Well, dear readers, we had our cue-to-cue yesterday and I suppose it went pretty smoothly as these things go. It is actually my least favorite part of putting on a show, but I understand it has to be done. Back in 2004 I made a radical decision not to do the cue-to-cue with the cast. I’d always found it disruptive in terms of where we were going into it and then where we were trying to get back in the swing of things. So, with What If we did the cue-to-cue with only me, the lighting designer and the stage manager. I think I had a couple of people there to walk things, but that was it. It went quickly, we could go back and run something as many times as we wanted without tiring the actors. Then the following day we did a full dress rehearsal with the lighting and we had not one mistake. But one can’t expect everyone to do it that way. But our cast was on top of things and our stage manager kept it all moving along. All told, it took five hours and it left us enough time to do a run-through, although I chose not to because I knew the cast would appreciate getting out a bit early. So, instead, we ran the big numbers of act one, did some cleaning up, and I let everyone go.
During the cue-to-cue, I changed the musical introduction to one song (just never liked it), and something funny happened in one scene so I stopped and made it a permanent part of the blocking. The lighting looked very nice and the designer will make a few adjustments before we do our dress rehearsal. David Siegel, our orchestrator, was there, and he’d made some revisions to a few things and gave them to our musical director. I had a six-inch spicy Eyetalian sub from Subway for lunch.
After the rehearsal, a few of us went to House of Pies to wait until the traffic abated a bit. I had eggs benedict and a short stack of two pancakes. It was fun and the traffic had indeed abated by the time we all got on the freeway.
Once home, I got the news that our other package had been approved so I wrote the two blurbs and we can now announce on Monday morning our two latest titles. That will give me a tiny bit of breathing room before our next release. Then I relaxed a bit. I also saw and approved the cover for the sheet music we’re printing up for Two Roads, the song I wrote with Richard Sherman. We’ll have it up for sale at Kritzerland in about two weeks, and happily they’ll be ready in time for the Richard Sherman event at LACC. Here’s the cover.
Today, I must be up at eight and she of the Evil Eye will be here at nine. I’ll leave around nine-thirty, do some banking and then mosey on over to LACC. I believe our run-through begins at 12:30 so that one will finish before three – then we’ll break for forty-five minutes and do a second one at 4:00 or thereabouts, at least that’s the plan right now. If the first run goes smoothly enough, then we may just do clean up and run certain scenes and numbers. Then I’m going out for a nice meal, venue to be determined.
Tomorrow, I get to relax all the livelong day and then I’m seeing Terri White at The Federal in the evening. Monday we’ll announce our two new titles, then we have our final dress at six, I think. Tuesday is our one and only preview, we open Wednesday, play two shows on Thursday, one show Friday, and two shows on Saturday and that closes this chapter for Li’l Abner – we’re hoping there will be more chapters to come very soon. Also, I have to have a work session for the Kritzerland show.
Once Abner is done, we have our Kritzerland rehearsals and show, the Richard Sherman event and then I can finally take a day or two off.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, attend a dress rehearsal, maybe two, and then eat. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite Broadway musical overtures? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, thankful that our cue-to-cue went smoothly and well.