Sighing a Creative Breath: Working on Scenes from “3 Days of Rain” by Richard Greenberg
A screenshot from the performance of “3 Days of Rain” with scene partner Eileen Sugameli
Back in July/August of this year, I got cast to be one of the actors in Karen Kohlhaas’s directing class. I was working with director Seenae Yi, and on two scenes from the play “3 Days of Rain” by Richard Greenberg. And, wow, what a great creative experience!
First of all, I recommend any up-and-coming actor to participate as one of the actors in a directing class or workshop if they get the chance. The pressure comes off of you and all you really need to do is apply your technique and be flexible and open to everything the director tells you – it’s about them and their learning, so you owe it to them to try any acting choices they ask you. It opens your mind and forces you to try new things, whether you agree with the choices or not. And that’s a good thing!
I got cast in a gender-bent role: the role of Walker.
I’m lucky because it was a role of such depth and challenge. This role also relied heavily on physicality to really define Walker’s frantic way of thinking and processing in the world. All of a sudden, it was more important to decide the moments of de-escalation rather than the moments of escalation. When were the moments that Walker stopped pacing? In what moments does Walker really listen to what’s being said to him? What realizations really hit him and what realizations just bounced off him? All of these were important to the character work. It was such a privilege to delve this deeply into the material, especially since I don’t usually play the frantic roles. I love doing new rolls and implementing different actor tools.
The director, Seenae Yi, and my scene partner, Eileen Sugameli, were both fantastic to work with.
Seenae gave great direction, but also gave lots of positive reinforcement for the things we did well. Eileen was also a generous and responsive scene partner and I’m so glad that I got to work with both of them.
Overall, I enjoyed this experience and I’m so glad I got to do it! See the video below :)
xx Selma