spring is early

in the middle of the second week of rehearsals for julius caesar, and it's going great. we're still sitting at tables, and on our fourth pass through the script. we keep discovering new things, and we're making serious headway towards developing an understanding of the complex world of our production. but it's getting harder and harder to sit at that table for hours upon hours per day! i don't know if it's the old theatre chairs from the seventies, or the windowless basement room, or the pasty fluorescent lights, but i'm getting more and more restless sitting there. i'm fully engaged in the work at hand, but my butt cries for some walking around, or at least an ergonomic chair!

the director told us at the beginning that the table work is the most important, and that his style is to keep actors at the table until they're chomping at the bit to get on their feet- the idea being that there will be an energy and excitement and a literal speed to staging things since we'll be so excited to be rid of the table. i think his technique is working!

i did have a costume fitting, which was fun. i'm gonna have a pretty sweet skinny black suit, and possibly some thick black-rimmed glasses. i'd love to get the glasses, because that's a real gift for character development. i've started wearing a suit jacket in rehearsals, even at the table, just to get a feel for speaking shakespeare in one. it makes a difference, even if it is a very small one.

cambridge has been unseasonably warm the last few days, which i've thoroughly enjoyed, but has definitely made the atmosphere outside weird. it's odd that i can pull off flip-flops in january! in some corners and parking lots there are still huge melting chunks of dirty snow!