Getting Situated

I’m here on the campus of Sweet Briar College (in Sweet Briar, Virginia) where I will be for close to three months serving as an Acting Intern with Endstation Theatre Company!  I arrived yesterday afternoon and moved my (many) things into my host family’s house where I will stay for one week before I move into a dorm room.  After moving in, I got acquainted with the few people with the company who are already here for the summer, hung out, and went out to dinner. 

 The married couple that has graciously offered up their home for three of us with the company are both Creative Writing and English professors at Sweet Briar.  They are extremely welcoming and kind to us.  Their house looks exactly the way you might imagine a Creative Writing and English professors’ house to look like.  It’s in the middle of the woods, surrounded by huge oak trees and lovely gardens and open fields.  The house itself is very cozy and cute with a winding layout; the rooms are jumbled together like a maze.  Everything is very colorful with patterned designs, and books, art, and trinkets everywhere!  Somehow I really feel like I’m in a novel!  To make things even better, they have a happy, kleptomaniac Pug named James Brown. 

After a restful night’s sleep last night (being lulled to sleep by the soft patter of rain outside my window), I got up for my first rehearsal of The Comedy of Errors.  I met all the other actors, the stage manager, dramaturg, and my alumni-host Geoffrey Kershner, the artistic director of Endstation Theatre Company and director of both of the Shakespeare shows I’m in this summer.  Before we began, we watched a video of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2009 production of The Comedy of Errors.  It was a laugh!  They used interesting conventions throughout the play, which is why Geoff wanted us to watch it.  That, and their version was also a play within a play, where the actors are seen clearly as actors in addition to whatever character they are playing.  Geoff really wants to stick to the idea of having the audience see the artifice of us “putting on a show,” and for our version, we are going to be a troupe of turn-of-the-century Appalachian players who pull up in a wagon to perform the show. 

After talking a little about the RSC’s version, we had a read-through of the play.  My character is being added into the show, and is for the most part (if not completely) silent, so I mostly listened and watched the other actors.  Geoff is very open to ideas and suggestions, and is supportive of a collaborative rehearsal process, which makes this experience even more exciting.  The read-through was absolutely hysterical. 

We then took a field trip to see the outdoor location where we will be putting up the production.  The spot that we’ve chosen is adjacent to the President’s house, is lined with small trees and large shrubs, and has plenty of shade offered by some larger trees.  It looks like a cool space, and we are planning on integrating it into the show.  After this little expedition, we began table work.  We discussed and brainstormed some conventions that we are imagining for our version (such as adding music into certain sections, and using hats to distinguish what actor is playing what character), and also some dialect choices for our characters.  We’re using guitar, banjo, mandolin, and percussive instruments for our music.  It was very cool seeing the work that everyone has already made on their characters and everyone’s interpretations coming together.  And we all experienced an epiphany that, for some reason, Shakespeare makes more sense when done in a "hill country" dialect!


All in all, it was an excellent first day, and I’m super excited to work with these talented actors!  
More to come later this week!