I had my first theatre experience today at Iowa. It wasn't through the university, but actually a part of a joint community theatre effort. It was All in a Day Theatre Festival. A team of 6 writers, 6 directors, and 12 actors were randomly selected and placed together, then given a genre and location for their scene. The writer had until 6 am this morning to write the script from the time they left the meeting the previous night. The actors then had less than 12 hours to rehearse, perfect, and perform the 10 minute scene. A lot harder than it sounds, but a total adventure to take part in.
I was teamed with Lauren (writer), Brian (director), and Kevin the other actor. Our scene was an abandoned mine shaft and our genre was horror. Perfect. I was very excited to start. Kevin was not at the first meeting, so I didn't get a chance to meet him until today. He was eye opening, but not in the way you would think. Kevin is probably in his 40's-50's. When I was around him, I was constantly uncomfortable, and experiencing the highest levels of anxiety I've ever felt. It's not that he was mean, rude, or disgusting. I just don't exactly know what it. He's a great actor, perfect for the role in the scene, but he's very quiet. If it hadn't been for my director (who didn't do much directing) I doubt we would have spoken a word. All day my heart was racing, and I felt like I was going to get sick several times during the day. A few times, I had to sit outside and collect myself. I felt terrible because I probably made Kevin feel awful. Never have I experienced what I felt today. Kevin would talk fine with our director. The only times I felt truly comfortable was when our writer was there. Unfortunately, she wasn't there until the afternoon.
The scene- a girl wakes up in a dark place and moves around stumbling about until the lights turn on. There is only room for to enter and exit, and no matter what door she takes, she will always end up in the same room. It isn't until a few minutes she runs into a man who has been down here for as long as he can remember. The girl asks him questions about why he's here, who put him here, what's he doing now, how did he get here. She doesn't find out much except that he's devoid of a normal human personality. His skin is very leathery, and he works for the devil basically. She starts to freak out because she cannot find a way out of this place. Soon, the guy starts to let out that he knows more than he's letting on. He knows what the girl did, why she's here and what's going to happen to her. The girl starts to flip and tries to run, only to be grabbed by the man and slammed to ground. During the entirety of the scene, the guy is messing with something in his pocket. He pulls it out and it's a knife. They girl asks him what he's going to do with it. He responds he's going to the same thing to me that I did. She tries to run again, only to be pushed back down and cut under her arm. She leaves the room and ends up on the other side. She's in pure panic. The guy grabs her by the throat and slowly leads her across the room saying how's she's arrogant. What was she expecting to see? A party for her? A celebration of her accomplishments? No. The guy stabs her in the leg and she slowly begins to die from massive bleeding. He tells her that she is dying for a second time, and there will be a third, fourth, thousandth time etc. and he will always be waiting there for her. Then she wakes up moments later and stumbles around looking for a light switch, and the whole process starts again. Sweet huh?
Kevin was perfect for this role. He was very intimidating, and there were points in the day were I was actually truly terrified of him. It wasn't acting then, it was trying to save my life. He would pull out this 6 inch knife and threaten my character with it. In the beginning of the day, we used a pen for prop blocking purposes, and later in the day we switched to a dull knife with some duct tape on the sharp edge. No on told me that we had switched the pen for a knife. So Kevin whoops out this huge knife only inches from my face and I was scared shitless. Also he stabbed my leg with it when we were blocking the struggle scenes. He didn't break skin, or even my jeans, but it left a good size bruise. He started tearing up. Apparently, some point earlier is his life, he stabbed himself in the leg with a knife and felt awful for even touching me with. I felt terrible, but I was scared.
The show went great. Packed house and great audience response. All the other scenes were funny and cute, then you get to ours. Starts out awkward, then gets pretty fucking serious. I don't think they knew how to respond to it. But it went well. Overall, good day. Great experience. I'm still working on bringing my anxiety level down. I don't know why I felt so stressed around him, but I did. It was very weird.
College is going well. Just hanging out with people, finding my classes, and getting to know my roommate.
~Until Then
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