Round The Twist: On The Right Track.

I need to plan my weekend quite tactically. I guessed wrongly about some of the information I'd have by now about the state of the play, which means I now need to try to come up with a set of guesses that will maximize the usefulness of whatever work I do today and tomorrow. I thought I'd share them with you, since this sort of minimax stuff quite often forms part of an actor's experience on a "new writing" show.

We finished Week 2 with a staggerthrough of the first half's second part, which ran 37 minutes. Next time we try that we will probably take about 10 minutes off, since we had to repeat several parts. I guess that brings the entire first half, in its current incarnation, to 67-ish minutes - which probably means several pages of cuts on Monday morning.

I find re-learning a changing script very difficult, as the needle of my memory tends to jump back to whatever "track" it has most strongly imprinted, so I don't want to spend much time on potentially "wrong" parts.

The first half of the first half has probably received most of its cuts. Perhaps parts of the opening scene could go, in which I mostly do not appear, or some of my autobiography speeches. Those don't need much of my time - I have already learned them - so in fact resting them will probably help in the event that some go, as the rust will discourage me jumping back to the earlier track. No, I think any cuts will turn up in what we ran on Friday evening, which means I shouldn't shore it up too much.

The lines in Act 4 will probably alter quite radically. I don't think much of Act 5 will alter, so I will work on that, and also the beginning of the 2nd half. I don't think much of the 2nd half will go, since it has about 2/3 the number of pages of the first half. So, beginning of the second half today, end of the second half tomorrow. Also, learning songs. This leaves me about an hour a night of energy left for line-learning Monday to Friday, which should allow me to to fill in the gaps. Also, lines will go in during rehearsal.

There's my plan!