Dear Les,

After coming up with a number of different thoughts to drive your scene, how do you decide which thoughts work best?”

Undecided

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Dear Undecided,

You don’t. Rehearsal isn’t about SETTING what your choices are going to be. It’s about exercising possibilities. Think of it like sports. Football players practice different plays and formations and ways to hit each other (right?) not so that they can then go out and execute them like a dance combination, but so that they have ready access to all of those plays and formations and ways to hit each other when the need might arise in the middle of the game. They might have PLANNED to do A then B then C, but then the other guy comes outta nowhere on his left and suddenly he’s gotta do Q or R or S. Q, R and S have gotta be there, waiting in the wings, ready to jump in and save the day. They have to have been practiced over and over and over. You’re therefore trying different thoughts so that they too are there waiting in the wings in case you need ‘em. You dunno HOW the other actor’s gonna say what they say. You don’t even know THAT the other actors is gonna say what he’s supposed to say.

Here’s a better one – don’t they have like special teams or something in sports? So that when you need a buncha guys who are really good at, I dunno, running fast? You quickly bring in your Special Running Fast team? You don’t want your special running fast team to be in the locker room or at the bar. You want them standing on the sidelines. You want ‘em all warmed up already. You want ‘em raring to go.

Same with your thoughts. You never know what you’re gonna need when. So your job is to keep everything warmed up and rarin’ to go.

Love,

Les,