Who is crazy/kind/awesome enough to let a total stranger come in and photograph the process of taking a play from page to rehearsal to stage? The Honest Pint Theatre Company is. Over the last year they have been working long and hard to put on an uncut production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (that’s a whopping 4,000 lines of dialogue in case you were wondering), and I had the privilege of sitting in on parts of that journey. You, the wonderful TSS readers, now get to join in as well through three photo essays–two during rehearsals, and one of the first preview.
This particular collection is from an evening when the company rehearsed Ophelia’s madness scene (insert unprofessional but excited happy dance) and the play-within-a-play in a basement classroom of William Peace University. In the play, these two scenes take up a total of about twenty minutes; rehearsal lasted for three hours. Hamlet was handled with care and candor (and a surprising amount of humor) by the Honest Pint crew, all of whom were committed to being in the moment, and were ready to try anything. Without further ado (or should I say ‘much ado’), here is rehearsal number one!
Jeremy, fearless leader and director. One of the questions that kept getting asked during rehearsals was, “What does that mean?” Having that question repeatedly put to everyone with dialogue meant that there were very few throw-away lines, and that characters were more carefully and thoroughly thought out.
That’s all for now, folks! Check back in next week for a full-length, all-day, no-holds-barred rehearsal.
