Practice, practice, practice or more aptly rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals are going well for us. Leilani and I are enjoying the process of rehearsals with our director Alex Torres. He is the artistic leader of Bindlestiff Studios and has been instrumental in giving us the time to discover nuances of the characters and further refine the play. Alex hails from the Philippines and this "monk looking" photo of him leads us to believe we have chosen the right "one" to guide us. Last time we touched the script or played the characters was back in November 2007. That's a long time ago and as actors we need to retain the word and body "memories" again, to get connected to the people that we portray.In between the rehearsal we have several workshops that we'll be holding throughout the Bay Area as part of our residency. They include SEAYL, Oakland International High School, UC-Berkeley LASR (Laotian-Americans Student Representatives) and other opportunities to immerse ourselves with the community. This particular day we've scheduled to work with the SEAYL: Southeast Asian Young Leaders in Richmond, a program of the Asian Pacific Psychological Services. I can't wait to share our process and see what the young leaders come up with.
Richmond and the Bay Area is rich with many Lao people of many different ethnicities. We hope to get as many to attend our performance as much as possible. So far...it looks good as word is getting around. We look to find some community collaborations with traditional Lao dancers and musicians for this run to enhance the experience for us and our audiences.
