Last week staff reporter Katie Anderson examined a rough patch the Charleston Alley Theatre hit because of some unexpected weather emergencies. This week, Anderson explores how the cast of “Henry IV” is focusing on getting back into character and getting the production on track for its Feb. 29 debut.

Saturday, February 9:

Saturday night, the training wheels came off for Act 1. And for the potentially rough night, there was only one casualty.

Everything was going well.

Monica Mazzuro was due back Sunday, the Banyais recovered from their illnesses and are back at rehearsals and Arielle Starkey, who plays Frida, Matlida’s daughter, was completely off-book.

“Everything went pretty good,” Arielle remembers, “except I got like the worst bloody nose of my life.”

Michael Salem, who plays Bel Credi, the antagonist in the show, kept missing his lines and had the cast continually cracking up. As everyone was laughing at Michael’s latest flub, Arielle, who happened to be standing next to a chair, bent over and bonked her nose, causing the terrible nosebleed.

Despite the blood, rehearsals have been moving along well and director Duke Bagger has the cast scheduled to be off-book for Act 2 by the end of this week.

The cast is now focusing on techniques to get into character and no one is without a challenge.

For DarKeith Lofton, the pronunciation of the name “Adelbert” eludes him every other line, much to the amusement of his fellow cast members.

For Marie Field, it’s the origins of the characters she introduces.

“I get flustered because I’m the first person who says the location of where a person is located. I’ll be like, wait – is that of Susa, of Bremen, of Luxabrey – oh, I’ll just make it up,” she jokes.

For Peter Borah, working on reacting to the rest of the cast during their lines will be the focus.

“I’m still at the reading-through-it point and thinking about what it means; once I get the point I’ll be able to memorize the lines and know how and what I should say,” Peter said.

For most of the actors, understanding the script is the first step to getting their character and lines down right. However, Henry will offer them a new challenge – what to do in Acts 2 and 3.

After Act 1, Henry’s character launches repeatedly into long monologues while the rest of the actors simply stand on stage reacting.

Figuring out blocking and what to do when they don’t have a line will be a challenge, but the cast has an edge. They are friends.

DarKeith, Peter, Marie and Libby have all worked together at previous CAT shows and they have the advantage of knowing how the others will react.

“We’ve been at this too long,” Marie says lovingly. “We know who’s gonna screw up!”

“Adlebert!” shouts DarKeith.

“Idiot,” replies Marie, and the whole cast laughs.

Katie Anderson can be reached at kfanderson@eiu.edu or 581-7942.