Jennifer Carroll is a 21 year old actor and writer. She first began writing for the Uxbridge Cosmos in 2007 when she had the opportunity to share her experiences as a Canadian ambassador for an international conference for women in Dubai. At the beginning of 2008, she moved to Ireland to pursue a career in theatre and film. Far From Home is her monthly account on living and working in Dublin.
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Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!
We've worked for so long to find ourselves here.
Two years have seen me as producer. Two years have seen me with budgets to balance, schedules to organize, and staff to coordinate. Inside months of international conference calls and countless sleepless nights, I wondered if there was any theatre left buried under all my administrative work. Now finally, The Organic Theatre Collective has started to stretch its creative legs and stepped into rehearsals.
Like a gasp of fresh air, a script fell into my hands. With the smooth touch of unblemished paper and the words laid out in front of me, I could feel the tediousness of the past two years dissolve and leave me with story and character in hand. Like a timid child I stepped into rehearsals, nearly giddy with the thought of acting, all the preparation laid out behind me, the titillating uncertainty laid out in front. Shaky legs walk me through each day, as I find myself surprisingly nervous. When was the last time I was on stage? I feel like it was forever ago. There are a lot of things that are like riding a bike, but standing on a platform pretending to be someone you are not… nothing like a bicycle.
So I wake up each morning with a knot in my stomach, mind racing and tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. And I love it. I haven't been so uncomfortable since theatre school, and the apprehension is sensational. I feel my fingers tingle when I hit on the right emotion, my breath catch when I hear a character's voice emerge, my ears ring when I find what I'm fighting for. I can feel my shakiness steadying day by day and my nervousness iron itself out into something smoother, stronger.
Rehearsals are not completely what I thought they would be. Perhaps I romanticized them somewhere within those hundreds of producing hours that haunted me up until now. Some days are far more ordinary than I imagined, and not every moment in each day is accompanied with an epiphany. In fact, most days are nearly pedestrian in their ordinariness. But there's a decadence in that, in finding that comfortable consistency in doing this day by day, in being an actor every day when I wake up.
So as I wake up each day, my legs shake a little less, my stomach's knot is a little looser, and my mind seems calmer. I'm a little more eager as I step into the tiny studio each morning, and as I warm up my voice and body, my imagination pushes my ambitions further for what this show can be. I have three amazing actors to play with and against, and a director who daily finds his own legs.
I find myself here, and I'm trying desperately not to look forward, because I know this moment won't last forever, and I want to stay in it as long as I can.
