It must be Fate

This quarter I am doing a devised work under the direction of Rinde Eckert. Someone had the brilliant idea to make us audition during our last week of classes. So on top of all the reading, projects and grading, I had to focus on getting someone to like me and want to work with me.

We auditioned on a Wednesday, had callbacks on Thursday and once the cast list went up, we were called for a short "rehearsal" on Friday night. This was kind of a rehearsal, but more of a lecture. After introductions and a presentation from the scenic and lighting designer, Rinde basically talk at us for 2 hours. I did appreciate him saying that he needed to gain our trust with this project as he gets it out of his brain and into our hands. I hoped that came sooner than later.

The play is called Fate and Spinoza and it deals with optics and philosophy. Mathematics and human relations. Our buddy Rinde was slated to play David Spinoza Cornell (a combination of David Hume and Baruch Spinoza) and the rest of the company play his Fates, as well as the rest of the people around him.

All I kept thinking at first was, "oh great, I get to be a puppet! I have no idea what is going on and just have to do things based on the musings of this Pulitzer Prize nominated guy. Fantastic." I eventually calmed down and realized that I liked not knowing what my roles would be. I was very content just flowing with the wind and enjoyed just playing.

At rehearsal on Thursday he called just the women. We did a very cool exercise where we had to write about a girl at 5 years old sitting on her stoop. A short paragraph that explained what she was wearing and what she was looking at. We then moved on to 10 years old, 15, 20, 30 and then 45. By this time she had a name. Rinde mentioned that our woman was standing outside of a hotel with another woman and asked who the other woman was, how old she was and what they were waiting for.

With this information we became the characters and then interviewed each other. Fascinating. After another short exercise, we finally read parts of the script. Rinde did not read Spinoza, but we each took turns reading him and the other roles -- male and female.

During one of his discussions he slipped in that Spinoza was now a woman. If you took a breath you would have missed it. A few moments later he asked to see me after rehearsal. Once all the actors left the room, he stared straight ahead with me sitting next to him. He mentioned the name April Spinoza and said that I would play her. I was flabbergasted. And that doesn't happen too much.