I had the pleasure of attending a private table reading of FAITH – a newly titled version of a play that Michael has been working on for years now. We did a staged reading of it in 2005 under the title “How Do You Sleep at Night?” – but the play has also been presented under the title “Night & Day.”
A first reading of a new draft is an alternately exhilarating and frustrating experience as a director. In one way, it is the first glance at an embodied version of these characters. It’s the first time the spaces and holes in your imagination get filled with the nuances and choices of an actor.
On the other hand since they are generally cold readings – it can leave you wanting to investigate or shape moments that you won’t come back to for some time. In some cases, a moment may never return in a future draft – and an unrealized zygote of an idea may get mistaken for a weak moment in the script.
These moments get minimized when you work with a pool of actors already familiar with the style of your young playwright – which Imperfect People is lucky enough to enjoy.
I hope we get the chance to work on this script again soon. In the meantime, we’ve got other scripts to dust off and see what’s there. More soon.