griot productions presents:

griot productions' inaugural show, my directorial debut at home, earl lovelace's jestina's calypso rehearsing since right after carnival; featuring louanna martin, nickolai salcedo, darin gibson, mandisa granderson, marvin dowridge, tracey lucas, and lady griot sheself isoke edwards-najeeullah, musical director errol ince, all managed by the lovely tonya evans.
terrifying. at least, for me. plus, i never good at writing an experience during, can only ever disseminate after, all of which is to say i sorry i only now starting to blog this process, i meant to from jump but my brain doh wuk so, plus, i should probably apologise in advance for bringing you into a 1st-time attempt to blog an experience-in-progress cause i might be on shit. so! 2weeks out (less!) from gala opening, music now going in this week way way way much way too much later than i wanted, so you know is stress with that. 1st music rehearsal plus photographer coming to take headshots and a couple group shots on a day when i trying to get my phone fixed right quick before working with lilliput youths a couple hours before starting griot rehearsal, which, as i mentioned, is stress. we already had 1st media, the other day gayelle (the channel) shot rehearsal footage and interviewed the production team sweaty straight out said rehearsal; we were so greasy they had to reshoot production interview. sigh. we have an actor with a fuck-up knee who cyah do tings and also miss rehearsal for being sicky, which further fucking me up and causing me more stress; perhaps not as much as she but she knew her knee buss, while griot have multiple career-beginnings, much borrowed $, multiple futures, multiple enterprises, riding on this. our lead has only ever acted once before, this very carnival, and didn't have to even approach the range of emotions i demanding of her right now, but i convinced she's the one to play this character. our "toto" only available 3nights a week, 1 of which nobody else available so we only have him in rehearsal with us saturdays+sundays and he always playing catch-up. oh, and we had to replace the the hardest-to-cast actor. plus the venue (uwi, gordon street?) is an arena stage, which makes a set virtually impossible for audience sightlines on all 4sides when we must signify at least 2 clear playing areas (bedroom+road, never the twain shall meet) which really want 2-storey-configuration...why we set ourselves so many challenges at once, on a 1st show, beyond me...you believe we was studying masks at one point too! thank god i watch the time and let that layer go early enough...
meanwhile my cast keeping me laughing, extemporising songs about how ugly jestina is, new shit every rehearsal and they funny as hell- somebody sponsor a recording of the jestina sessions nah...
we in it now, it thick and pressure on and we have something to prove, mentors and playwright coming to rehearsals probably end of this week, tech next week...
april 17+18, 2010; griot's debut, jestina's calypso...stay tuned, freakout-in-process...

walk good.
[disclaimer: a version of this post also over @ my blog sweet trini's urban folk tales]