A STEADY RAIN - blog #2

So here’s a quiz for you:

In the last 72 hours, Joe Kremer has:

A) Drank heavily

B) Visited deep dark areas of his mind and soul

C) Sat in a room memorizing lines for 7 hours straight

D) Called for line 196,524 times

E) All of the above

If you chose E, you’re correct.

It may seem crazy but all of the items I mentioned above are absolutely necessary.

But I’m sure right now you’re asking me, “Hey Joe, if you’re spending 7 hours memorizing, why are you calling for line 196,524 times?”  The answer to that is very simple, I have stage fright.

In case you don’t know, “calling for line” is when you’re rehearsing a scene and you say to the wonderful stage manager, “line?” When you do that, the wonderful stage manager, who has the script in front of them, says the first part of the line to you, you then say the rest of the line, and then you continue on with the scene. But here’s the thing with me: When I’m in my tiny little office at home, I can have a scene DOWN COLD…and I mean like, know it forwards and backwards. As soon as I have to do it in front of someone such as Anthony (our fearless leader) or Amy (our amazing stage manager), it goes RIGHT OUT OF MY HEAD. So, I just keep “calling for line” and we do it over and over and over, no matter how annoyed my awesome fellow actor (Chris) gets. And believe me, he has every right to be annoyed. I swear, you’d rather go over to dinner at Jeffrey Dahmer’s house instead of listening to me say the word “line” 196,254 times. But the good news is that once I go through a scene all the way in front of someone, it just gets better from there. It’s always that first step that’s always the hardest. But isn’t that the case for most of life’s challenges?