Dress Rehearsal

by Travis Rocha

For the past two months or so, my Acting I class has been working diligently on scenes from the David Auburn play, “Proof.” This play is a staple of the Theater Department and you can expect to find this work in almost any entry-level, performance-based theater class here. My scene partners and I were fortunate enough to be given the act one finale scene and it’s definitely a scene with a lot going on. There’s humor, romantic tension, suspense, shock, intrigue and, of course, plenty of emotions.

The process started with our scene assignments and a quick rehearsal out of class. Afterwards, we had a scene run in class on-book (which means we had the script in front of us). After everyone finished their on-book runs, which took about two weeks, we began getting off-book. We went through another two weeks of off-book performances wherein there was no blocking, just dialogue and then moved on to off-book and blocked performance. We received some notes and continued rehearsing outside of class before today when we finally had the chance to give a fine-tuned performance that was off-book, blocked and with full costume.

We definitely have been working slowly, which is actually extremely beneficial when attempting to master the basics of the acting craft. We have received so many notes in the past few months that when we finally had our dress rehearsal, there weren’t too many our professor had for us. It’s also extremely entertaining to watch the rest of the class slowly improve and perform. Theater is such an engaging subject and I am so glad we have the opportunity to be hands-on. We have a few more things we can work on before our final scene presentation, but I am excited for how the final product will turn out!