Assistant Director and Studio Theatre Artistic Apprentice Annabel Heacock details the making of Mike Bartlett’s Cock, directed by Artistic Director David Muse. Cock was the first show Studio rehearsed and filmed for its 2020-2021 all-digital season.
Artistic Director David Muse watches an in-person rehearsal for Cock. Actors and the rehearsal room team all set up at socially distanced stations around the room. Photo: Annabel Heacock.
Arriving at the theatre after almost a year away from in-person rehearsals was exhilarating. Even after getting my temperature checked, picking up a new surgical mask, sanitizing my hands, and taking my first COVID test of the week, finally getting to work on making a play again felt like I was having a very strange, very vivid dream.
Usually, rehearsals at Studio start with a large gathering of staff, actors, and the production team, but making theatre during the COVID-19 pandemic has called for a constant willingness to adapt. Instead, on the first day of rehearsal we had a small gathering on Zoom in which David Muse talked about the play and our plan for rehearsing and filming the show. Then the actors read the script aloud for the first time. Rehearsals started a week later than anticipated due to COVID testing complications, and after one day back in the theatre what turned out to be a false positive COVID test forced us to return to another few days on Zoom. The rehearsal plan had to stay constantly flexible, and actors learned the play standing in front of their webcams from their isolated artist housing.
Once we were back in the theatre, we only had three weeks to make the play and adapt it for filming. After every 80 minutes of rehearsal in Stage 4, we had to leave the space for 50 minutes to allow the air to "turn over," or be fully filtered through Studio's HVAC system guaranteeing a clean supply of air for cast and crew, a break we called the “air purge.”
The “air purge” was just one of many steps that we took to ensure COVID safety, following Actors Equity Association guidelines. Actors had to learn each scene and get familiar with the play while wearing masks. As we neared our filming date, actors would remove their masks to run longer sections of the show. Learning to listen and react to your scene partner while wearing a mask was a unique challenge, but all four of the actors began to watch one another’s body language until the masks could safely come off.
Randy Harrison, the actor playing John, rehearses a scene for the first time without a mask in Studio A, the space we rehearsed in during “air purges.” Photo: Annabel Heacock.
Adapting the rehearsal process to prioritize health and safety was one set of challenges, but figuring out how to create Studio’s first film/theatre hybrid was another. As the assistant director, I worked closely with David and film director Wes Culwell, whose firm Studiio Box DC is collaborating with Studio on video production for our all-digital season.
Throughout rehearsals, we used two small video cameras connected to monitors so that David could watch actors on screen and figure out camera placement, movements, and the frame of each moment of the play. I communicated David’s ideas to Wes and his team so that our final week of filming would move smoothly.
Film director Wes Culwell, Artistic Director David Muse, and lighting designer Colin K. Bills collaborate about what will be captured by each camera on our film rehearsal day. Photo: Annabel Heacock.
Normally, each production at Studio Theatre has at least one week of tech rehearsals, a time to integrate sound, lights, costume, and scenic design. For Cock, we had three days to integrate sound and lights, one day to rehearse with the camera team, and one day to film the whole play.
Since we could only be in Stage 4 for 80 minutes at a time, even during our tech week, we had to carefully plan out what we wanted to film and where cameras would be located for each scene. Cock is divided into three acts. We only had time to film each act once due to COVID safety constraints.
Scott Parkinson, the actor playing M, prepares for filming while the cameras are moved into the center of the ring. Photo: Annabel Heacock.
After our filming day wrapped, the actors and team said goodbye to one another and we cleared out of the space for the last time. In a non-pandemic process, the first time running a play for an audience would be just the beginning of the play’s journey, which would culminate in a closing night party and the chance to celebrate months of hard work. For this condensed but rewarding process, the first day was also the last.
I watched the actors learn this play over Zoom, explore their characters while rehearsing with masks, and learn how to translate the whole piece to film. By this point, I’ve heard each line hundreds of times, and cannot wait to see how the play comes together for the premiere.
—Annabel Heacock