Shakina Nayfack is a Musical Directing fellow through The Drama League’s Directors Project. He is assisting on Mormons, Mothers and Monsters and The Game.
From Shakina:
Rehearsals are well under way for Barrington Stage Company’s second mainstage musical of the season, The Game. I have to confess, I love this show. The text is rich and delicious, the love affairs unbelievably sordid, the music insistently captivating and the costumes (from what I’ve seen so far) irresistibly decadent. What strikes me the most, however, is how a show based on 250 year old source material can still feel so urgent and modern. I suppose its due to the universal human–though often inhumane–themes: Seduction. Betrayal. Revenge (as advertised), and also the more tragic but equally central failings of Faith, Desire, and Love.
For the first week and a half of rehearsal I spent a lot of time behind the directors table, watching Julie and Danny work. Director Julianne Boyd creates a fast-paced, inquisitive, and well focused rehearsal process. The actors play through the scenes on their feet, trying different approaches as they arrive to the heart of the scene. Often Julie will shape the structure, nudging the actors to a particular stage picture, but how that image fills in emotionally becomes the work of the cast.
Choreographer Daniel Pelzig works equally as fast, setting movement on the fly and giving me plenty to notate at top speed. For the opening number, “Night After Night” we moved through several stagings as the music was re-arranged to communicate the level of debauchery the creative team wanted to achieve. What began as a minuet became a waltz, and then transformed into a tightly choreographed melee of excess and indulgence.
Now Mr. Pelzig is off staging Into the Woods in Atlanta, so I am in charge of keeping up the choreography and the ensemble-driven scenic transitions. I also get to generate a small, eloquent phrase for the two romantic leads who reunite for a moment of innocent bliss before impending tragedy in the song “Finally, Finally,” and set the pantomime our caricature-ish opera singers perform in “The Opera.” Yesterday was my first opportunity to lead rehearsal, and I ran the room for several hours as we tightened transitions, began work on the opera story, and reviewed one of the large ensemble numbers “Just Past Midnight.” Admittedly I was nervous at first, but the cast, stage management, and musical directing team welcomed my leadership with total respect and I soon felt completely in my element, carrying my script around the room on a music stand, checking the scene from different angles, offering suggestions for refining movement from an internal awareness, and most of all HAVING A GREAT TIME!
The orchestra arrives for their first rehearsal tonight, so a whole new level is going to be added soon. We move into the theatre next week, and have a few precious days of rehearsal left to polish the staging and heighten the relationships. Once we get on stage with the epic costumes and gold-gilded everything, all of our spacing will doubtlessly be reworked, which means a whole lot of last-minute duties for me. I couldn’t be more excited.
I have such high hopes for this show.
I’ve just watched the fabulous Amy Decker (Madame de Tourvel) work through her eleven o’clock emotional breakdown number “My Sin.” We staged it two days ago, and this was her first run in rehearsal since the structure was set. I’ve never felt such intimate electricity and magnetic fragility in a crowded rehearsal room. We were all speechless. Chills. Tears. One of those moments when you’re certain that dramatic magic has occurred.
I want everyone to see this production.