The Playhouse Blog: An Actor's Perspective

July 17, 2012

By Marc Kudisch

“Tartuffe” in Tartuffe

CHARACTER

Q: What is it?

A: A process

What I love about the process of the theatre is the learning along the way. That you can only know so much about the play, your character, and how you connect with your fellow actors day by day. Cause it's a process.

We are out of the rehearsal room and into the theatre. Tech time. Tech....I know actors who say tech rehearsal is their favorite time in the process. I think they are on crack.

More often than not, the process comes screeching to a halt for all the technical demands, and on Broadway you can lose your show for weeks in this time. Not with Tartuffe, however. Which is really nice for a change. Minimal effects, maximum scene work, and suddenly tech only enhances our understanding of what we are doing. And new stimuli: costumes, wigs, props, set, lights, sound; all these little extras add bits of new information that lead to those small (or great) "Aha!" moments.

The building of character....one "aha" at a time......