Third Rehearsal

This production is teetering on that precipe of being a parody and an homage. We have a couple high schoolers filming some rehearsals and doing one-on-one interviews with the cast. These are to be shown sometime, somewhere at a later date. One of the questions they asked was whether I felt compelled to bring much of Paul Gleason's portrayal to my work. I don't think that is really possible. Sure, I guess it could be but I think I would be doing myself and the show a disservice. I did say that it was virtually Impossible not to acknowledge what he did with his character and that there surely would be some similarities. But I really feel my interpretation is what is best for THIS production. I mean, I don't have Judd Nelson. I have Matt Leonard. I don't get to work with Anthony Michael Hall. I get Alex Saxon. Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy aren't on stage with me. Chioma Anyanwu and Patricia Rusconi are. Matthew Schmidli's interpretation is way different that Emilio Esteves. I'll watch something Matt does and think "Huh. Judd didn't catch that moment!" I didn't realize at the time how funny the role Anthony Michael Hall's was until I watched Alex doing his part.

My point is that Paul Gleason's Vernon is classic. Priceless. I would never try to emulate him. But he HAS given me a wonderful springboard to develop MY Vernon.

We've blocked have the show and are to be off book for the first 25 pages tomorrow. I've still got to figure out if "I want another one?" or if "I'm through".

Tonight we met for the second time. Let me start by saying it was a GREAT rehearsal (I even got a "Gold Star" from Ron--Hey, that feels pretty good considering it has been 9 years since I was last on stage--Except, of course, my portrayal of Smoky in last summer's staged reading of "The Big Lebowski"). The characters of each actor are really taking shape. After blocking the intro on Sunday, we expanded the to the first 25 (of 85) pages. Basically to the end of the first "showdown" between Vernon and Bender. Ron made an interesting observation that until this point the show is easy-going. After this standoff, we start to see the riff that exists between student/student and student/teacher. With the students, it is definitely a class warfare, the haves and have-nots. The student/ teacher clash is much more interesting, to me at least. As Vernon, I feel he needs to assert and maintain his authority but I think he still wants to be considered "cool." Maybe not to the kids, but at least, to himself and his peers.