The joy of the first table read. Two weeks ago a friend of mine from the writer’s group had us do a table read of one of the scenes from his new play. I played a priest.
I had never been a part of a “true” table read, and in reality, this wasn’t a true table read either, but it felt like it. We were at a table. We were reading a scene. I was playing my part darn it, and I was killing!
The moment actually made me think about watching the table reads of famous sitcoms and how much fun they had. As a writer myself, it was interesting to watch the writer of this particular play listening to all the words, taking notes as we went through. He was catching every little change he wanted to make.
For us, our lives aren’t a “table read.” We’re always “live action” and there is little time for commercials. There seems to be little time to go back and correct a word here and a verb-tense agreement there. A writer has an easy time cutting a scene or jumping forward and backward in time with the stroke of a pen. In our live action lives, it seems we don’t have that luxury. But you must make time. You must make it part of your life.
You must make time to relax and laugh at the table. Without laughter, without the outtakes, without the stand-up comedian and the tragically late mother-in-law and the son who just can’t quite keep his room clean, live in the now and enjoy every moment.
(flickr photo by abbyladybug)
