Ultima – The Actorvist

Weeellllllll, that’s a whole other story!

I have always wanted to take swing dancing lessons. If I could pick a time to live in other than this one, the Swing Era would have totally been my bag! All these amazing dances to shake a leg to? Not to mention the kick ass music as well. Way, way better than most of what’s out there today.

It turns out that I get to dance a couple of 8 counts with the wonderful Laura Benitez. We got to work on a little sumpin’ sumpin’ during today’s rehearsal. Laura taught me some of the basics of swing and we tried to work on a routine that would be appropriate for the scene. Okay, so the scene is as follows: It’s near the end of Act 1 and Ultima and Tony are trying to save his Uncle Lucas. Lucas had a curse placed on him, and in order to save him, Tony’s spirit goes to a place that’s supposed to be purgatory. While in purgartory, Tony sees his brother, Andrew (Me) and I am dancing with a prostitute who hopefully will have a death mask on or will be represented as another form of El Muerte. At first we’re a little slinky, but when I see her for what she is, I beg to be saved. During our dance, I have a conversation with Tony and I try to escape from her grasp. Do I get away? You’ll have to see the show to find out. And we are just one little piece of this scene.

For tonight’s rehearsal, we had no music to work with, so we are kind of anxious about the song selection. It’s still unclear what we’ll be dancing to. In addition to that small problem, our Tony wasn’t in attendance tonight, so we couldn’t really set the dialogue to the routine either.

I have to admit it was quite the challenge to perform a new routine and deliver lines in a one sided conversation at the same time. After running the scene, Laura and I went to work in the hallways to try and solidify what we’ve got so far. I give it two thumbs up! This scene is going to be pretty intense if we pull it off.

The rehearsals for the show are going swimmingly! Most of Act 1 is staged and we are just building momentum. I can’t wait for the day when I can direct my own shows. Watching people like Katie O’Bryon and Elisa Alvarado adjust a scene with actors is so fascinating to me. Helping to create little moments within the scenes is a difficult job, but they make it seem so effortless and they include the actors when working the kinks out.

Elisa works with Ultima and the Marez familia

Tonight’s rehearsal was just me and the two that play my parents, Jay Vera and Melinna Bobadilla. While there were a lot of laughs, we quickly worked through one of the last scenes in Act 1, and talked through some of the counterintuitive moments that we were coming up against. One of the first things that we needed to address was that the size of the stage didn’t feel proportionate to the home setting. In normal circumstances, the solution would be to just move things around. Easy Peasy! Unfortunately, thanks to working on a raked stage, moving a set piece designed to stand on a slanted plain won’t stand the same way on a flat surface.

This is what the empty stage would look like. The Mexican Heritage Theatre is, from my understanding, HUGE! I get giddy just thinking about it. It is said to have incredible wing space and decent fly space. That’s a luxury that not many theatres have. But back to the work. After making some repositioning decisions, we charged into the scene. Our actor playing Young Tony, Lalo Lopez, was unavailable this evening, but it was a great challenge to try and feel out something for him for the scene. I don’t mean that in a mean or snarky way. I truly did enjoy the challenge of using sense memory to try and put some emotional weight in the lines while not having a partner to work off of during some of the scene sections. That in turn, gives something for the other actors to work with as well.

We worked all over the scene, and I was startled with the alarm went off saying that rehearsal time is over. I really wanted to at least run the ending of the scene and the exit at least one more time for the traffic pattern and for piece of mind knowing that I have it stuck in my noggin. Alas, with rehearsal over, we were dismissed. So after saying goodbyes and whatnot, I bounded out into the chilly night air with a lightness in my feet.

Tomorrow night is a stage combat or stage fighting workshop. Woo to the hoo! I am wicked excited for it. I love fight workshops! Love them. Of course, I’ve only taken the one with the karate teacher guy for West Side Story. That was awesome!!! Of course it didn’t hurt that I had the amazing Tony Dicorti as my fight partner. I am wondering how this is going to turn out. Only because the way I interpreted the script, there wasn’t a scene in it that called for much fighting. Maybe some shoving, but I don’t recall any fighting.

Until tomorrow…