Up and running!

Swimming in the Shallows is up and running, woo hoo! Last night was an invited dress rehearsal, attended by I suppose twenty or so members of the Salem Theatre Company community, various actors, technicians, board members and other folks with an existing relationship to the theatre. One of them, Jonathan Simcosky, wrote this awesome review in North Shore Art Throb! Thanks Jonathan! Last night was pretty intense, we were all hyped on that adrenaline you get performing in front of people for the first time and man were they receptive. Which on some level was to be expected. They had been invited (and thank you all for coming) to see an invited dress, so they were getting an exclusive first look at the piece and I'm sure they all had motivations for wanting to see it go well and do well in the future, so they were supportive as well as receptive and they all laughed their asses off. Which was great! Part of the DNA of this play is just a tiny bit screw ball. Every like, fourth line can be interpreted as a joke. It's not particularly realistic, but still grounded in it's heightened logic. The point being, they had a huge amount of energy and they showed in their laughter, and it was a decent sized crowd for the space.

Tonight's public preview audience however, as these things often go, was much, much quieter. And something like ten people smaller. And generally on the older side. So, you know that means (of you do if your a performer) less responsiveness, less energy, more pensiveness, more chuckles, some out and out laughs but less unrelenting torrents of sheer LAUGHTER. And that was an adjustment. Generally speaking, the second performance is usually more of a challenge than the first, especially with comedy. Because with comedy, laughter and the energy of the audience are big factors in the room. Your laughs, audience members, drive the performance. So when you come out of tech and into a room full of people you respond very immediately to that energy and when you get a lot of it (or not a lot, depending) then you scale your expectation of how much "force" to anticipate coming from the audience. BUT no two audiences are the same, and neither are any two performances and that's part of what makes theatre so fantastic. Personally, I think sometimes I maybe even do better when there is a lower energy crowd than when there is a big, young, possibly drunk on excitement and/or alcohol kind of audience that laughs heartily and readily. Not that I mind those audiences. But tonight, man? I was working that shit. I was doing whatever I could to make those fuckers LAUGH pardon my french. I think part of my DNA as a performer is that of a comedian, not necessarily a stand up because in the case of stand up when they aren't laughing then it's really painful and I feel that, but you know what I mean. I like making people laugh. And I'm good at it. I discovered that kind of early on, and I think it was part of my impetus to becoming an actor.

So anyway, in terms of audiences, we've already hit both extremes so from here on it I think we'll be ready for whatever comes our way. Man, did I mention how good I feel about this show? Did you read that review? Damn, it's some good shit.