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Well it's been a crazy week.

Crazy crazy week.  Oh my sweet lord.  I have moved back into my apartment after being home with my family over winter break and jumped right into rehearsals for my first year thesis.  

Check it.

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This has meant six days of six or seven hour rehearsals.  In and of itself, this would not have been an awful schedule.  Exhausing, yes, but not awful.  However, when you add in that three of my five actors have ridiculous work schedules then yes, it becomes awful.  I work very hard to be the kind of person and director who takes into account that the people I work with have lives outside of the project at hand, mostly because it's a pet peeve of mine when others can't do that for me.  But nine times out of ten, this leads to Claire magically transforming into a welcome mat that gets tramped all over.  Ugh.  I am still searching for this happy medium in my life between my natural instinct to be understanding and the authoritative nature that I need as a director.  And let's be honest, I don't think I've figured this out yet.

For example - I have an actor who just got a job (in this job market as a college theatre major - YAY!) and he is training this week.  No problem, I can work around that.  But they won't let him have all of our tech and performance week off.  So now either I have to give him a day off during that week, which could potentially be disasterous from a practical standpoint and will definiately throw off any groove we as a cast are gearing up during tech, or asking him essentially to quit his job.

Thoughts?  Advice?  Ways to make me feel not like a horrible person?

BUT on a positive note - this cast is stellar.  Truly.  Crazy schedules aside, I really feel like I have cast this thing beautifully.  Our script is a new work that was written by a playwrighting masters student who is at school with us, and new work always has its own unique set of challenges and rewards and I feel like I have a cast that is overall ready to embrace the piece whole-heartedly and for that I am truly blessed.

We have a late night rehearsal tonight, so I will head off, but tomorrow there will be a post about all my classes this semester!