When we put on The Dollhouse at the UW, the lead actress disliked direct light in the face.

Oh, that must have driven you batshit! Possibly she should have reconsidered her choice of major, or at least gone into voice work so she could spend all her time in a dark little booth.

"Always hits his/her mark" may be faint praise, but it's still praise -- consistently being where you need to be, when they need you, without making a fuss about it, makes everything so infinitely easier for all those other people who are also doing this for a living, and usually sweating to meet deadlines and budgets and working under approximately a billion other urgent constraints.

"Always hits his/her mark" may be faint praise

I've always assumed it was shorthand for a certain level of professionalism, and not a literal "Wow, s/he's really good at counting steps!" which would be kind of backhanded.

lead actress disliked direct light in the face.

Da-buh? Weird.

Though I've worked with more than my fair share of actors who can't ever seem to find their light. Light is hot & bright. I don't know how they can fail to find it, but they do. There's been times when I've thought it would be easier to just have a million spotlights following everyone around.

I'm with Jessica-- I assumed that the actor would be both both literally hitting their marks and hitting their marks in knowing their lines, delivering a consistant performance, etc...

I was more addressing Betsy's question about hitting one's mark as being the minimally polite compliment from one actor-person to another -- even if it's minimal praise compared to "So brilliant I would hack off my own left arm and eat it for the chance to work with her/him again," it's still praise, and it carries with it a whole lot of unspoken assumptions about professionalism, respect for one's co-workers and the ensemble nature of the work, etc.

Light is hot & bright. I don't know how they can fail to find it, but they do.

It's totally baffling.

Oh, don't i know it. I stage managed for some time, and I had an actor who couldn't find his light. I finally had him stand on the mark with the light out, then turned the light on, so that he could feel the difference. he looked surprised when it was warmer and brighter.

I worked lights on a show where the lead actress gave her best possible secret agent impression, ducking from shadow to shadow. Pity she was in a 1776 rip-off at the time.

So we're in agreement with JZ and all is right with the world.

Also, I have worked with those light avoiding actor beasts, and it puzzles me.

Also, I have worked with those light avoiding actor beasts, and it puzzles me.

Anybody else read that as "breasts" instead of "beasts"?

Just me then, I guess.

Car-centric things bore me.

This made me recall the car-centric shows I grew up watching (and heavily influenced my driving style) or at least featured a car chase every week. I'm talking shows like Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Fall Guy, A-Team, just about anything by Cannell really. Seems the car chase has been phased out in favor of scientific investigation lately.

The cars were almost characters on the show. I was looking foward to the car-centric stuff.