Before rehearsals started, Amber assigned prep work to the whole cast: Jonah Fried, Ioana Pitic, and myself. We were to read “The Child’s Story” and pick out 10 distinct moments summarizing the story. She also sent prompts to answer and mull over before the first rehearsal. She encouraged us to answer not just with writing pieces but with songs, pictures, and artwork. The pre-rehearsal tasks featured guiding prompts to identify traits and memories, to help construct the bones of the character before going into the room.

“Using your own nature to guide you into the first stages of characterization - provides a solid foundation for human reaction and emotion to begin building the character off of that to create a fully rounded character instead of “putting the character on like an overcoat.” (Merlin, 2001, p. 20) 

“As an embodied phenomenon and process, we also assume that acting is a psychophysical process equally engaging the inner' (psycho-) and outer' (physical') dimensions of experience and embodiment shaped in each historical context by specific cultural, aesthetic, and scientific models, and paradigms.” (Zarrilli, 2013, p. 8)

During the pre-rehearsal process I was reading and thinking a great deal about Psychophysical process and the importance of my own nature in building a living, breathing character. Amber’s pre-work prompted me to make a collage to understand how I, as an actor and a human, felt when I thought about things I love. I wrote about what the story meant to me, and began crafting memories for my character through the prompts Amber provided.

Example Prompt:

• Name a time your character 

  • Felt playful

  • Was excited to learn something new

  • Fell in love with someone or was loved by someone

  • Was busy with something 

  • Remembered someone/something (what reminds you of the feeling of memory?)

This and other similar prompts, shown on this section’s website page display the initial character thoughts, musings, artwork, songs, and other forms of media that informed the budding shape and adolescent journey of my character: Young Woman (Leah).

Our first week of rehearsals began with familiarizing ourselves with each other’s personalities and preferences, talking about the material, sharing our initial character thoughts and choices, naming/prioritizing what we wanted to explore in this project’s space, and discussing how to build a healthy, productive ensemble atmosphere as we explored Amber’s question. We talked about intergenerational relationships, the 2SLGBTQIA+ experience, family ties, journey of life, regret, and memories. Sharing our own experiences and thoughts made us closer as a team from the start, which helped us be more comfortable as an ensemble down the road. On the first day, we improvised creating images that stood out to us from “The Child’s Story.” We found inspirational starting points to start crafting the show, but that was secondary to building an ensemble, creating a cohesive atmosphere, and establishing a shared language in the space. (See Ensemble Building in the Asides & Acknowledgments on the website and how the ensemble played a role in creating the show).

The second rehearsal, we began exploring the myth of Osiris and Isis to discuss what happens when something is broken but the pieces are put back together. How does a story become more than the sum of its parts? We also got an early start on creating relationship maps, aligning family and partner timelines, and questioned the purpose of our process- what were we saying and what did we want to say with the story we were telling? I made tons of discoveries in those first few rehearsals about who Leah was, her temperament, her passions, etc. Many of these discoveries changed throughout the piece’s journey to better serve the story being crafted. We played with seven levels of LeCoq tensions, applying them to situations we thought our characters might be in. Amber, from early on, also wanted us to keep in mind as we devised that scenes happening in memories and in the past move and behave differently than those happening in the future or inside Leah’s head. 

A guided memory exploration exercise opened up our perspective on the physical language and fluidity of memories in the world of our show. We laid on the floor, closing our eyes while Amber vocally walked us through our first memory and from there through different memories throughout our lives. Afterwards, we spent time discussing how we felt and the sensorial experiences of the journey through our memories. Amber asked us what it was like to travel through our memories: each of us had different perspectives and actual viewpoints that we experienced our memories from, as well as completely different ways of moving from memory to memory in our heads. My most heightened and present senses during the exercise were smell and touch, which have always served as excellent methods of getting myself into character. I could identify where I was by the smell of gumbo and could imagine how the fabric of the couch cushions in my childhood home felt on my hands. We talked over many different concepts of memory and things we had heard about memory. We landed on Memory = Construction as an important component of the integral themes within our piece.

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal - August 15th: 

• How do our timelines line up?

• What is my relationship to my grandfather/grandmother/partner?

• What is my relationship to my parents? Where are they? Why aren’t they here?

• What is my character’s financial situation?

• How do we navigate changes in tension? 

  • Thinking about her autonomy, what is her need to tell him? Why now? Why not before? 

• How does age play into character? Do we see her at many ages? How does she change?

• What are we saying about queerness?  

August 16th:

• How do we tell stories using memory? 

• Memories and how they’re held in the body- how do they exist in our story? 

  • Memories of dreams- dreams in memories

  • Filling the holes your brain can’t remember 

    • Is that fabrication? Or supplementing other moments in the same space? 

  • Sense memory- how does that affect us? What senses do we remember most? 

• Free Writing exercise

  • Writing about an object you own (my Celtic Knot ring) 

  • Writing about an object in the room (a stuffed bunny) 

• Staging memories and perspective 

  • How do we show perspective and point of view?

• How do we conjure a memory?

The second week of rehearsals focused on breaking down scenes and events, digging deep into the emotions of our individual characters within each scene. We played within given structures through Etudes and Viewpoints. Etudes, a Stanislavsky method originally, is an exercise used to foster connection to the material by embodying your character in a scene or improv, focusing on actor-led textual and physical discovery. Viewpoints is a movement-based theatrical technique to help actors analyze and physically explore different elements of performance, created by Mary Overlie, and later refined/adapted for the stage by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau. We also began incorporating the piano, leaning heavily on music as a cornerstone of how my character communicates with the audience. (See Composition in the Asides & Acknowledgements section for more on how composition played a vital role in character development)

Week two began with breaking down and exploring the scene outlines Amber had created. As a team, we discussed in further detail about her research question. She wanted to explore putting feelings onstage for people’s interpretation through psychological gestures and embodying conflict.

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- August 20th: 

• Creating a sense of otherness

• Building the world via the piano

  • Leah’s memories of home are linked to the piano 

• Pulling memories from the piano

• Went through and did scene breakdowns 

  • Discoveries: she feels invisible, her family doesn't see who she really is, wants to be noticed, grandpa sees her as a little girl still

• How will their relationships change? 

• Creating a master timeline- starting in the present of the show and working forward 

• Exploring atmosphere

  • Has the gap between Leah and her grandfather always been there? 

• How do we bridge the gap between character and ourselves? What do we bring to the character? 

• What is it about coming out that is so important? 

  • Why doesn’t she talk to him?

  • Is there ever a time where I almost come out?

For ATL purposes, we wanted to see how Etudes could craft the daily life of our characters. The first Etudes among these was a series of routines for the family, through interactions with objects laid upon the piano, playing with gestures and images and the misuse of props. Once we established these routines, we did Viewpoints exercises playing with tempo and kinesthetic response. We found when Jonah and Ioana (who played my grandparents) were in sync with one or two viewpoints, and I was out of sync, it emphasized the story of my character not fitting into their routine, of trying to use the viewpoints to meet their synchronicity but always falling short. Then we layered in doing inner monologue work within these routines. I, the Young Woman, followed the routine while monologuing the entire time about what the character is thinking as she goes through the motions. At first, I struggled with these exercises, because improvised dialogue - knowing it is for the creation of a scene - is not exactly in my comfort zone. I did my best, discovering that Leah and her grandfather do not speak much, both characters overthinking everything and unable to find a common language. 

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- August 21st: 

• Etude- layering in discoveries, improving

• Gesture exercise 

  • Five images misusing a prop 

  • Working those images into the scenario of the event 

  • Creating routine through interactions with objects- how do they layer?

• What does Leah call her grandparents? 

• Inner Monologue work 

  • What is her intention?

  • What is she thinking about? 

  • Need to decide on her disconnect, why doesn’t she fit into their world?

    • University made her realize she was a lesbian and allowed her to see the world 

  • She feels alienated from her family which is what pushes her into moving away

• Searching for the feeling of home (being herself)

Taking care to make sure we were all on the same page about aesthetic and visual influences for our characters and story, Amber had us build a group Pinterest board and share songs we thought reminded us of the piece. Amber emphasized tying everything back to the piano and all of us began brainstorming ideas such as bookending the show with the piano and using sheet music as a way to travel through time. Sheet music became memories in our show, giving a sense of home while uplifting the characters. 

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- August 23rd:

• Exploring physical relationships 

  • How does my character hold herself while she’s playing? 

• Establishing pattern and routine 

• How long has Young Woman been playing piano? What are her goals with the piano? Does she have any?

• She wants her family to understand her change but they can’t 

  • How does the melody change to signify her change? 

• Leaning into the absurd, high energy of being inside her head 

• Her insecurities are building up throughout the show

Week three we hit the ground running. The goal: take everything we had been crafting, playing with, exploring, and discovering and use it to create a draft structure for our piece. Communication with each other as actors and as characters, how we communicate with the audience, and what we’re communicating with the story were key themes we incorporated in this process. Many aspects, perspective-wise, became clearer for our piece as we worked through the week. We made the decision that we were going to tell the story from Young Woman’s (Leah’s) perspective, which opened new doors for us. Movement-wise, we had already decided we wanted the perspectives of reality versus memory we were incorporating  - reality/present day, memories/past, imagined reality/warped future - to be cohesive, but feel distinctive from one another. Solidifying that the entire story would be from Young Woman’s perspective led us to the conclusion that all character movements would be dependent on Leah’s emotions. Everything is in her mind, her singular perspective on the past, present, and future. Therefore, all the characters behave in accordance with how she interprets or imagines their actions, even if her interpretations or imaginings are warped or wrong. This revelation freed us as individual actors and an ensemble as a whole to experiment with new levels of absurdity that we had not before, especially in the intrusive thought sections. 

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- August 28th:

• Remember how you felt in the memories, allow your childishness and excitement to come through if you’re excited

  • Embrace the silliness

  • Her feelings control the movements in the scene 

• THE PLAY IS HAPPENING AS A MANIFESTATION OF LEAH’S FEAR OF REJECTION 

• Piano is the common language between the characters and the levels of reality

• The world of memory is different and familiar

  • Are we living through these memories for the first time? 

  • Constant instability- searching for stability, something solid to hold onto & that’s why you have the memory flashes 

• Asking the audience “are you with me?” 

  • Aligning our perspectives

  • We want the audience to know where they are/what they are and we also want them to be confused by it- trying to sort it out with us in real time

• What are your feelings and how do they manifest themselves? 

• She is warping reality in her head, relearning how to be herself within the new identities she has discovered about herself (Lesbian, her mom figure has passed) 

• FEELING AS ACTION/EVENT? 

• My obstacle is coming out 

August 29th, we had a big breakthrough. Prior to this, we were still struggling to assemble a cohesive structure for our piece. We were growing nervous about September 12th’s rapid approach, while we were still on character explorations and experimenting unsuccessfully with overall piece structure. Looking back, I think we were, subconsciously but collectively,  putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to have a good product. This pressure grew as we tried to keep Amber’s original idea as our guiding concept, even as our piece strained to take on a life of its own.

We were trying to create using a method that contradicted our original premise. Free devising (from given circumstance) kept trying to lead us away from the story structure Amber originally pitched. We were trying to fit our created scenes and characters into a mold that no longer served as a feasible structure. Ultimately, we decided to scrap the proposed structure, keep the small devised chunks we had made, and spend time devising - individually and in small pairs - of scenes from our interpretations of the themes of the show. This was a winning idea; we were able to come up with much more material to play with and devise a brand new structure from. The new structure reflected our themes from the previous structure, while taking our new discoveries and weaving those into our story. As an actor, these changes were fulfilling. I felt free to allow the themes of the piece to speak through me and the work I devised. 

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- August 29th & 30th:

• Try to be clear that there’s a reason she doesn't want to come out 

  • Want the story to feel like a pressure cooker & build up to me having a slip-up 

• Work with the audience! She’s performing a play in her head- she made them up too 

• How do I come out to my father figure?

• Present moment establishing reality conversations

• Finding roots in the theme that excites us as a character - devise moments from those  

  • Composed Overthinking song 

  • Wrote the phone call monologue 

• Leah is afraid of rejection and imagines 1000 outcomes for when she tells her grandfather she’s a lesbian 

• Finding our monsters/absurdity exercise 

• Storyboarding and fitting things together

  • What is the event/action of the scene/piece?

• How does Young Woman love people differently?

• How does our story end? 

  • Do we need a conclusion with a nice bow? What happens if we don’t know what happens?

Show week!! Woohoo! This week we continued finalizing the structure of the piece. Our newfound confidence in the flow of the piece enabled us to have far more fun playing within the circumstances. We explored, in depth, the early family relationships before the grandmother’s death, observing the ways their family dynamic changed as Leah grew and learned more about herself. We played with more inner monologues and stream of consciousness dialogue throughout the piece. At this point, it was easier for me to do the inner monologue exercise because I felt more connected to the character and her wants. I will not say we had fewer discoveries this week than the past three, but our discoveries were smaller and had a sense of ‘rightness’ to them thematically. These discoveries dealt with transitions and aesthetic movement of the piece as a whole, as well as individual character realizations. We were finally settling into our flow, and as we got into the space the story felt like it was bursting into life. 

Some Notes/Questions from Rehearsal- September 4th-10th:

• Explore contrasting grief with comedy

  • How do we subvert expectations and not be predictable

  • Our structure has peaks and valleys 

• Physical work

  • How did Young Woman behave as a child 

  • How does her physicality change within these memories? 

• How do we immediately introduce the audience to the family dynamic? 

  • What is our opening image? 

• Inner monologue

  • What is she thinking during the funeral?

  • What would she say if she had to give a eulogy?

  • How does she comfort her grandfather?

• Solidifying specific bits of script

Upon review of my rehearsal notes, the performance, the post-show discussion, and the many other aspects of the All The Light That Passes Through project, the main theme that stands out to me is EMBODIMENT. Embodiment in the sense that as an actor you feel completely connected, mind and body, to your character and to the circumstances you’re living in. At the start of All The Light, I was coming off of a very physically demanding piece and was excited to take what I learned and apply it to building a character. I found through this process a rich and deep connection to my character by simultaneously exploring her mentally and physically. It was exciting for me to see the combination of my different trainings, physical and intellectual, blending and working together to guide me and hold me up throughout the experience. ATL provided many opportunities for me to apply my training and to really observe and take in what works for me and what doesn’t. I had my biggest discoveries during exercises and scenes that explored the physical and the mental at the same time. 

Consistent reflection practice and documentation allowed me to see how my process was changing as an actor, how it was shaped and molded by the project itself, and how I felt I had progressed.  I could see the things I would take with me to my next projects. I know now that in order to achieve full embodiment of a character it is important for my process to always be curious, constantly reflect, and ask questions about my character. The more curious I am about every part of the character, what she is feeling, how she moves, who she trusts, what her gestures are, etc., the deeper I can settle into the character and trust the invisible work to let me live in the moment during performance. 

Embodiment also helps build trust within an ensemble. Once it was clear we were all entirely committed to our characters, we felt more at ease with each other on stage. We knew we could trust in one another for support if we faltered; not just during the rehearsal process, but during the performance. 

The premiere example of the strength of connection via embodiment came after our final dress rehearsal. We ran it an hour before curtain and it left me feeling shaky, as we had all been low energy and in our heads during the run. I went backstage for places and found comfort in reexamining my connection to the character. I knew that if I embraced my character, it would help my fellow actors embrace theirs. Together, it would push us into harmony as an ensemble, into embracing our own characters and that of each others to connect in a special way on stage.

It worked.

We were connected emotionally to each other during the show. Not just to each other, but our characters reached out and drew in our audience as well. They laughed with us. They cried with us. For the 45 minutes we were on that stage, we lived in the piece, and fully embodied the story. In the moment, and afterwards in reflection, this felt like an instance of using embodiment to put on a remarkable performance. We began with a Charles Dickens’ story. We ended up with an exploration of queerness, reality, memory, and how they weave together to create the story of a family. In the end, we connected to our characters, we connected to the story, and we all were part of something special.