With Piccolo Spoleto starting next week, PURE Theatre is getting ready to revive their successful show from last year, Cloud Tectonics. That’s right. Getting ready. The play doesn’t open until June 3 but still, shouldn’t PURE be well into rehearsals by now?
Sure, PURE is a highly professional theatre company with some fine actors on its roster, but they haven’t done this play for a year. “It’s been in our subconscious for a while,” says Rodney Lee Rogers, who plays Anibal de la Luna in the play. But can his subconscious remember his lines for him?
“There are practical reasons why we’ve only just started,” Rogers explains. ”Director May Adrales is from New York. The first time we did this play, we rehearsed it up there at the Public Theatre. She may not be able to come down this year.”
“The director’s very busy,” adds Sharon Graci, who plays Celestina del Sol . Fair enough. The play’s simple to produce and the director doesn’t necessarily have to be there. But there’s another element that some rehearsal might help with. Cloud Tectonics has lost one of its actors from last year, Matt Bivins. Apparently he’ll be in Chicago – or packing his bags – by the time the show opens. PURE ensemble member David Mandel will take his place in the production.
Despite the absent director and the cast change, Graci remains confident. “We’ve known for a year that we’d go back to it,” she says, “and I still remember my monologues. I haven’t ‘released’ them. Now we’ve gone back to the text and started again. The answers lie in reconnecting with the beginning of the rehearsal process, going back to the script and looking at the relationships between the characters. We’re enjoying it. Being an actor rocks.”
Cloud Tectonics runs through June 7 at the Circular Congregational Church’s Lance Hall.
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