There isn’t much more humbling than a high school actor laughing at dialogue you’ve written…in a drama. Ouch!
THE END OF THE WORLD (WITH PROM TO FOLLOW) is finished, and the students at West High School in Torrance, CA have been auditioning this week. Normally when I finish a commission, I send it off and the school mounts a production and I’m lucky if I get to see a video of the show. But END OF THE WORLD… is being done at a school close to where I live, so I have the privilege of being much more hands on during the rehearsal process.
Mrs. Orabuena (aka Miss O), the drama teacher at West High School, invited me to attend auditions, and I jumped at the chance. In the previous week the class had read the first draft of the script and, while it went over fairly well, they had some very specific notes. The biggie – “Hate the ending.” Ouch! So I spent three days, sometimes writing from 10 AM until midnight, on a second draft. Thankfully this new version went over well, and there were only minor tweaks for the 3rd draft (including changing a character I’d come to hate in the first two drafts…)
So, auditions. This is a large cast show, with about 40 speaking roles of varying sizes. Nightmare to cast, right? But Miss O has it down, and put the kids thru their paces in a remarkably orderly fashion.
I’m not sure about other playwrights, but sitting thru the first reading is torture for me. I keep my head down, arms crossed, eyes on the page. I sweat. And every mediocre line sounds like it’s the WORST DIALOGUE IN THE WORLD! WHO AM I FOOLING?! By the end my face is so close to the page, my nose is almost touching it. I usually workshop new scripts during the rehearsal process, so I know things will change, but still, that first impression…
Listening to the kids audition wasn’t quite that bad, mainly because they did the same one or two pages over and over again. But overhearing them chuckle about certain lines, or outright laugh during the audition when they had to say something they felt was lame…Ah, the artistic process…
The good, actually great, news is Miss O has some really talented kids in her group, so this production will be the perfect opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t with actors that understand what they’re doing. I’ll be there during the entire rehearsal process, rewriting on the fly as necessary. This is the first two-act drama I’ve written in over a decade, and I’m really happy with where it is now, and where it will (hopefully) end up…