Blocking #1

This morning we began blocking. Different directors do this different ways. I have the actors just sit down and I go line-by-line where they enter, exit, and stand. Very tedious work, but I've found that to be the best way for me to do it. After that, we "get it up on it's feet"-- we have the actors do the blocking on the stage. This lets us know that they wrote it down correctly to begin with (so they can learn their blocking along with their lines)-- but it also lets me see if I made any mistakes in what I told them to do. Perhaps I have someone exiting the stage in the same place someone else is entering. That would be what we call a "traffic jam." That's the kind of thing we fix during blocking rehearsals.
I also found a couple places where I needed to change who delivers a particular line. It's not because the actor wasn't good at it-- it's usually because I have them already doing something else and they can't make it around backstage in time to make the entrance for the next line.
We went through only the first half of the show. No need to overwhelm them. Our actors are professionals and know how to prepare their roles for performance. They not only have to learn their lines, they need to learn their blocking, choreography (dance steps) and songs. And on top of all that, they're having to develop different voices for different parts of the show. They may be a French trader in one part and an American Indian in another-- or a carnival barker. There's an awful lot for an actor to do to prepare a show for an audience!
We'll be blocking the last half of the show tomorrow.