The Half-Time Report

Yesterday marked the official half-way point of my apprenticeship at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. As Week 7 of 12 begins, we are in full throttle of the summer season. With two shows rehearsing and three shows in performance, there isn’t much down time here at BTF. It’s hard to believe that one week from today we start our preview performances for Babes in Arms!

Thankfully, the apprentices had Sunday off which was our first real day off in about two weeks. I enjoyed the day with my boyfriend Chris who came to visit for the weekend, spending most of the day in the nearby town of Pittsfield where we ate some really good food and saw a really good movie (Inception, anyone?) On Saturday evening we saw an amazing production of Richard III at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA (about 10 minutes away), which was an absolute inspiration. There is just nothing like good theatre!

The sheer amount of (free) theatre that I am being exposed to this summer continues to be such a great asset to my education. It’s amazing what a solid performance by a gifted actor can teach you if you know what to look for. So many concepts and principles that I’ve learned in the last two years of my MFA training are made clearer by watching someone else flesh them out. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s usually far easier to recognize technique (either good or bad) in someone else than in myself.

But watching is what I do when I’m not busy, which is hardly ever. Most of my training here is hands-on and requires my full mental and physical energy. Dance rehearsals are getting longer, and the days are getting tougher. With class and rehearsals all day and various responsibilities in the evening, I find myself sleeping very well at night. :)

As I look toward these last six weeks, there is still much I want to accomplish. There are still a couple of books and many plays I’d like to read, several places I’d like to go, and a few people I’d like to get to know. I also have a lot of lines left to memorize because I found out yesterday that I’ve been assigned to understudy one of the principle characters in Babes in Arms. Then there’s my upcoming thesis lurking in the background, always beckoning me to more research. And if I can just get a few kinks worked out in my own self-discipline, I’ll be perfect! ;) I’m one of those people who have great intentions but horrible follow-through, so we’ll see how many of those things I’ll actually achieve.

In a lot of ways the past six weeks have gone by incredibly fast. In other ways it feels like forever. There are ups and downs to any apprenticeship, but I know that I’ll always cherish this time that I have spent at BTF. My ultimate goal (interestingly both on stage and off) is to make the most of each day, being fully present in the moment. Not living in the future, and not in the past, but in the now.