and the poker players, but seemed to neglect Oscar and Felix. You know... the two people that made up the odd couple, the FOCUS OF THE FREAKING SHOW. Felix and Oscar got very little direction... little more than blocking. I'm used to getting MUCH more than that. I'm used to getting the kind of direction that the pigeon sisters were getting.

But worst of all, she seemed to take a disinterest in what was going on during rehearsals at time. When I looked out at her during the rehearsal and saw her talking on her cellular phone, playing with her computer, or doing sudoku puzzles (no, I am NOT making this up), it made me more than a little angry.

So when dress rehearsal came, we were definately NOT ready. We would have had the equivalent of another week of rehearsal if we would have actually started rehearsals on time. We would have been able to work much more on things other than where we belonged on stage if we would have actually started rehearsals on time. It would have been nice to get something more from a director.

Maybe I've been spoiled. Maybe the directors I've worked with have been the best of the best. But I KNOW my time could have been put to much MUCH better use. The audiences early-on that PAID to see the performances would have had a lot more fun. They would have had better shows to see.

The only other thing that was severely annoying was an actor that took thing more and more and more over the top every performance. I feared for Felix' safety on closing night. But that's why I hate closing nights. It seems that some people are predisposed to doing something out of the ordinary, just because it's closing night. But that was pretty minor compared to the level of unprofessionalism showed us by the director.

Of course, all through the run of the play, the director came to our cast meeting before each show and gave us notes on the previous performance. That's all well and good, but I'm used to a director letting the cast "own" the show after the rehearsal process is done. And to be fair, lots of the notes were really good, but I believe that these notes would have been given much MUCH earlier in the process IF WE WOULD HAVE STARTED OUR FREAKING REHEARSALS ON TIME! Did I mention that this is one of my pet peeves?

Now for the good.

Dennis Purdie, who played Felix in this production is a very fine character actor. It was a pleasure to spend so much time on stage with him every night. It was great to work extra time with him, trying to polish the scenes we had together. It was fun to feel his enthusiasm for his role, to feel his love for theatre and for the person whose memory we were honoring with this production. I consider Dennis to be a friend and I'm glad to know him.

The production team other than the director was WONDERFUL to work with. Two of them were in the play and the other was the production assistant who spent a lot of her time and energy making sure that the props (especially the food) was ready for each performance. One of them was able to calm me down on a couple of occaisions when I was more-than-normally angry at the unprofessionalism of the director.

The others in the cast were, for the most part, wonderful to work with. I had worked with some of them before, and it's always fun to strengthen old friendships. It's always fun to have more common experience that builds on the friendships that we have. A couple of people in the cast I met for the first time at auditions or at the first readthrough. I love getting to know new people. I'm SUCH a people person.

The performances were a blast! I love hearing people laugh. I love hearing people that have been able to forget their worries and cares and laugh at the story unfolding in front of them. I especially love it when people I know are in the audience. When I recognize the laugh of someone I care about, it means even more to me. It brings joy to me to now that I'm entertaining others.

I'm glad I did this show. it was a fun experience. It was a learning experience. It was difficult at times, even frustrating and maddening. But in the end, I think it was a good show and people were thoroughly entertained.

Now, on to bigger and better things. No Time For Sergeants at the Hale Center Theater in Orem has had a much better start. The directors are EXTREMELY prepared and are incredible at using time wisely, scheduling rehearsal time efficiently, and giving notes that help us develop the characters (yes, most of us are playing multiple characters) that will make the show a success. It's COMPLETELY different from the things that frustrated me with The Odd Couple. It's exactly the experience I NEEDED at this point.