What You Bring To The Table

One of my favorite parts of working on a soap was dry rehearsal, the early (painfully early) morning rehearsal, in which the director and actors came together to walk through the blocking of the day's scenes, usually in a large mirrored room, where the available tables and chairs were rearranged to form restaurants and hospital rooms and doorways and airplanes. As a PA, I timed the rehearsal (and kept track of cuts and people coming in late and notes that would have to get to other departments). As an AD, I copied shot information from the director's script into my own, and tried to imagine the scenes from the camera's eye view. And later, as a director, I got to share my vision of the day's scenes with the actors and learn from and adjust to what they brought to the table.
 
Brought to the table--perhaps that phrase describes what I liked best about dry rehearsal. While there were certainly people who picked up the script for the first time as they walked in the door, many of the actors arrived having worked on the material for days before (not easy, when they might have shot completely different scenes on the days before). Either way, however, the best among them brought a great deal of their own preparation into that room. They didn't just appear, waiting to be told what to do. They brought with them their own particular thoughts about the characters, or feelings about the scenes, or opinions about the long story. There were days when it was too much, when I watched the precious minutes of rehearsal tick away, as director and actors worked through a scene. But in the end, I tended to be impressed when everyone had that kind of investment, when that work happened because the different people "brought something to the table." Sometimes things took longer because the players were invested enough to have different opinions, but almost without fail, the work was better when that something was brought.
 
I've been thinking a lot recently about that phrase. As I, and many of the people around me, try new things, jump into new roles, how do we make these transitions work? What I learned in dry rehearsal all those years ago still rings true. When people bring something to the table--be it knowledge, or previous experience, or critical thinking, or even just the kind of curiosity that makes you dig deeper and ask the important questions, the entire production benefits. On a soap, it didn't matter whether half of the people in dry rehearsal showed up in their pajamas (it was early, and the actors would be spending hours in fancy makeup and costumes, so who could blame them?). What mattered was that they came "ready to play," that they brought their particular skill set "to the table" and used it to make the work better.
 
As I have made my way through a freelance life, when I have wondered why my skill set hasn't always gotten me job offers left and right, I have also learned how much I do "bring to the table"--skills learned from working, to be sure, but also the skills and knowledge acquired from reading, observing, parenting, and being an active participant in the world around me. What you "bring to the table" isn't always list-able on a résumé. But it matters, perhaps more than any line in "Experience," "Education," or "Special Skills." And while what exactly you "bring" matters, it matters more that you bring it--whether it's to the table, or to the rehearsal hall, or to wherever else you go.