Andrew Beck Has A Moment: EMMA Blog

So here’s what excites me: Moments.

Fresh. Vivid. Hilarious. Shocking. Original.

Moments.

The chance of achieving perfection.

Making something out of thin air.

The ever present chance of that something being perfect.

It’s one of the reasons why I love Improv so much. You take nothing and create something in the flash of a neuron. However, with Improv sometimes what is created is good and sometimes it’s really, really bad…sometimes it makes sense…sometimes it doesn’t…sometimes it comes together and sometimes it falls apart.

Improv’s nature is that whatever “it” was is gone…forever…all of the moment’s flaws and all of it’s shockingly poignant or perfectly framed transcendence is lost forever. It’s why Improv is both a rush and entirely frustrating.

Not so with a script…that’s something different…a script in a rehearsal room…now we are all have a shared point of reference….a script, a rehearsal hall and some artists. Yes…that is the sweet spot. The ideas flow like Improv…but they are focused: “What does this moment need?” “How can I tell the story” “Okay, this made sense yesterday…but where are we going today…let’s just get rid of it.”

There’s still the thrill of watching a brain create…but there’s the focus of many brains attempting to create the same moment…artist’s searching, not just to create the moment, but how to create that “perfect” version of that moment…so the next moment makes more sense…so it makes the previous moment make more sense…and then figuring out how to create that moment over and over again.

Over the five weeks of Emma rehearsals that’s what our company is doing…striving to create perfect moments….how do we distill them? How do we heighten them? How do we use this moment to make the final moment make sense…to make it make more sense…to make it make the MOST sense to us…how does this moment help us to tell our perfect version of this Emma.

We will never get there. There is no perfect moment onstage, just as there is no perfect moment in life.  In theatre, we get to practice our attempt to make the best moment.

We get second chances…third chances…100 chances… to make sure that what we say and do matters and fits and is just what we want it to be.

And you know what?

We still make mistakes…we still get it wrong…we can have all these advantages…experience, brain power, talent, chemistry, knowledge, history, multiple chances…and it still can just end up wrong… to you…or to us….or to both.

But what if we get it right? What if we put together the “perfect” Emma on May 5^th? What if we transport 200 people to an attic in an old house and show them exactly what it’s like for five kids to put on a production of Emma?

That’d be pretty special moment right?

That’d be pretty perfect to me.

That’s what excites me about being a part of this production.

What if we get it just right?

-Andrew Beck
Resident Actor