October 26, 1991
Oh, it's bad. My goodness, what have I walked into?
The third rehearsal for me was today from (supposedly) 1-3. I was told about it last night at 10 p.m. Am I wrong to consider 15 hours notice for a rehearsal a little ridiculous?
One of the problems with this whole scenario is that I have 2 pages in each act. Consequently, I have to be at rehearsal regardless of what act they're doing, so I can spew out 60 seconds of dialogue. On weekends, the problem is compounded because apparently the whole show is run on the weekends. This means I have 60 seconds at the beginning of rehearsal and then 60 seconds at the end. And nothing but bliss in between.
So, today, rehearsal is to begin at 1. I arrive at 1:02, and Tyler and I are the only ones there. To boot, we're locked out of the theater, and it's raining (for the first time in the 7 weeks I've been here).
After a few minutes, the gang arrives. We don't swing into motion, however, until 1:45. At last, I do my thing, and take my seat in the audience.
The play continues. I'm surprised when they don't stop for a break at intermission, but plod on. "Excellent," I thought, "the sooner they'll get to me." But they weren't there yet.
During Act II, Crane needed two breaks and decided to run a long scene twice so he could see it from the audience. About 5 pages from my magic moments, Crane decides he's too tired to go on and it's time to call it a day. At 3:30 p.m. I have sat there for 2 ½ hours for the one scene. Thank God he spoke to me before leaving the room:
"OK, we'll pick it up from here tomorrow, alright?" he announces. He looks over at me and says, "Is that alright?" Obviously it's not. "Well, it would be nice to run the scene since I've been here for two-and-a-half hours," I reply with the most polite tone possible, and politeness paid off. He agreed to run my scenes.
Or, I mean, "scene". I have two tiny little scenes back-to-back at the end of the play. Crane decides he's only up for running one of them. Great.
The scene begins with the phone ringing and then I come in and answer it. Instead of starting, "Too Tired Crane-meister" decided to spend 10 minutes talking about the phone, tech-wise, with no one saying anything intelligent or listening to anyone else.
So we do the scene. He forgets his cue for me actually picking up the phone. Fine, so I tell him, he does it, and we go on. I say a line or two and he stops and gives me a line-reading. Fine, I do it like he says and move on. It's his turn to go off on a tirade. He does, paraphrasing the whole thing, thereby skipping my cue. The scene ends, he gives me some new blocking, and that does it for the day.
Ah, the joys of theater. What a wonderful afternoon.
Roy Cohn | L.A. Stage | Resume