“Your place or mine?”
No further words are needed.
The text is sent.
After six months of meeting on Fridays, the arrangement has become a familiar routine.
Actress and Coach aren’t wasting any time.
They get right down to business.
The acting business, that is.
“Crunch Time” refers to the next seven weeks as the countdown to opening night at the National Hispanic Cultural Center looms.
Having agreed to take on the lead role in the stage adaptation of the screenplay that she wrote required real work and tremendous courage. With only very limited acting experience in high school, Marit plunges head first into the preparation for the emotionally charged role of “Clara,” the ill-fated ballerina in The White World.
The Process
The creation of an in depth and deeply personal history of “Clara Ann Thompson,” her experiences, likes, dislikes, schools, teachers, family members and relationships, launches the process of making her into an actual person. Pages and pages of notes are scribbled into a notebook; the minute details that birth a “fully realized” character.
Before beginning the rehearsals, the coach suggests the actress “take a moment to drop into her heart; to feel the words as they come from that space as opposed to just saying the lines.”
Though the first rehearsal is scheduled for February 6th, the dedicated artist has already committed all of her lines in the play to memory.
“I’m so proud of you.”
The coach beams at the actress who responds in her typical style with a shy smile and a simple, “thanks.”
