Twelfth Night: The Post-Mortem

Here is the final instalment in what has been quite the saga.  In short, the show went up this past weekend, went better (for the most part) than anticipated, and closed on a high note.  Despite all the insane weather.  We did our best in the final week, as a cast, to solve as many problems as possible.  We bonded and we worked together.  Or most of us did.  And I am proud of what we eventually accomplished.

For those not in the know, a theatrical post-mortem usually happens between the heads of all departments within a production (design, direction, management, producing, etc).  They get together after a show closes and talk about everything that was done right and everything that was done wrong throughout the process and how it could all be done better in the future. 

Our SM asked mid-weekend when the director was planning to hold one.  She said she wasn’t planning to for this particular production.  In a show that has been plagued from the outset (everything that could possibly go wrong did) this seems, frankly, stupid to me.  It’s easy to throw your hands up in the air and say, “Well, the fates were against us!”  It is hard to sit down and take responsibility for mistakes and inadequacies and to really look at the issues that made this show difficult.  In the end, what this says to me is that she isn’t interested in really learning anything from this experience.  And that not only renders the experience a complete and utter waste of time, but it is an attitude that is counterproductive to doing good theatre.

So here is my personal version of the post-mortem.  Because I refuse to not learn something from this experience.  Be prepared: very little was done right in this show.  Also, this is just my interpretation of events, with a few insights from others throughout the week.  It isn’t to say I would’ve done a better job in the driver’s seat.  I’m not sure I would have.  That isn’t my purpose.  I just think trying to learn from mistakes, whoever makes them, is probably a good idea.

This does, for the most part, lack the conversational, communal aspect of the theatrical post-mortem that is so useful.  So if you happen to be reading this and you were involved with the show, comment with your version of events!  Or email me with it and I will so gladly post it here…And onward:

Getting off on the right foot is worth its weight in gold.  So is a good stage manager.  I don’t know everything what was happening before I was a part of this production, but I can say that their ducks were not all in a row when I (and the rest of the cast) came on board. 

As of casting, we had no venue, no stage manager, and, in hindsight, no real plan.  We had an idea without structure.  And by the end, all of this showed.  Our rehearsal schedule was schizophrenic, which meant none of us ever really fully grasped the show’s story arc.  Our rehearsals themselves were mediocre and seemed largely without purpose, mainly involving us reading the scene and then wandering around a tiny room whilst reciting the lines.  And our take on the production (rock ‘n roll) fell by the wayside almost immediately.  Following it into the abyss went just about all production values and design.  Except for two chairs and a car. 

My point in listing all of this right off the bat is that if you don’t start with a strong foundation, you will have to work infinitely harder to bring it all together by the end.  I haven’t directed seriously ever and at all in a long time.  But I think in order to direct successfully you need to find a way to articulate exactly why you are doing the show, how you want to do it, and what you hope to accomplish by doing it.  Every little thing that follows, including every minute of rehearsal, should be in service of this.  Write it down and keep coming back to it.  Never lose sight of it.

Additionally, we had a revolving door of stage management throughout the show.  We went through two SMs before we finally ended up with one for the show and a few rehearsals prior.  He was great, but at that point, all he could do was damage control.  For most of the show we had no one.  Except the director.  And then she became an actor in the show, too.  So the cast had to share stage management duties depending on who was present at what rehearsal.  This wasted a lot of time and was the cause of much disorganization.  SMs are the rock of a production.  They tend to be more organized, more stable, more sane than the rest of us.  We need them.  They are mediators, moms, dads, nurses, babysitters, friends, listeners, coaches, mentors, and, of course, the gods of all things backstage.  For the love of all that is sacred, find a good one and pay him/her to stick around.  If you pay no one else, give the SM a stipend (our SM got nothing, our director got 20% of the box office…).  It will pay dividends.  

  Some of this early disorganization can also be attributed to the strike at York University (our producer was a student there and should have been done before the show went up), but most of it is just the result of having no clue what you’re doing.  This happens.  It’s okay.  But own it, acknowledge it, let other people help you, and learn from it.  We won’t judge you for not knowing, but we probably will for refusing to learn.  Which leads us to…

You’re producing theatre, finding creative solutions is your job.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t directing all about finding a creative solution for turning something two dimensional (a script) into something three dimensional (a play)?  Problem solving is part of the job description, and that’s before anything goes awry.  And something will go awry.  Things go wrong even in the best, most carefully planned productions.  This is actually what makes live theatre fun (see: burning down RADA).  You have to think on your feet and find solutions on the fly.  This is the rush!

Here is one example from the list: we lost an actor (the first one…eventually two walked, both with good reasons unrelated to the state of the production) about a month before we went up.  He had been to maybe three rehearsals.  The director sent us an email asking what weekends we would be available later in April/early May because she wanted to push the production back.  She didn’t even bother to ask any of us how we felt about the situation.  We fought back and said we couldn’t do it later.  And then we put our money where our mouths were and found her another actor.  All in the space of two days.  And he was awesome.  Really, finding creative solutions is everyone’s job. 

When we lost the second one, the director put herself in the show in a large role.  This rendered directing the show nearly impossible.  We could’ve found someone else, though it was last minute.  And there were offers from within the females in the cast to reorganize the roles we were playing to solve the problem.  She still would’ve been acting, but in a smaller part so she could still direct.  None of these ideas were entertained.  Even after our success in the first crisis.  Use your resources; this is also a creative solution.

This is not about your ego.  Know your limits.  Accept help.  I feel like this could’ve been the motto of the production.  Our producer was in over his head because he didn’t know what he was doing (to his credit, he would’ve been the first one to admit this).  Our director was in over her head because she didn’t know what she was doing, she let herself get intimidated by the people who did (in their respective production roles), and she took on too much.  She was more interested in being right and being in charge than she was in having a good show.  I was in over my head because no one was listening and I’m genetically programmed to want to fix everything. 

Admittedly, I am guilty of not always knowing my limits and not always asking for help (which is how I ended up with stress-induced heartburn for a week and why I didn’t have the sense to sit down/take it easy when I had heat exhaustion).  But the only real casualty of my pig-headedness was/is myself.  And after heat-exhaustion Saturday I did decide it was time to chill out a bit.  This is something I’ll always be working on.  My personality type is ENFJ (and I fit the type to the letter).  Seriously, I’m programmed.

The real problem with getting in over your head is not knowing how to get out.  Or when to ask for help.  Or how to accept help when it’s offered (I have gotten much better at this one, I must say).  When your ego is either so big or so fragile that it can’t handle the situation.  I tried, as did several others, to help the director out.  She just was not willing to hear any of us.  And this didn’t really spell doom for us until she decided to put herself on stage.  In a sizeable role.  Prior to this things were rocky, but she still had a handle on the situation (she did start the show off sounding like she knew what she was doing).  After, she just shut down.

Most talented and experienced actors can’t direct and, essentially, star in a production.  Kenneth Branagh does it.  And as much as I love him, I would argue he doesn’t generally do both as well as he could at the same time.  Add to that the fact that she was an untrained actress on stage with people who have training (varying degrees of it, but everyone else had some).  And then she didn’t want to listen to any suggestions we (diplomatically and very gently) made.  So we had someone with no clue what she was doing onstage and no direction.  In the end, she dragged down a portion of the play by making selfish choices.  Which was sad to watch.  Especially because there were other ways out of the predicament.  But she refused to listen to us.  Which was one of the biggest problems in this production.

Your ears were put on your head for a reason.  Listening is not the same as hearing sounds and nodding your head.  It involves the thoughtful processing of information.  Suffice to say that it didn’t happen with the director.  Ever.  I could go on ad nauseam.  And in refusing to listen she alienated herself from the entire cast.  Which is unfortunate, because I think she’s a nice enough person outside of this show and, sadly, she’s walking away from this production without new friends and with a bunch of people who don’t want to work with her again. 

Finally, it came down to if you won’t listen to anything we have to say why should we listen to you?  To the point that when we disagreed with her (all of us, as a cast) on opening day, we had to send the SM to let her know what we wanted and to hash the matter out with her.  And the understanding was that we as a cast were going to do what we thought was best for the show regardless and that asking her, at this point, was just a courtesy.  Never, ever, should any production come to this.

The producer, on the other hand, did listening really well.  I won’t go so far as to say he took a great deal of action, but he understood the principles of communication.  When I called him, we spent two hours at Starbucks having a very friendly and productive conversation about what was going wrong.  And he was open, receptive, and willing to hear everything I had to say.  And I appreciated that more than any actions because what I really needed at that point was to feel like I was being heard.  And he did that for me.  So kudos to him for that.  Great example.

He also showed up at rehearsal the night of our conversation.  And in a very non-confrontational manner, he brought up some of our troubles.  Then he went around the room and asked everyone to share something positive about this show or something they were looking forward to (which is when I learned how many people in the show had never done Shakespeare before…probably half the cast) and something they were concerned about and to offer some constructive criticism.  So we went around the circle and we sat there listening to each other.  And the director sat there too.  And she contributed.  But she still did not listen to a single word any of us had to say.

I think what happens if you spend long enough not listening to people is they cut you out of the conversation.  If you aren’t interested in having a dialogue, they stop talking to you.  And they find a different way to make decisions and to have that conversation.  I think that is what happened here.  And it was the best choice for the sake of the show, but it’s a painful way to put up a production.

Cast bonding: it shows.  So sitting in that sharing circle, the one concern nearly everyone shared was the lack of community within the cast/production team.  There were people who didn’t know each other’s names because they’d never rehearsed together up to that point.  And you could tell on stage that people weren’t trusting each other.  There was no ensemble, no camaraderie, nothing.  Oddly enough, the first step to creating that was acknowledging our shared frustration over it. 

The second step was me throwing a cast slumber party that night (Dream Phone, Kings, and Strip Poker…but that’s a different blog post!).  I think it’s very important to know the people you’re working with as people first.  Theatre, acting, is such an intimate activity.  I would rather describe my sex life to someone in detail than describe to them the intricacies of how I work as an actress.  It is intensely personal.  Which is why that bond in a cast is so important.

Post-slumber party, it started to become a completely different show.  It began to look more like there were relationships on stage instead of actors talking at each other (although I don’t think we ever fully succeeded on this one).  And when you know people you appreciate the way they work more.  I mean, it was this bonding that made planting a kiss on me seem like a totally acceptable choice in our closing show.  And you start to support each other and to support each other’s choices on stage as you become friends.  Acting is a team sport.  You have to work together.  This isn’t the same as your co-workers at the office. 

I think the responsibility for getting to know each other is on everyone.  We should’ve started sooner and I regret that we didn’t.  I would change that next time out, make more efforts early on.  But I’m glad we got to it before the end.  Because now I have some new, talented friends with whom to work in the future.  Or with whom to drink beers on a Friday night.  Or both.  You know, whatever.

Time is our most valuable asset, don’t waste it.  Wasting people’s time is never acceptable.  No matter who you are.  Wasting people’s time when you aren’t paying them for it is worse.  Most young theatre people are willing to work for free.  We’re more interested in the opportunity to work than we are in the paycheque (or something to that effect).  In a good production, there are other payoffs—networking, growth as an actor, learning, exposure, etc.  If we accept the job, trust that we’re okay with the not being paid part.  We’ve made our peace with it.  Your way of paying us is making the experience worthwhile.  And if you waste our time, we will eventually turn on you.

We lost time in as many ways as there were minutes of rehearsal.  Primarily, we lost time to tardiness.  If you’re late to rehearsal, you’re wasting someone’s time.  If you’re late starting rehearsal, you’re wasting someone’s time.  In fact, anytime you don’t do something you’ve said you would, you’re wasting someone’s time.  And I think this was a vicious cycle for the most part.  Someone would be late for rehearsal and the director would therefore not start rehearsal on time.  Which meant people started showing up later, knowing we never started on time.  I say, nip it in the bud.  Start rehearsal when it’s supposed to start.  If someone isn’t there and the cast they’ve bonded with is having to rehearse without them, they will feel like a jerk.  Feeling like a jerk is generally enough to improve one’s time management skills.  At least, I know it is for me. 

Now, I have to take a moment here for the most infuriating exercise in time wastage that occurred in this run.  Because it’s a perfect example of both the poor communication and the lack of respect for people’s time that plagued this production.

The Saturday before we opened we were on site (AKA in the parking lot) for rehearsal.  The last hour of the day was reserved for our Media Preview.  Which no one came to.  Which was related to our poor publicity performance.  Instead of then using this time to really work on some of the show’s problems (see: Act V in its entirety), the director wanted to take production stills. Production stills themselves aren’t a waste of time.  I actually like them (sometimes).  But we were going to have to take them using someone’s point-and-shoot camera while setting up moments from the show out of context.  This is staging production stills.  And it isn’t very authentic.  And it shows.

So because I like nice pictures, I volunteered my awesome boyfriend, The Photographer, to come later in the week and take them during dress rehearsal.  Which he did.  He has a professional camera and could shoot during rehearsal (so the moments were authentic) and without being disruptive (because a point-and-shoot doesn’t have the same powers of zoom as a pro camera).  The director said “Okay, we can do that” to my offer and then turned around and started staging production stills anyway.  To everyone’s great confusion.  And frustration. 

Eventually we sent our poor SM over to ask about this.  Apparently she wanted to take some pictures to put on the facebook event page before the show opened.  Which was perfectly reasonable.  If she’d told us.  The simple act of speaking that sentence to us would have saved a lot of animosity.  Until those pictures never appeared on facebook.  She never put them up.  And, of course, she never explained why not.  So it’s an hour of my life I could’ve spent rehearsing or doing other things.  It’s disrespectful.  And it makes me angry.

Good publicity requires a plan. Asking your actors to put up posters does not a plan make.  Production stills are also frequently used for publicity purposes.  None of ours were.  Because there was no publicity plan.  While this show was happening Lois and I were having a Twitter talk about theatre, publicity, and the internet.  Basically, we were lamenting that not everyone has caught on to the wonderful resources at their fingertips.  Of course, if you’re reading this, you probably have. 

Anyway, asking actors to put up posters is not a publicity plan.  It can be part of one, to be certain, and should be.  But that can’t be it.  And sending out press releases for a small production in a city full of big theatrical activity isn’t terribly effective either.  You have to get in there and get personal.  Make connections, submit to people’s listings directly, use your network.  And if you don’t have a network, find one!  In fact, this production was sponsored by people who have an online presence.  And they didn’t even publicize it on their own website.  I fail to comprehend this.

Also, publicity takes time.  Ours happened at the last minute.  Giving posters to the actors a week before the show opens doesn’t leave them with sufficient time to put them up (and I’m sure most of ours weren’t posted).  Rebecca Coleman is a Vancouver publicist who specializes in the arts.  Today she tweeted about how getting exposure is challenging (she was talking about a TV appearance for the cast of a play that it took her two months to get).  And this is from someone who knows what she’s doing. 

I guess what I learned here is that you should have a serious, viable plan for publicizing a show before you even cast it.  And that if you don’t know what you’re doing, it might be worth paying someone who does.  Our show cost less than $500 to put up.  They could’ve made bank on this with five performances (one was cancelled due to weather) and $10 tickets.  They made about $100 (we were glad they at least broke even).  Do the math in terms of attendance.  This is a result of poor publicity.

Shakespeare.  He knew his shit.  You.  Don’t.  It was actually another actor in the show who pointed out that we never really worked on the text of Twelfth Night.  And “Shakespeare is 90% text” (his wise words).  At which point I nearly had a heart attack because I realized he was right: we never looked at the text in rehearsal.  Wow.  Are we a bit arrogant to assume we could put up a good production of Shakespeare without ever really examining the words?  Because Shakespeare was a very generous playwright; he gave his actors everything in the words and in the structure of his verse.  So to not have looked at that was just, well, stupid.  I actually don’t know what to say about it.  It’s such a simple step that we so completely missed.  It’s straightforward.  And there were a few moments in the show that we did finally work on text in small groups during the last week.  They showed.  These were some of the clearest moments in the show.

And then…

Respect: what goes around comes around.  This ties into not working on the text (and pretty much every other aspect of the production).  We finally had a conversation as a cast in the final week (way too late) about speaking verse.  My character never spoke in verse and it had never occurred to me that there were people in the show who had no idea where to start.  And I only realized a few days before this conversation how many of my castmates had never done Shakespeare/verse before.  Again, WHAT?!?  How could we not have worked on this right at the start?

So when the director said something that was blatantly incorrect (something about breathing in the middle of a verse line…and we can fight about throwing the rules out the window and whatnot, but you have to at least know what they are before you can throw them out) I spoke up, politely.  And I explained why you aren’t actually supposed to breathe in mid-line (which I won’t go into here because, seriously, could this be longer?).  And she said, “No.”  To which I responded, “Well, that’s just what I learned at RADA.”  It sounds worse/ruder than it was.  My point was that this wasn’t me disagreeing with her, it was RADA, and that I wasn’t just making shit up.

She studied Shakespeare from an academic and intellectual standpoint, and she understands it very well.  Better than me, from that perspective.  I studied Shakespeare from a performance standpoint.  She should know more about his obscure references and whatnot than I do.  I should know more about speaking verse than she does.  Otherwise neither one of us did our homework.  It’s not a competition, it’s about different areas of study and knowledge.  This should be an asset to a production.

And she said, “Well, fuck RADA.” 

In my shock, I ignored her and continued my explanation to the cast.  I didn’t need to prove her wrong, I just felt it would be irresponsible and unfair to teach people doing Shakespeare for the first time things that are generally accepted as incorrect by people who have a lot of experience performing/teaching Shakespeare (not just RADA, but the RSC, the National, and every good book ever written on the subject of Shakespeare in performance).  The verse structure is there to help you; learn how to use it and ignore it at your peril. 

I was actually not terribly offended by her comment.  My castmates were more offended on my behalf because they felt it was disrespectful of my training and experiences.  Which it was, but I’m not so precious as to be outraged by her comment in this context.  She couldn’t handle being wrong.  I was more shocked that she would say it.  Because, I know, RADA is a kind of a self-important institution, “the man” if you will (and they know it), but they have a track record of success and are one of the most respected drama schools on the planet.  Who are you, director? (Or who am I, for that matter?)  It was very telling of the lack of respect for other people’s experiences and knowledge.

At that point, all bets were off.  I think that was when I stopped trying to help her by being nice and decided to help the cast instead by taking charge.  And if that makes me a jerk, fine.  I can live with that.  But it made our show better.  And I couldn’t have lived with the knowledge that I could’ve helped and didn’t.  I’m not the type to wash my hands of things.

Around the same time, one of the gentlemen in the show also more or less told her to shove it.  Though not in so many words.  She spent the whole month and a half prior to this outburst treating him like an idiot.  Her notes and direction to him were, frankly, rude and incredibly condescending.  She never found (and I’m not convinced she ever looked for) a way to help him understand what he was doing or saying.  Directing is about helping, isn’t it?  And he wasn’t a brilliant Shakespearean actor, it was his first time with the Bard!  But he was a good actor and a very smart one, too.  And he made stronger character choices than anyone else in the show and he committed to them fully.  But she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see past his troubles with the text.  The text we never worked on.  Finally, he got frustrated.  And he said to me one night, really sadly, “I feel like she just doesn’t see my talent.”  Which broke my heart.  Because he was absolutely right.  

Leadership is about more than a title.  It is generally accepted at the outset of anything that if your title is “director,” you’re in charge.  You’re the leader.  But history has shown that those who don’t use their power wisely are eventually overthrown, regardless of their titles.  In fairness, I think she just got swallowed up in trying to do too many things.  And being a leader fell by the wayside.  But we needed one.  Every project needs one.  Or several working together.  Which is more of what we ended up with in the end. 

When the traditional hierarchy broke down, I sort of became the director.  Because I was the first person to speak up.  And because my castmates respected my opinions.  Because I respected theirs.  And, you know, they listened to me because I listened to them.  And I was always willing to hear their ideas and to help them.  I wanted everyone in the show to be the best actor they possibly could be and to learn something in the process.  I think I helped to facilitate that.  And it brought out leadership qualities in them, too.  They started helping each other more and taking charge of the scenes they were in.  And the show got better.  It even became more fun.

I definitely stressed myself out more than I maybe should have in the process, but my heartburn was worth it for when they decided to make our Friday night post-show drinking cheers to me and to thank me for helping them and for taking charge.  I was also told I’d make a good director and to let them know if I’m ever directing anything.  I appreciated that, it’s all I needed.  I saw an opening, I felt like I could fill it.  So I did.  And it worked.  That’s all.  And the highest compliment you can be paid, I think, is to be respected by your peers. 

Generosity amongst actors breeds better theatre.  My stepping up caused others to do the same.  And this cemented the bonds we finally made as a cast.  This made us more generous on and off stage.  It made us playful.  As one actor who left the show (who is my new theatre best friend) put it, “This is not the show I left.  It was way better than I expected because you guys looked like you were having fun.  It’s called play, after all.” 

We started to discover things we hadn’t before.  And we were finally having fun.  We also started watching each other.  And acknowledging when people were doing really great work.  And asking each other for feedback.  Which was given generously and constructively.  We helped each other.  We were asking questions of each other, challenging each other in the right ways.  And one result was that I saw what a smart group of actors I was working with.  Another was that I was reminded that I, too, am a smart actress.

This sort of peer direction can be dangerous territory when there is a lack of trust and when people are being selfish.  It could have been mean or catty.  But in this case, it worked out really well. We all managed to set our egos aside and people were honest, constructive, and helpful.  To everyone.  It was an ensemble attitude that was really beautiful to see and that, ultimately, improved the show immeasurably.  I am sorry that it had to come at the cost of one person’s alienation, but we tried everything to make her a part of it and she refused us at every turn.  Still, this is something we, as a cast, did right.

Failure, no matter who is responsible, is collective.  We did wind up with a decent show (for an audience made up mainly of friends and family), but I think the production was, overall, a failure.  Another actress in the show really summed it up: “We, as a group of actors and characters, never really came together to tell a story.”  While the show turned out okay, I think this hits the nail on the head.  She also pointed out that it was ego was that derailed the show.  I think this is also true.  But what killed the show from an audience standpoint was the former, not the latter.  Whatever the reasons in the end, the failure to tell the story is on all of us.  We all have to take responsibility for our part in that. 

My complicity in it is that I let my character and my acting take a backseat to trying to solve all the other problems within the show.  It’s a tough call to make, which way I should’ve gone.  In the end, I think I made the right decision.  I was still good, but I could’ve done more.  I’m capable of more.  And this is unfortunate for me as an actress.  Since I have no ambition to be a director at this point, my future choices will be to take on projects that I know will make me a better actress.  This one made me better at a lot of things, but I don’t think acting was one of them.  

Finally…

Speak the fuck up.  I think this is the ultimate lesson to everyone who was part of this show.  And to anyone reading this.  If it’s falling apart, speak up.  If you have concerns, speak up.  If you think you can help, speak up.  If you think something’s great, speak up.  If you think change would be beneficial, speak up.   Whatever you think, speak up.  There is no guarantee that you’ll be heard.  But trust your instincts.  If you feel like something needs to be said, say it.  Chances are someone else is thinking the same thing.  Conversation helps all of us. 

Good theatre is about taking risks.  So take some.

So I guess that’s the story of this show…

Thanks again, everyone out there in internet-land, for your support.  It helped me a lot.  And you’re great! :)

And now it’s on to the next thing, with a parking lot tan,  several lessons learned, and a few new theatre friends.  As luck would have it, there are several “next things” simmering right now.  And it’s sunny out.  So I can’t do anything but smile…and move on.