I cannot tell you how happy I am to be sitting around the table with this amazing group of people. I’m still a relative newcomer to the world of paid professional theater and I don’t often find myself in shows where we have the luxury of table-work sessions before we get on our feet. Table-work is a fairly unimaginative term for a very imagination-centered activity. As a whole ensemble we sit around and go through the script with the scrutiny of a forensic investigator while still keeping our creative ears open for the unintentional (but deeply appreciated) ricochets of inspiration and revelation. We take the time to weigh the words and explore the various possibilities that they suggest. We make decisions about our characters and their relationships and we start to define the world of the play that we are about to inhabit. Of course we also take a few scenic roads and detours on our journey as we riff on how the play’s themes relate to our present world, or get enjoyably entangled in the minutia of stress or punctuation. Personally I seem unable to keep my mouth shut in theses cases and I easily get swept up in the discussion, which fascinates me completely. Luckily we always end up back on track and often with a new insight or idea to try out.

At this point I have to confess that I am a little in awe of the rest of my cast. I am working with people who I have been watching and admiring for years and I feel a bit like a rookie who suddenly gets called up to the Cubs and finds himself sharing a dugout with his heroes. I must look like a goofball because I just sit there with a huge smile on my face basking in the conversation. Luckily I do have one thing going for me, I’m playing a shepherd in the play and I am reasonably sure I am the resident shepherding expert considering I did that for a year after high school. So for now I’m going to keep my eyes and ears open to the great work going on around me and just make sure I’m ready for some sheep-shearing if it comes up.