Today I had my first rehearsal pretty much for anything (except maybe a board meeting) since 2002. It is for the first play in which I have been cast since 2002.
And I am thrilled.
Oh I have worked as an actor - or, at least, as a performer - in the last nine years, but it's been mostly off-the-cuff stuff: the barely-scripted Z Rock (in which I had no lines and basically no blocking anyway), the unscripted and live QVC hosting gig, and the MTV PSA I shot while reading off a cue card, requiring no rehearsal, only literacy.
Besides that, I have been a devoted attendee of Naked Angels' Tuesdays @ 9 cold reading series, a weekly event whose concept is completely built around the absence of rehearsal, allowing writers to hear their work read aloud by actors like me who have had no time to prepare.
In fact, I've favored the Tuesday night event, for which I am not paid, over doing little black box theater plays that no one attends because it feels like some delightful combination of class, playtime, and work, in front of a pretty big audience, every week.
But now I am in a play, a real play, a very short play, my first play in LA, a town not known for its theater scene not because it doesn't have one, but because it's hidden like many of its other intriguing and wonderful attractions.
I am in a short play with only three lines, with some of my Tuesdays @ 9 compadres and with only a couple of rehearsals to go in the next ten days before our two performances on December 14 and 15.
And I am thrilled.
If you are in LA, you can catch my three lines as part of the Slap and Tickle Holiday Show at the Lillian Theatre. $10 gets you a seat plus free drinks/snacks.