00038: REVISITING THE ONE-PERSON SHOW!

Before spending my sabbatical days in Italy learning about Commedia dell’arte, I was already working on a one-person show, also as part of my sabbatical. I spent six months writing a script and having dramaturgical meetings with a theatre director.

I wrote about the development process of the play and also about the staged reading in two different posts that were done before going to Italy. The stage reading of the play happened in December 2022 when I flew to Ohio to meet the director at his homeschool. After that reading, the project was put on the “back burner” because my time needed to be dedicated to preparing the sabbatical trip and the trip itself.

Now that the sabbatical trip has ended and I’m back home, the focus is being split into “wrapping up” the sabbatical, which includes working on the one-person show once again.

For five days, from 10 AM to 6 PM (with an hour break in between), the director and I will come together in order to “put the play on its feet.” This time the director is flying to my hometown. During these five days, we will decide on the set and the look of the show. We will decide on the costumes for the main character (and other characters) along with all the “props” the characters need to use during the performance. Lighting patterns for the show will be determined, as well as the different sounds to accompany the lip-synch songs. 

The main goal of these one-week rehearsal is blocking the show and “cementing” its look before we go our separate ways for six months, and then comeback in December to have one more week of rehearsals before presenting the full out production of the one-person show to an audience. Yes, you read right. Six months will pass between this week’s rehearsal and the next rehearsal.

The next five days are going to be very hectic, very intense, and very tiring. We only get one week to put the show together before it goes in hiatus for six months. I know this coming week will be very productive… and exhausting. But the show must go on!