What looks absolutely fabulous in rehearsal can fall flat in front of an audience. The audience dictates what you do or don't change.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I feel that once you go into rehearsal, you need to focus on the show in the room.
It's one of the things that looks good written down, but the reality is that you think about the pieces you're doing and try to bear in mind everyone in the audience.
When you perform in front of an audience after only two days of rehearsal, you're flying by the seat of your pants - particularly when they're rewriting the show right up to the moment the camera goes on.
Nowadays, performers worry too much about how they look. They're not concerned about what they're really saying to their audience.
As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating.
There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.
Why should we change onstage? We're not trying to be something big and fancy, it's just us, doing what we do, we'd like to keep it that way.
Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out.
The wonderful thing about theater as an art form is it's a purely empirical art form. It's all about what works. And every show, every production, is created anew right from the moment you go into the rehearsal hall.
The rehearsal is where it all happens for an actor.