10 Days and Counting!

Why are we seating our audience on the stage?

We've got this amazing new Auditorium...500 comfortable seats...a huge stage...so why are we performing BRICK in a 20 foot square, with the audience half a foot away on three sides?

Because theatre is always better...when it's close.

I love U2. Dig the new record. But I have no desire to sit in the upper deck of a football stadium for one of their shows. I want to be close!

I hate texting my daughter Gibson (even though she likes it quite a bit). I'd much rather be sitting next to her...talking...up close and personal!

And teaching...I will take a class of ten over a class of 50 any day. Why? Because closer, smaller, more intimate is better.

When you want to say something really important...share something personal...let someone in on a secret...closer and smaller is better, right?

That's how I feel about the theatre we make at Mann. What we have to say to our audience is really important, personal...it's like an amazing secret, just for them.

So BRICK players, BRICK audience...let's get close. Let's share something really, really cool. Something big...huge...in someplace small.

PHOTO: London's Cockpit Theatre.

One Month Before Opening Night

Thursday, February 26, we ran the entire show for the first time.

Although the fights are still far from finished, the complex sound and lighting design is not nearly implemented, no costumes or final props are being used...I must say that things are looking good.

- We are working on the mainstage now. All blocking seems to work in the actual space.
- All actors know their lines...earlier and more precisely than in any previous Mann Show production.
- Principal actors are doing quite well. Rian Johnson's BRICK characters look different in our version, but are just as believable as those in the film.
- Our Stage Manager (Mandy Gonzales) and Assistant Stage Manager (Taryn Miller) are quite a team...our best ever.
- The crew at Todd Inc. is already working to make the cast's hair look great.
- The Brendan-Lug fight is a blast...different from the film, but just as exciting.

A whole lot of hard work lies ahead, but we're on pace to have an incredible show March 26.

Hey...would anyone mind if I change the credits/curtain call music? I like "Sister Ray" a lot, but am feeling something different for the play.

PHOTO: LaBrian Drummond (Brad Bramish) thanks his Stage Manager. (Siovean Lehner, Photography)

The play has been blocked.

"Blocking" refers to the director's (and sometimes actors') plan for movement on a stage. Some plays require very precise and deliberate blocking. Other plays need very little. Some directors like to meticulously plan and direct every movement on stage. Still others sit back and let their actors have free reign.

BRICK called for a more stringent blocking plan than any other play we've done at J.L. Mann. One reason for this is the numerous stage combat scenes, but the main reason is because we're doing the play in a very small, empty (I like to call it, "limbo") space. There aren't many visual cues for our audience to know where they are and where they're going. In lieu of this, a very precise stage movement plan is required.

Figuring it all out was exhausting. It took two and a half weeks of after school rehearsals. Next week we begin reviewing our work...making sure that it works. I expect that we'll have to make certain corrections...may even have to rethink a scene or two. Our actors will be off-book (lines memorized) beginning Monday. Seeing them moving in the space without scripts for the first time is sure to inspire a creative blocking idea or two.

Kudos to Stage Manager Mandy Gonzales and her Assistant Stage Manager Taryn Miller (pictured above from the fall 2008 play, MUSEUM). Together they make a great team. The next two weeks will try their patience no doubt...remembering blocking, helping the cast off-book, collecting all the required rehearsal props. Here's hoping the cast remembers to thank their stage managers generously and often.

BRICK INFLUENCES

In his highly entertaining DVD commentary, BRICK writer-director Rian Johnson says that he discovered and fell in love with Joel and Ethan Coen's MILLER'S CROSSING (1990) in film school. From this, he found inspiration in the dark, detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett. Hammett created "private dick" Sam Spade, the brooding detective brought to life by Humphrey Bogart in John Huston's THE MALTESE FALCON (1941).

If you plan on joining the cast or crew of BRICK—or if you are a future audience member who can't wait for March 26 (Opening Night!)—get ready by seeing these films [Rian also cites Polanski's CHINATOWN (1974) and Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) as influences on the language of BRICK] and Hammett's books and stories.

I remember seeing MILLER'S CROSSING during college, myself. My roommate bought the score and used to play it all the time in our dorm room. It would be the Coen's next film, BARTON FINK (1991), that totally rocked my world, though.

As theatre artists, our influences come from all sorts of places. This play is inspired by Rian Johnson's film, BRICK. But the very idea of turning a cool film into a stage play comes from childhood, I think...all those afternoons of playing World War II with my buddies. Or playing with Star Wars action figures while listening to a record of the music. Oh, and lest I forget, the very notion of high school theatre being something cool, fun, exciting...that all came from my own experience with theatre in high school...Mrs. Suber, my drama teacher.

Something is influencing you right now, today. Your life has been filled with influences—some good, some bad. Take inventory. How do, how will these things manifest themselves in what you create?

CONSIDER THE COMMITMENT BEFORE AUDITIONING

David Sims, Heidi Kurtz, and Chris White will be meeting at 1:00 PM on Monday at an undisclosed location to discuss scheduling for the upcoming production.

This is where it gets tricky. Coordinating this ambitious production with both CCES and Mann's crowded school schedules has forced us into a condensed, ten-week rehearsal period...the shortest ever for a Spring Production.

The bad news is that we will have to cram a bit to get all the necessary acting and technical rehearsals in. A whole lot of work done on the fly.

The good news is that we'll be done with the entire production just as Spring Break is beginning. So...we all will be able to truly relax and enjoy a full break from an intensive three months of school and theatre.

I tell people who audition for plays at J.L. Mann that they can expect to spend about 100 hours working on the play. Some spend far more, others may spend fewer hours. Still...if you plan to audition and accept a part in BRICK, you must be willing and able to devote a full measure of life and time to the project.

So think hard before you come out to the Auditions on Monday, January 12 and Tuesday, January 13. The rewards of being in BRICK will last a lifetime, but...the time commitment will be great.

STAGE NOIR

BRICK the film embraced many elements commonly found in American noir movies of the '30s and '40s. As we bring BRICK to the stage, the Production Team intends to integrate some of those elements as well.

This play should be dark...hazy...kind of creepy, actually. Characters should materialize out of the darkness at times. In fact, there should be several startles as certain people suddenly appear from the darkness. It is important that the audience feel as though they are observing the play from the shadows...or maybe the Pin's creepy, basement corridor. Remember that scene in the film? When Brendan first visits the Pin? Tug turns on the hallway light and there's like half a dozen thug dudes lining the walls. THAT. That sort of thing needs to happen in our play.

Film noir took a whole lot of look and feel from early German Expressionist cinema. I recommend seeing the BRILLIANT Robert Weine film, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920). It's a terrific movie...and illuminating (irony!) when considering noir's darkness.