Somewhere

Well, it has been over a week since the last performance of WSS. I have found it surprisingly hard to return to every day life in that span, and even more difficult to attempt to explain how I am feeling. Between our two weekends of performance I was both a physical and emotional wreck. I lost my voice, I was exhausted, I am not ashamed to admit that I was very close to tears for most of the week. I assumed that the week following the close of the show would be very similar. In some ways I was right and in some I was wrong. But I am getting ahead of myself. I'll start with Wednesday.

I met up with my carpool first thing in the morning, at the grocery store. Wednesday was a two show day, which meant that we would be spending our dinner break with the boys and would be bringing in food for an informal potluck. These meals were some of my favorite parts of the entire process, an hour of quality time with the entire cast. We would bring in a range of goodies - from fresh fruit and veg to a huge assortment of biscuits and chocolate. And in return we would get a lot of great reactions from the guys. I remember one guy just sort of sitting there, speechless looking at all the food spread out picnic style on the floor. He was just dumbfounded that we would go out of our way to do this for them. We also had a few guys who demanded to know why we hadn't brought certain things, or who would try and smuggle out entire trays of cookies before anyone else had a chance to sample. So, like I said, a full range of reactions. But either way these meals were always a good time. A lot of chat, a lot of joking around, everyone relaxed. Really nice.

So we buy our groceries and trek out to the prison. Two shows on Wednesday, plus a several hour drive to get there. We were all pretty knackered by the end of the day. The shows went well, and everyone was glad to be back and working again. Our digs were another story entirely. At different points during the week we had no phone signal, no Internet (these two were basically a given), no gas, no heat, no hot water, no cooking facilities.... basically we had beds. But we were really really close to the prison. It was interesting. But it definitely added to our state of mind during the final week of shows.

The first of the two shows on Wednesday was for employees of the prison. It was one of the most interesting audiences we had during the entire run. They were absolutely silent during the entire performance. Really no feedback, whatsoever. No laughs, no gasps or reactions, really just active silence. No one was really sure what this meant. Even when it is quiet you can usually tell when an audience is just being really attentive. This came across differently somehow. However when we got to the curtain call there was thunderous applause. It was if they had saved all of their noise until the very end of the show. It was kind of amazing. After bracing ourselves during the whole show for nothing, it was almost overwhelming.

I do wish that we had more of those performances. The ones for the people in the prison, both the inmates and the employees. I think it is great to invite the general public to the shows as well, don't get me wrong. I wish that everyone I know had come and seen the show. I think just being in the audience is an amazing growth experience for everyone. However I think that this is even more the case for those involved in the day to day of prison life. I think really outside of our little bunch, no one knew exactly what was going on in our rehearsal process. I know that a lot of the prison staff thought we were a nuisance, and that the security state was heightened the entire time we were there. So to finally get a chance to invite them in to see the work we had done, everything the guys had accomplished, was absolutely necessary. Now I know that we didn't win everyone over, but really if we got even a few people thinking about how the arts can help in prisons then I think we accomplished a lot.

We had a day off on Thursday, which was really nice. Several of us went into Bath and spent the day sort of mooching around. Unlike the few days at home, where all I wanted to do was go back to work, this was actually really relaxing. Maybe it was being outside of my normal surroundings, maybe it was being with the cast as opposed to sitting at home by myself. Whatever it was, it was a much needed respite to prepare for the coming weekend.

Now a lot of things happened on Friday, I've been trying to figure out how much of this I can actually share. Lets start with this. I had some bad news Friday afternoon, news from home. Nothing I could do anything about but which made me quite worried. However, upon entering the prison for the day you are basically cut off from the outside world. The officers even tried to let me check my email (to get updates from my family) at lunch but we were unable to access even the most basic pages due to the security system. So I just had to wait the day out until I could leave and call home after both of our shows. Not my best day, but everyone was really there for me. Our guards did everything they could to try and get me in touch with my family, our cast was there for me and looked out for me all day. It was really touching how much everyone had my back.

Now this second story is the delicate one. See it has to do with the balance of power in the prison. Not everyone in the prison was entirely happy about our presence there. We disrupted the schedule, and heightened the security risks, and not everyone agrees about how valuable the arts can be. So even after the wonderful reaction from the officers on Wednesday there were still some unhappy parties. And one of these decided to push some buttons. Now our guys are not perfect, they are all in prison for a reason, but most of them have come a long way from the crimes they have committed. Many are very close to release, or at least transfer to D cat (the next step down, basically an open prison). And the very fact that they are allowed to participate in the show indicates that they have earned special privileges and are on the road to rehabilitation. Now our presence, and the work that we have been doing, has been to help with this process. We have been encouraging the guys to open up, to trust us, to do things completely outside of their comfort zone. All a very delicate process. I wont go into detail but basically someone tried to completely undermine that during our last weekend.

One of our guys was told that we had been bad mouthing him at the pub after one of the shows. This is a complete fallacy. The conversation in question was actually highly complimentary of this guy, and our words were deliberately twisted to convey a negative meaning. Needless to say this guy was pretty upset. I would be too if someone told me that my cast mates were badmouthing me at the bar. I think anyone would. And he came into the show that morning prepared to basically shut us all out. However, and I think this shows some of the measure of how far these guys have come during the process, after a few minutes he came and spoke to me to clear the matter up himself. Instead of snapping to a judgement he calmly talked things over and realized that we were all still rooting for him. Now this could have gone a completely different way, and I am very glad it turned out the way it did. Deliberately undermining someones confidence and trust like that is cruel, and can be incredibly damaging. And for someone who is still finding there feet in society it can be outright crippling.

Now add to all of this dynamic a major power outage. And I mean major. The last time we stopped the show all we had to do was reset the lights, a relatively simple procedure, merely time consuming. Not so in this case. Now the prison does have generators. So what kept happening was that we switched back and forth from grid to generator power. And our systems - lights, sound, everything - had to restart every time this happened. It was a mess. I think we stopped for over 45 minutes. Half of this was spent in pitch blackness. However the guys, once again, handled things well. Aside from some impatience backstage (felt by everyone, we were all pretty hungry and ready for a break at this point), people stayed in the moment. We had to stop and start several times, each time the energy being harder and harder to build back up - because of course this would happen right before all the big dramatic stuff right at the end. The guys went out and did another Q & A with the audience, done by the light of flashlights. They kept things pretty light, and the audience all seemed willing to sit there and wait for things to right themselves. Turns out the power had gone out in the entire surrounding area, not just the prison. So it was a major deal. But in the end everything turned out ok. We finally reached the end of the show and everyone took a much needed break.

After that things went pretty smoothly. The shows went really well. One of the guys had a major blank during his big number, but it was handled with a ton of flair. The other guys in the scene covered it incredibly well, it was actually kind of amazing to watch. But other than that, no big mishaps. No more power outages, no crises. Smooth sailing. And then we had to leave.

Leaving was really hard.

Yeah, I am not sure what else to say about that. It was emotional for everyone - the professionals and the guys alike. I always find the end of a show to be emotional, and sad. But this was especially so. You know with a regular show, that you will most likely see the majority of these people fairly soon. You'll do other shows, you'll hang out, the theatre world is pretty small. We are going back as a cast to visit the guys on Friday, so we will get to see them again. But it may just be the same thing all over. Right, that's all I can articulate about that right now.

I'll update again soon, because these last weeks have had their own challenges. But enough for now.

Gee Officer Krupke, What are We to Do?

Before I dive in to this week I just want to touch on the end of last week. Sunday night's performance was an interesting one, for a couple of reasons. First of all the guys were allowed to invite their families to this performance. I think they are allowed to invite them to a few of the other shows as well, but this was the first of them. So many of them had family members or friends in the audience. This made a lot of them rather nervous about performing. Its one thing to perform in front of a group of your peers its another entirely to invite family, and family who are complete outsiders to your situation, in to see the show. Most of them were a wreck of nerves and excitement in anticipation of the reactions their families might have.

Secondly we had some technical difficulties. Basically what happened was our lighting rigging went on the fritz. About half way through the show the director decided to stop the performance to sort this all out. She did point out that had we proceeded there would be some scenes in complete darkness, so it was rather necessary to get it fixed. However this did mean that we stopped for about half an hour. This is always unfortunate because it is very easy to lose the energy in moments like this. However our director, being amazing as ever, invites some of the guys out on stage to chat with the audience and have an informal Q & A. Now the last session like this went rather poorly, if you remember. This was a bit different. I think because it was friends and family asking the questions, and there were more guys who got involved, the tone of the whole thing was much friendlier. Genuinely curious, rather than belittling. And some of the guys really got in to it. Standing in the wings I couldn't quite hear the whole thing, but what I did catch was great. The guys talked about how the show has given them confidence, and about what was difficult about the rehearsal process. I really felt like they were allowed to have their own voice for a few minutes. So that was pretty cool. We were all pretty beat getting out of the show that much later, but I think it was actually a great experience.

It was really interesting meeting peoples families after the show. I tried to meet as many as I could, so I didn't really get a chance to chat with any of them for any length of time. This was partly on purpose. The guys get so little time with their family I didn't really want to impinge and take away any focus. But I do wish that I had taken the chance to chat with some of them more. I know it was hard for some of them, just having those few minutes after the show.

This is starting to get in to what I have been thinking about this week. The project itself has been amazing. I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. However it has also been really hard, especially in these final weeks. For example after a long rehearsal or a show the cast will normally go out together and unwind a bit. In this case, HALF of the cast does this. The other half get sent back to their wing for the evening. It is hard to have that very clear divide put back between us, after spending so long building the show together as an ensemble. We have grown quite close as a cast, and it gets harder and harder to leave the guys at the end of the night. It was incredibly difficult to drive away on Sunday knowing that they were really all just waiting for us to come back for the shows on Wednesday. A lot of them do have jobs in the prison, and they keep themselves busy, but a lot of them have mentioned how this is the only thing they have to look forward to. Its hard to walk away when you know how much it means to them.

I have had guys say to me that the 6 weeks working on the show is like 6 weeks out of prison. They have mentioned that they have seen us more during this time than they get to see their families in a year. Now I know they are in prison, and they aren't supposed to have it easy, but I do think there should be more programs like this one. Looking at how much the guys have changed during the process has been amazing. Ultimately the goal is rehabilitation so these guys can reenter society and not re-offend. Seeing how much these guys are starved for human company, and situations where they are treated like equals it is hard to walk away. Looking at the guys - the lack of self worth that they had walking in to the project, and how much it has changed them, you can sort of see how they ended up here. Now, I don't know everyone's story, and frankly I don't think I need to or really have the right to ask them. But, I know they have all made mistakes in their lives (Some of them I want to smack up side the head and ask them WHAT they were thinking). But they are all people. They all deserve to be reminded of that, and to have someone tell them that they are worth something, which I think most of these guys never really got before this.

I was pretty much a wreck after heading home on Sunday evening. Ultimately it has been a good thing to have two days away, to collect my thoughts and get a good nights sleep. But I am antsy to get back. I have missed the guys, and I have missed the girls in the cast, (we have also become very close working together on this project). I know it will be even harder to leave for good after the show ends, but I have to enjoy the time we have left. I know I cannot articulate all of the things I am feeling. And I am trying to be careful of how much I can put up here. But I at least want to get down some of the things I am feeling. I'm going to stop my ramble for this evening because we have to be up and out early to get out to there for a two show day. So off to bed I go, and then off to prison I go in the morning.

I cant wait!

Tonight, Tonight, Won't Be Just Any Night

After an absolutely epic weekend I am back at home in my own little flat. If I am being completely honest I am experiencing a bit of culture shock. The last few days have been life changing.

To pick up where I left off, Thursday. Thursday we had our first rehearsal with the band. Oh my goodness do they sound good. In my opinion there are few things that are not improved by the addition of a brass section, and this was no exception. The Bernstein music is absolutely incredible, so to add full orchestrations really takes the piece to a new level. First orchestra rehearsals always give the cast a bit of an energy boost, and I think the guys were really impressed by the band. I think they began to really feel like they were putting on a show. We worked through the music in the morning, and then ran the show in the afternoon. And it was great. The excitement in the room was palpable. However so was the anxiety.

See the next day, Friday, began our run. And to make things especially nerve wracking for the guys we not only had two shows (well technically an open dress and then our opening in the evening), but the afternoon show was the performance for all of their friends. Friday afternoon was our prisoner performance. I really think it was trial by fire for them. Most of them have never performed anything in their life, and to even take part in rehearsals was an incredibly scary thing.  Now, even as a professional, I always find it much harder to perform in front of a group of my friends. There is an extra level of stress that you don't get when you don't know the audience. You always want to perform your best, and are worrying whether or not you'll live up to their high expectations for you. You are also afraid of making a complete fool of yourself. Now imagine those feelings for someone who has never done anything like this before. And set them an audience of people who have very little exposure to theatre, and really anything else. I am not sure how I would have handled myself in their position. I think a lot of them were absolutely terrified. Actually I know that they were. And this terror manifested in a lot of different ways. There were some rash comments and bruised feelings by the end of the day Thursday as we got closer to the end of our rehearsal process. However the show itself was really coming together and I think at that point we really did need an audience. At one point one of the boys turned to me and said that he thought we needed another week. I had to tell him, honestly, that every show I have every worked on felt like it needed another week right up until we opened.

Friday was an absolutely amazing amazing day. For one thing it was my birthday. I don't think I will ever forget the year I spent my birthday in prison. The girls in the cast baked me a cake to share with the guys at lunch, and they all sang to me. I dont think there are all that many people that can say that. I had a room full of prison inmates sing happy birthday to me. It really made my day, I was really touched. I got many well wishes throughout the day. Many of the guys asked me if I had any big plans to celebrate, to which I would get to respond that I was opening a show with them! Certainly one of the best birthday evenings I could have planned.

Right, back to the story. Well Friday afternoon's open dress rehearsal was certainly a unique experience. I dont think I have ever performed in front of an audience that responded like that. They were very vocal, but amazingly supportive. All of them were cheering their friend on, and they audibly responded to most of the story. But all of it was positive. And you could tangibly feel when they got sucked in to the more dramatic elements of West Side Story. The room would go quiet and you could sense the concentration. The guys were incredible! I think that most of them really got a boost performing in front of their friends. And frankly I think it really did help them that they were the first audience. After performing for the other inmates any other audience would be all right!

I am not going to lie here, I had a moment of sheer terror stepping out on to the stage for the dance at the gym. Other than the leads, the women have very little to do in the show. I am in two scenes, and spend the rest of the time doing scene changes. Most of my time and energy during the rehearsals has gone towards supporting the guys, getting to know them and help them through the process. So until that very second I had not even thought about getting nervous. However, I got out on stage and had a sudden realization of who we were performing for. And even after working with nearly 30 inmates for over a month that moment was a bit of a kick to the stomach. However as soon as the lights came up on us, and I saw the rest of the guys up there on stage with us, I realized how much we were in this together. It was kind of amazing, knowing that we were a team. It didn't break down in to them and us, but all of us together as a cast.

The shows have all gone really really well. There have been a few heart stopping seconds where someone will drop a line or something will go wrong, but all of them have been handled incredibly professionally. One moment in particular was heart breaking. This guys had been rather shy the whole process, just coming out of his shell during the last week or so. And his character is one that none of us could really feed him the line. So when he lost his place there was the most amazing moment of suspensions as all of us waited to see what would happen. You could see him realize he was lost, get flustered, and then take a deep breath and collect himself and jump right back in to the scene.  I know there are pro's who couldn't do what he did in that moment. I also know that it could have just as easily gone the opposite way. I think had someone tried to jump in to help him it would have just pulled him farther into his panic at losing his line. It was a truly amazing moment.

I am going to take a break now, and collect my thoughts before I talk about the end of the weekend. There is so much emotion involved in this production I want to find the right words to share about it. I am just reminded of what many people said to me about taking on a project like this. The most frequent comment got was that it would be a life changing experience. And oh my goodness were they right about that.

Here come the Jets, Yeah

Well, here it is. The night before opening. (Ok, so I'm posting it the morning of. We didn't have internet last night). This week has been really incredible. Not necessarily fun, or easy, but still amazing none the less.

Lets start with last week. During the middle of last week we had several visitors to our rehearsal process. Naturally the sponsors want to come and see what we have been up to during the week, so several of them came and sat in on our rehearsal. It was very interesting to watch how this affected the boys. At first I think it totally threw them. All of a sudden, after four weeks of a rather intimate rehearsal process, there was this room full of strangers. After a while though they did relax a bit. I think they actually sort of got in to performing in front of them. And it was great practice for this week when they get a full audience. By the end of it I think they were rather excited about the prospect of putting this show up now. Then during lunch there was the inevitable schmooze with the donors. A few of the guys were invited to stay with us and chat with them about the project. They all did quite well, frankly they were better at mingling than I often feel when I am at similar events. Then there was a sort of question and answer panel. This actually sort of got to me a little bit. I may be a bit presumptuous here, but it felt kind of dehumanizing. I mean we had spent weeks building these guys up – treating them like professionals, trying to give them the respect that they are so often missing in the rest of their lives – and in come these people who have no idea what we have been working on, and they begin to ask questions. Really I think most of them were just incredibly curious about the project, which I cant blame them for, but it was the way they would address the guys. I am having a hard time putting it in to words, but it made me rather angry. It felt like they were spectators at a zoo, or some sort of freak show, which is so far from the way that we have been trying to treat all of them that although I know it was probably innocent it felt a bit offensive. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

Moving on. We got in to the space on Friday. And let me tell you (since we cant bring in cameras to take pictures) the set looks great. Its all brick, and chain link fence and scaffolding. Very simple, but rather effective. It is always exciting to get on the set for the first time. And I think for a lot of the guys Friday was the beginning of the realization that we would actually be performing soon. I forget how novel this is for all of them. And I think they forget how normal it is for us some times. I have had more than one guy comment to me about how he does forget that this is a job for us, because for them it has a whole other meaning.

After a very short, but completely enjoyable weekend, we all hopped back in the car Sunday evening and headed back out to begin tech. Monday morning starts bright and early, with everyone in costume looking absolutely stunning. It really is incredible how good these guys look. Especially because for five weeks we have seen them wearing nothing but warm ups and sweats, maybe jeans. And then they show up dressed to the nines in 50s style. There are of course some issues. A few of the guys really are not comfortable stepping outside of their personal wardrobe tastes, and have to be coaxed and bullied in to wearing what they have been given. But they do. And it is totally worth it. We start working through the show from the beginning, and make remarkably good time for a tech rehearsal. Everyone stayed relatively chipper all day, and there were only minor problems. I think everyone felt really good at the end of the day.

By day two everyone started flagging. Or maybe it was only me. No, I think in general things were a bit bumpier on Tuesday. With few exceptions these guys have never been in a situation like this, and although they were on the whole great about having to stop and start and the frequent repeats, they did start to wear by the second day. I don't think any of them really realized how tiring the process can be, even just standing around half the day, so there were some dust ups, but nothing too major. In fact most of the frustrations seemed to be among the professionals rather than the prisoners.

Wednesday saw our first EVER full run. Until Wednesday afternoon we had never even come close to running the show from beginning to end without stopping. I am not sure we had ever really run the show straight through even with stopping and starting. So to be completely honest, I wasn't sure we could do it. I think the guys are great and are doing some amazing work, but I wasn't entirely convinced that if someone dropped a line the entire thing wouldn't just fall to pieces. However, they surprised me. Not only did we get through the whole show, the guys did a great job of covering the moments that didn't go as planned. There were some botched scene changes and some missed lines, but on the whole nothing major. He show is by no means polished, but at least we have a show!

Now throughout the week we have been spending much more time with the guys than has been the normal schedule. For one thing we've been in now four days in a row, rather than two (the leads have had this schedule from the beginning, but not us chorus). And for another, the guys have been allowed to have lunch with us. I think part of it is practicality. There isn't enough time in our schedule for them to be carted away to have lunch elsewhere and then brought back. So we have all been picnicking together in the rehearsal room. And frankly, this has been great fun. I think it is safe to say that we have all grown really fond of these guys, so it is nice to get some time to actually chat with them and have real conversations. Rather than just between scenes and during tea breaks.

Right, I have to run now, so I don't have enough time to finish my thoughts. More installments to follow soon. Off to prison I go!!!