Practice Makes Perfect, Or Atleast Less Bad

They looked like they were made out of cardboard, chicken wire and old shag carpets. Lots of old shag carpets. Jefferson's Quarters reminded me of a 70's bachelor pad, complete with a disco ball half embedded in one of the walls (it was supposed to be some kind of future-tech computer device). The Control Room wasn't that bad, sort of. None of the chairs matched each other though, and I'm pretty sure they all came from an auto parts junkyard (I recognized a Pinto bucket-seat), and to make them hi-tech looking they were sprinkled with glitter and wrapped with silver masking tape. The control consoles were spray-painted plastic storage chests that you could buy at any gardening store, and probably were. But there were a lot of little blinking lights and goofy levers and knobs and sliders worked into all of the prop stuff. They may not have had a big budget, but at least they were trying.

Once everyone was in place, John started the rehearsal. We began with Scene 2, on the Control Room set. This was the primary set of the show where most of the action would take place. John had one of the stage hands fill in for Wu, who was apparently still stuck in traffic.

I got to admit, I was having fun. Running through our lines, coming up with stuff to make our characters a little more 'real', getting the camera blocking and lighting just right, John giving us advice and directions on how to deliver a particular line or make a specific kind of dramatic gesture. Each one of us brought our own style to our part, and John was trying to play off of that. Tanner was large and expressive (in other words, very hammy). Sara was very focused, almost minimalist in her performance. Tanner didn't like that at all and let everyone know it. Me and Jasper were just playing it straight, really just playing ourselves. Jasper came across a little goofy and I, if I don't say so myself, played my character, Riker, with just the right touch of comedic subtlety to come across as a cool but saucy young rebel.

Hal, still just a disembodied voice coming over a loud-speaker, probably gave the best performance. Calm, dispassionate, and creepily unhuman. Brr.

And as for Suzie, well she looked fine in that red dress but didn't seem to have clue one about acting. And she flubbed her lines so many times it was becoming funny. To me at least. Tanner looked like he was ready to burst a vein. John though took it all in stride, trying his best to massage a passable performance out of the lady. I didn't envy his job, nor did I think he was going to succeed. But hey, she looked great as eye-candy. Especially the way that dress of hers showed off those monster gazoombas she was sporting.

That first day we went through all of the scenes set in the Control Room before we quit. Tomorrow we would hit the stuff in Jefferson's Quarters, the Computer Annex, and the Mess Hall.

As I headed out of the Studio after that long first day I bumped into...

1. Sara
2. A midget
3. The bus stop

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