Editor’s Note: The Collegiate is following the “Incorruptibles” cast from auditions to opening night to take readers behind the scenes and document what it takes to put on a college theater production.
For the last couple weeks, the cast of the GRCC Players’ upcoming production “Incorruptibles” have been working hard at rehearsals.
During the first and second week of practices, the cast blocked and retraced their movements.
In the process of blocking, the director, Tom Kaechele, moved the cast around while the actors made notes in their scripts before moving to the next place.
The goal for these practices was to work on the lines and where they were to move and not focus on the characters.
Kaechele would give the cast tips to help them memorize their lines and help figure out moving kinks to make the motions more fluid.
At the end of the night, the cast created a group chat to communicate using the app Telegram.
Even though everything was put away and everyone was ready to go, the cast ended up staying a bit later to talk and get to know each other.
By the third week, there were a couple more props and they started to crank out sections of the production and start to create the personalities of their characters.
Tyrell Jackson-Streets, who plays Jack, likes Kaechele’s process so far.
“Honestly, I’m liking it. It’s a different process because I’ve worked with a couple of productions and shows and this process is a little bit quicker,” said Jackson-Streets. “This is my first time ever working with Tom and I honestly feel honored to work with Tom. I’m like what is his process? Why does he do it? Why is he ‘The Great Tom’?”
Each day the cast worked through different acts of the production and by the end of each one Kaechele would give his criticisms and they would start again.
Some run-throughs would have goals like, taking off 10 mins of the time or giving more energy.
The cast is starting to get more comfortable around each other and create more of their characters based off of feelings and the environment that they all created together.
Jackson-Streets is finding that he has to dig deeper into a side he usually doesn’t show to create new ways to express his character.
“It’s weird because Jack is kind of a a**hole, but I’m kind of a caring person but I do have that side of me as well so I’m playing with a different side of myself,” said Jackson-Streets. “Jack is also always under stress so it’s really weird because he’s funny but he’s straightforward but he’s stressed so it’s like a weird combination of a lot of things.”
Ailani Mata, who plays Marie, found that her character needed an attitude to give her more personality.
“At first I thought of it as ‘oh she’s in love with this dude and he’s very like cuckoo, but after going through it a while she’s just sick of it’ so I’m like I’m just going to put attitude and stuff into it,” Mata said. “Once I got everything, the context and everything, it was more ‘ oh yeah’ cause at auditions I was like ‘I don’t know who this is’.”
At the end of rehearsal on Feb. 16, the whole cast went out to dinner at Applebees and created stronger bonds.
Asher DeYoung, who plays Olf, was able to spend a lot of time with fellow actors from the start which was a great bonding experience… So, how are the rehearsals going?
“Good, they’re awesome people,” Deyoung said. “I had the opportunity to go to both days of auditions so I kind of got to meet everyone at auditions so before the read-through day I had at least met people a little bit, and I know people from class, and also the new people.”
