Pratima's Ponderings

As irritatingly artsy as it may sound, I like to think that people exist equipped with their own personal ball of yarn in their chest. As everyone gets older, their yarn gets more and more tangled as they discover the complexities of their emotions. When you get upset, anxious or sad, your chest tightens because your yarn is so tangled, your body can barely handle it. Strangely enough, the same thing happens when you’re excited or happy.

It’s about that time of the theater season when my yarn remains tangled until bows of closing night. But for this show, I think it’s more out of excitement than of nervousness or fear. I’m thrilled to be able to share our little Into the Woods world with everyone.

On Friday evening, we got to give the community a quick glimpse into our world. We performed the Act One opening for trustees and faculty members in lieu of the usual chorus or improv performances. Every cast member was completely dedicated and in tune with the performance: everyone exhibited full commitment to his or her character; we were calm and collected backstage; and, most importantly, everyone had fun.

During warm-ups, we do an exercise where we hold our arms and attempt to physically put a feeling of palpable joy in our bodies. Which sounds completely ludicrous, yes, but it works. It works because when you go to find that joy, you’re allowing yourself to preview the feeling you get after a performance, and savor it for a moment to remind yourself of what you’re working towards. Because I believe that everything we do is in pursuit of joy. We want to be able to feel the yarn in our chests stretch so tight that it feels like it will burst out of your body. And sometimes it does, and you can’t help but smile for days afterward. All those hours of rehearsal in and out of the theater all lead up to that euphoric moment when you reap the joy because you refused to give up. The joy of success, the remnants of hard work. That’s what we’re working towards, people! Let’s come through for everyone, let’s come through for ourselves. Let’s come through for joy.

Until next time, this is Pratima, and these have been my ponderings.  

Pratima's Ponderings

I love podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts is “Radio Lab”, which releases weekly hour-long episodes featuring stories that revolve around a central theme or topic. This week’s episode focused on a theory the hosts composed of the “black box”. This refers to a situation where the beginning and end are apparent but what happens in between is unclear. For example, the thought process of a patient who undergoes surgery and has been anesthetized is discussed. The patient remembers “going under”, lying on the table ready to be cut open and repaired and waking up in a hospital room, connected to a myriad of beeping machines with no knowledge of what had inevitably occurred during surgery. Strangely enough, this made me think of the process we experience when preparing for a play here.

On the outside, you’re completely blind to exactly how much work goes into a play here. You’re unable to comprehend the complexity of the rehearsal procedure until you’ve experienced it firsthand. Even the most detailed accounts of the work that a play requires is still not an accurate summation. The middle is ambiguous, furnishing Berkshire Theater with our very own “black box” – a unique kind of Black Box Theater.

This week, we had out Act II line run, which was both amazing and anxiety inducing. As of this Thursday, we open in three weeks. It’s incredible to think that everything we have been doing up to this point, memorizing lines and working on the set, is leading up to a palpable goal: the performance. As the pre-tech week nerves start to kick in, however, it seems that our cast only becomes more tight-knit and supportive. Everyone is helping each other run lines and songs instead of just working on their own parts. Our run-through on Friday helped everyone realize the extent of Into the Woods’ potential, which wouldn’t be plausible without the love that everyone has for the process. I have enormous faith this cast (myself included) that we will all come through and put on an A-plus performance. After all, the mystery of the “black box” loses its intrigue if the end product is not ceaselessly fascinating enough to make you wonder how it all exactly happened. Let’s keep them on their toes, friends.

Until next time, this is Pratima, and these have been my ponderings.   

Hot minutes! Mini-Interview with cast member Merit Glover

Pratima's Ponderings First Saturday Set Build

This past Saturday, we had the first set build of the season. The concept for the set is to take place inside a child's bedroom in this case the child is Little Red Riding Hood. On Saturday we started by building the basic structures for her bedroom walls, including the window. It's been amazing to see how Dom has taken Mr. Howard's initial vision and together they've formed a different twist on Into The Woods. Although there's still a lot left to build the set idea seems much more palpable with a few of these pieces finished. At this point, the play feels like a quilt being made. Every cast and crew member is working hard on their individual patches: running lines, practicing music, doing tech jobs and rehearsing blocking outside of scheduled rehearsal time. The set feels like the stitchery that puts all the patches together to make this beautiful quilt. It's been a cold winter so I cannot wait to see what our quilt looks like!

Until next time this is Pratima and these have been my Ponderings. . . 


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Weekly Walkthrough with Henry. Having just returned from the Holiday Break we had our first line run of the entire first Act of the play!