Rehearsal is limitless options.
Its best idea wins.
The Rehearsal
Ten performers tell us how theyre preparing in the days before their big fall shows.
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Like many millennial artists, Owens is a multihyphenate.
The economy mandates, he says, that he sing, act, write, and do comedy.
You never know what the next passage is gonna be.
I think of the show as a dramaturgical companion piece to the upcoming Broadway production starring Audra McDonald.
Mama Rose is this gay icon.
But the music is so indelible to American culture.
I want to sing those songs in public.
We have three rehearsals.The first was to decide the keys well sing in.
Its really an almost indescribable process directing oneself.
The rehearsal process looks like play.
It looks like having fun.
It looks like a lot of repetition.
It looks like a lot of rigor.
I feel anxiety before I rehearse.
I have a physical and vocal warm-up by Liz Kaplan, the greatest voice teacher in the world.
That is the most religious part of my preshow ritual.
And then a lot of it really is relaxing.
Theres a very crude saying from my theatrical training at Steppenwolf, which is Dont blow your wad.
And I need to let the audience have the experience of the ups and downs.
And then Im actually in the controlled experience of all that Ive created and rehearsed from the outside.
I actually think I love rehearsal more than performance.
Rehearsal is limitless options.
Its, its best idea wins.
So you have to hope that you have a next night.
And the thing about theater is that its ephemeral.
So its a race toward the ideal execution.
If people linger after a show, then its really good.
If people linger, then its like they dont wanna shake off the experience just yet.
And thats one of my best nonverbal communicators that we have something here.
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