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January 29, 2015:

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BK

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, we’re within spitting distance of the blocking being done.  Yesterday we did all but the final six or so pages, including one big gospel number.  I am blessed in having a really good dancer in the show and she’s been very helpful in the handful of numbers that actually need steps in them.  I’m really good at ideas and moving people around, and I can come up with a few steps here and there, but mostly I know what I want and if I don’t have the language to do it, I just express it and then we all work it out.  So for the gospel number, I had an idea of how I wanted it to build and I had about six or seven combinations of steps I came up with, because, you know, who better than a Jew for a gospel number. I showed those to our dancer and she built the number with me, giving the steps so they made sense in terms of counts and stuff and I think it’s really fun.  We still have two big numbers to go (as I’ve mentioned, this show is backloaded with this stuff), although six people doesn’t really mean big in the big sense.  We’ve got a do-wop number coming up, but I think I have a fun idea for that one, and the dancer has extensive do-wop dance language she can pull from.  Anyway, we’re kind of a day ahead of where I thought we’d be, so on Friday we’ll be able to start at the top and assemble everything and begin cleaning stuff up.  We’ll get a sense of the visual form of the show, too, and how the ebb and flow of the scenes need to go.  I will be a stickler for pace in this show because I don’t want it running one second over two hours.  It was a fun rehearsal, and we also had some costumes to look at, several of which were just right and a couple of which weren’t.

After the rehearsal, the creative team went to our real theater to do a walk-through.  It’s going to work really well for us, and they really do have a nice amount of lights to work with, and our set guy saw the lay of the land and will make sure everything works for us.  This theater is much deeper than where we’ve been rehearsing, but I really don’t need the extra depth, so we’ll have a nice backstage area.  This theater is a well-kept secret – one of the cleanest and nicest ninety-nine seat theaters in the Valley.  After we finished there, a few of us went to the Coral Café, where we all split some of their yummilicious nachos and I had a chicken salad sandwich.  I’m still full from it.  Then I came directly home.

Once home, I proofed about thirty pages, did some work on the computer, went over the last few pages of Inside Out, and otherwise just relaxed.

Today, we have a slightly longer day.  We start at ten, rehearse until two, and then there’s a two-hour music brush up rehearsal, which we really need.  I’ll stay for a bit of that, then hopefully pick up some packages, then eat, then come home, then rehearse one Kritzerland cast member, then rest.

Friday is a rehearsal from eleven to two-thirty, then we have our second Kritzerland rehearsal at three, and this time it’s the full cast so will run a lot longer than Tuesday’s rehearsal, so I won’t get to eat until after six.  Saturday I may or may not go to the book fair, then I may or may not be seeing a show.  Sunday is our stumble-through, Monday is a rehearsal, then we have our sound check and show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, rehearse and finish blocking, I must hopefully pick up packages, I must eat, and then rehearse.  Today’s topic of discussion: What are the best productions you’ve ever seen of Shakespeare plays and what was so memorable about them?  Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have finished the gospel according to BK.

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