Divine Sister Tech Begins!

So I have been working on this play at StageWest called "The Divine Sister".  We began working on the show at the beginning of May and it has been quite the learning experience for me.  I have been working as an assistant director for Deena Conley, who is, obviously, directing the show.  I have no experience with directing so to say that she has taught me a thing or two would be an understatement. First of all, the concept of blocking has always been scary to me, where do you begin? Dr. Conley loves to block and then reblock.  It's been great because she showed me how to first lay down a "ground plan', so to speak, and then from that let the actors play until we find something that is comfortable.  Playing in rehearsal has been helpful in making this show fun. Divine Sister is a farce so it isn't supposed to be realistic.  In giving the actors time to play with there characters we have been able to create a fun show that is still what is written in the script, but has a lot of our own added...flare.  This week we start our tech rehearsals.  We had our first one last night and it went really smooth.  I am excited because while I am still assisting Dr. Conley with notes, I am also going to be working on the backstage crew and the costume crew, which are also things that I have never done before.  We have a lot of quick changes for costumes so I am trying to help in every way that I can so that the actors don't get stressed out.  Learning how backstage works is fun, and I kinda really like it.  In short, I figure if I am going to be there I might as well learn as much as I can and help out as much as possible.  Tonight we add wigs, make-up and full costumes, I'm excited to see how it looks!