Written by Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven as part of her ‘What’s my #vision’ series.
September 19, 2016
The past two weeks have been very challenging for me. And I’ve never been happier!
We started rehearsals for ‘The Bakelite Masterpiece’ on Tuesday, September 6. Which means, I’m in a rehearsal room again. My happy place. My place of blissful challenges.
Since last November I’ve been preparing for this play in one way or another. Whether it’s been through the work of co-producing the project as Artistic Director of WAM Theatre – raising the money, casting the play, working out the contracts, and more – or as the Director of the play and doing all that’s connected with preparing to be in the room with the actors and designers – the research, the design conversations, the script analysis, and on and on and on.
Then, finally, rehearsals start and now, the blissful challenges truly begin!
It hasn’t always been bliss for me to be in the rehearsal room as the Director. I still remember my first assistant directing experience, in Boston, as Ed Hall’s assistant for a show at the Huntington. I had to leave rehearsal early the second day due to anxiety. I was so nervous to be there that my whole system freaked out.
I also remember directing my Master’s Thesis project at Emerson College and having to spend the entire day preparing myself for my two hours of evening rehearsal- and by preparing I mean meditation, relaxing, working out, trying to calm my body and mind in order to lead the room with confidence in the evening.
I now realize that being a director was (and is) so important to me, so essential to who I am and want to be, that the opportunity to do so came with loads of vulnerability and fear. I wanted so badly to do this with my life and so badly to do it well, that the pressure on I put on myself was enormous. So much so that I had lots of anxiety and had to have some therapy to develop strategies to deal with it.
Which I did, thanks to an incredible therapist. Continually implementing those strategies in my daily life, many of which revolve around living mindfully, remain at the core of my ability to be in the room with delight rather than anxiety.
I also spent the last eight years working really, really hard to become good at directing. All the experiences I’ve had assistant directing, and then directing work at WAM and elsewhere, and all the training opportunities I’ve had, through the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and the Stratford Festival in Canada in particular, have resulted in me feeling at ease and energized in a rehearsal room.
The other night, over dinner, I said to my husband that being in the room now, during ‘The Bakelite Masterpiece’ is the most excited, competent, and comfortable I’ve felt as a director yet.
That is certainly the result of all that hard work, on my craft and myself, and my connection to this play in particular due to its resonance with my life as the daughter of Dutch immigrants, and all the preparation I’ve done to be in this rehearsal room, BUT it’s also because I’m in the room with these incredible actors, David Adkins and Corinna May. They both bring so much into the rehearsal room, are incredibly talented and experienced and are as in love with the rehearsal process as I am. Together, we are all diving deep into the challenges of this play and enjoying every second of those blissful challenges.
It’s an incredible feeling to have the opportunity to do what I love every day for three weeks. Some people never get that chance. It is flying by so I’m working hard to enjoy each second of being in that rehearsal room at the Unicorn Theatre, bringing this story to life with such talented artists.
And when we hand this story over to our audiences on Opening Night on October 1 (which is nearly sold out by the way- woot!), I’ll start dreaming of the next time I get the blissful challenge of being in a rehearsal room. I can’t wait.
[button link=”https://tickets.thecolonialtheatre.org/TheatreManager/1/login&event=0″ newwindow=”yes”] Buy Tickets to The Bakelite Masterpiece[/button]