Well, dear readers, we actually managed to do a run-through yesterday. I’m not quite sure HOW we managed it, and it was certainly rough around the edges, but there it was, a run-through. We stopped a few times, but interestingly the first act ran sixty-one minutes, which is only about four or five minutes over what it should actually run. Same with act two. We began the day reviewing stuff and running stuff, then we did our run-through. The main rough spots were the scene changes – people didn’t remember where they were or who were doing them, but we got all that straightened out and on Monday before we do the run-through we’ll just run those things. Also, the Feel-O-Rama bits aren’t smooth or working quite right at the moment, so we have to fix all of those – I think there are about six of those bits. But I think it will pull together nicely come Monday. The cast is just great and without this kind of cast there’s no way we could have pulled this off this quickly. It’s hard enough to do one of those standard twenty-nine hour staged reading things, where you actually have twenty-five hours of rehearsals. We didn’t have that luxury – with Monday’s run-through we will have had a total of under fifteen hours. The funny part of putting this up again, at least for me, is how little any of my original staging ever changed, and I’m talking about when I did the original staged reading in May of 2006. Obviously things were revised and rewritten and a couple of numbers changed and we added a new number, but the basic staging of the stuff that didn’t really change, has stayed the same through every incarnation and I’m happy to say it works because I let the show do the work rather than try to show off – the blocking is fun, there are good bits, but it’s the show and the cast rather than a director/stager trying to call attention to him/herself.
That rehearsal lasted from ten to two, then I came back to the Valley, stopped and picked up some packages, then came home. At three we had a pick-up rehearsal for one of our singers who couldn’t attend the second rehearsal. And then it was time to do our stumble-through. I must say, it was a rather excellent stumble-through – if there were fumfers they were so minor that I don’t remember them. It’s a great cast, and it’s a real Kritzerland show – which means a Sondheim evening unlike any other Sondheim evening. After we finished, I gave whatever notes I had. The order worked really well (I’d moved one number one spot later and that was a good move), and I’m hoping people will enjoy it. How MANY people is unknown to me at this time, oh, yes, it is unknown to me at this time. I think we’ll have at least sixty, but am hoping for more. I’m fairly certain we will have at least 100 for The Brain, which doesn’t exactly please me, but it’s better than 50. I’m hoping there’ll be last-minute action today and tomorrow – my real hope is to get to at least 150 but I’m just not sure we will – if most of the students from the department actually show up, we could, though. The good news is that 100 people basically fill up the entire center section.
After that, Doug Haverty and I moseyed on over to Du-Par’s for a bite to eat. I had a hankering for their mac-and-cheese, but I should have just gone to Jerry’s Deli because it was a three strikes and you’re out meal at Du-Par’s. The first strike happened as soon as we walked in the door. We were informed it was cash only – they’re credit card system was done. Strike two happened as soon as our waiter came to the table. We ordered and then I said I wanted a Diet Coke. They were out of Diet Coke. Strike three was the mac-and-cheese, which was more like soup. I just don’t get that kind of inconsistency and it was really annoying. I finished it because I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but I was not so happy with Du-Par’s.
Then I came home and did a two-and-a-half mile jog, then relaxed and listened to music, printed out the patter, got everything organized for the show today, and that was that.
Today, I believe we get an extra hour of sleep due to falling back, the end of this year’s Daylight Savings Time. But I’ll get up around eleven, which of course is really twelve, and then I’ll do a jog, relax, and then have a sound check and show.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at LACC around ten or ten-thirty, the band will set up and we’ll have a rehearsal of the music. At one-thirty the cast should arrive and we’ll get them miked and in costume by two, which will give me thirty minutes to run scene changes and the Feel-O-Rama bits, then we do our one and only final dress rehearsal with costumes, sound, and lights. After that’s over, we’ll fix whatever we can in all those departments, then we’ll have some pizzas there for everyone to nosh on, and then we do our show. I can’t even think about the rest of the week, other than I have a huge amount of stuff to do, including the preparation for the audio commentary for Tom Sawyer that I’m doing with Richard Sherman on Thursday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, hopefully arise after a good night’s beauty sleep, jog, relax, have a sound check, do a show, and then go out to sup after. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have had a very productive double day of run-throughs.