Well, dear readers, I do believe we had us a band rehearsal last night. As always, that’s a very exciting moment. Despite all tempos being way too fast (I think the idea was faster/better to get through all the charts), so at times it was a bit hard to tell what was what, but the charts sounded really good. I made a few adjustments as we went along, as did our MD and Lanny. The players are very good, too. There will have to be a few more adjustments, I think, but I won’t be sure until the sitzprobe, when I can hear the charts around the vocals. It was exciting and even though I was super tired I didn’t mind staying until nine.
Prior to that, I’d gotten a terrible night’s sleep, maybe four hours. When I finally got up around nine-thirty, I just answered e-mails, had a telephonic call, had a phoner with the ALS folks about our August show, the helper came by and brought me the charts, and then I had to be on my way to a one o’clock meeting with my set designer. We spent two hours going over all the projections – where we’d have them, what they’d be, and that we both don’t want to overuse them. Then it was right into rehearsal. We had an actor missing due to illness – I warned everyone about this, but you can’t keep actors away from one another and that’s two of our cast who are now sick, although the other does show up for rehearsals, which is helpful. Hopefully he’ll be back today because this kind of thing is killing us, not enabling me to do the work I need to do on performances, and it’s especially difficult when this week was really the first time I had our full cast for keeps. I did bring in some Sambucol for the cast to take. I’ve been popping them like mad along with Airborne as a preventative.
We did run the show start to finish. Act one went well, save for our missing actor, with some good work being done. Act two’s structure now seems pretty good to me, so now it’s just a matter of tightening and smoothing everything out and notching up the performances to make them as sharp as can be, especially in the talking bits. I gave notes, but really just general things to watch out for. Starting with today’s run-through, I’ll now be taking detailed notes from now on. Cheryl was with us and she took notes, and then while I was with the band, she ran them through all their numbers.
We began the band run at six and finished at nine. I hadn’t had time to get anything to eat, so I sent my stage manager out to the food truck next to the theater building and she got me what turned out to be a very good egg salad and bacon sandwich. After we finished, I stopped at Gelson’s and got some small snacks for home – some nuts, a tiny bit of mac-and-cheese and a tiny bit of seafood salad. All good.
Today, I shall hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, I’ll do some work on the computer, hopefully pick up some packages, then mosey on over to LACC for our run-through at three. After we finish, I’ll give notes, then they’ll get a thirty-minute break, then we do the stizprobe – I’m sure that will be an eye-opener for some, just hearing a band and countermelodies and everything. But I’m expecting it to be a lot of fun for them. After, I think Grant and I will go grab a bite.
Tomorrow I have some meeting with some person at LACC who oversees alumni stuff – no idea what she needs or wants. Then we have our run-through and I’ll work on all the problem areas as much as possible. Friday we do our cue-to-cue, and I really hope we can also get a run-through in somehow. Saturday we have a long day of tech and hopefully a full-out run-through. Sunday is off, Monday we have our first dress. Tuesday is our second dress and first run-through with the band. Wednesday is final dress (and I’m inviting some folks in to see it), Thursday is our one and only preview, and then we open on Friday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, hopefully pick up packages, have a run-through, give notes, and have a sitzprobe. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Ask BK Day, the day in which you get to ask me or any dear reader any old question you like and we get to give any old answer we like. So, let’s have loads of lovely questions and loads of lovely answers and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have finally heard all the charts at our band rehearsal.