We asked DSF’s Lysander, Jamal Douglas, to share his thoughts on the third week of rehearsals for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Jamal performs at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and graduated from Arcadia University.
It has been such a pleasure and a gift working with this team of artists. We’re three weeks into the rehearsal process and as our show develops, we continue to make new discoveries that advance the work.
This week in the rehearsal process our focus was “detailing and deepening.” I love this part because after we’ve set the blocking and established the vision for the piece as a whole, we go back and get even more specific, further personalizing the piece. For me, this meant paying closer attention to the text and different ways I could use the language to enrich action and feeling. Shakespeare uses beautiful words to tell his stories and sometimes they can be a mouthful, but adding detail to our use of those words adds color, specificity, and insight to the state of the characters.
Now we’re only one week from tech rehearsals where all the elements to create this show will come together. I am definitely looking forward to where we’ll go from here!
