As Promised....A Table Read

The phone rings, "Lisa, we're doing a table reading. Are you free? Can you join us?" And my heart starts to sing.

I love table readings. I love staged readings too, but I especially love table readings because they are so pure. Nobody does them for any other reason than for a pure love of the art of making art. Nobody's getting rich and nobody's getting famous or advancing their careers. Everybody is just gathering together for the joy of reading a new play, and assisting, in some small way, in its advancement.

A playwright is working on a new play. She contacts a director and casting director and says she needs to hear the play as it currently stands so she can discover what works and what doesn't, and so she can get some feedback and input from other professionals as she continues her writing.

The casting director calls actors who suit the roles, and who will be able to give good feedback. Everybody gathers, usually on a Monday evening or a Saturday morning, times that don't interfere with a show or rehearsal schedule: Monday is the day off in the theatre, and Saturday matinees don't start until 2pm. There is food: bagels and coffee in the morning, pizza and sodas in the evening. We break bread with each other, introduce ourselves to new faces, catch up with old friends. There are lots and lots of jokes; it is a room full of actors, after all.

This latest reading I did was my third since I poked my head out of the theatrical ground in January. I walked in the room, and, to my great excitement and relief, saw some familiar faces; my first two readings I was utterly the new kid on the block, introducing myself to everyone and being too overwhelmed to remember a single name. This time, I am greeted as I enter the room with cries of Hello and How Are You and Lisa!, and as I sit down the woman next to me compliments my work in the last reading. An actor passing my seat on his way to a slice of pizza presses his hand into my shoulder by way of saying hello: he was in the first reading I did. And for the first time since moving here, I feel at home, part of something.

I even crack a few jokes. Some bomb, but one lands just right and the room explodes into laughter. I blush, if you can believe it. I'm having fun.

The reading starts, and I'm blown away by the talent in the room. We're all just sitting at a table with scripts and pizza scraps in front of us, but I feel like we could open the show tomorrow. I'm in love with everyone in the room for being so generous with their talent, for connecting with each other so easily, for giving of themselves so fully. As my character enters the story, I feel like I'm stepping onto a moving sidewalk, or boarding a train already travelling at full speed. I feel off-balance, out of practice. But I fight for it; I try to relax and find my rhythm, to look up and make eye-contact with the other actors, to find my connection to these strangers who are becoming my friends. Sometimes it doesn't work, and I am just chiming in with words on the page at the prescribed intervals. But sometimes I do relax, I do find my rhythm, I do connect, and then I am part of the magic being made in the room. I generate laughter, I provoke thought, I create energy and story.

G-d, I love theatre.

After we finish reading the play and break to grab coffee and cookies (as with all ritual, food plays an important role), the playwright and director begin to ask questions, sometimes of the group as a whole, sometimes of specific actors: what parts of the play intrigued you most; where did you lose interest; did your character do or say anything that you had trouble believing? We give our opinions, bat ideas around, talk about the bits we loved and the places we felt confusion.

And then it is done. We are thanked, and we hug and exchange cards, help clean up the food, and disperse back out in to the cool of the night or the bright sun of mid-morning, taking a little bit of the magic we just made with us into our seperate worlds.