Well, dear readers, we finished blocking Drat! The Cat! last night. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, we finished blocking Drat! The Cat! last night, in a total of eight three-hour rehearsals. If this had been an Equity production, it would have been blocked in a week or less with eight-hour six-day rehearsal weeks. I feel very good about a lot of it, and I know that there will be futzing and finessing all the way up to opening night. We still have the one-page tag to one scene to do, but there’s almost no blocking in it, and a really short lead-in scene to another song, also with very little blocking. Cheryl Baxter has to do the very end of Wild and Reckless, and then I have to block the monologue that happens before that song, but that won’t take too long. I’ll leave time at the end of tonight’s rehearsal to attend to all that. The final sequence and finale took about two hours to do, which left an hour to review what we’d done the night before. I made some adjustments to that stuff. The final scene, a courtroom thing that ties everything up, is fun and I kept it all very simple as it involves all nineteen cast members. The final song is short and funny, then we do a reprise of Today Is a Day for a Band to Play and I got that staged pretty quickly. After rehearsal, I came right home, had a beef stick, some cottage cheese, and a tiny bag of chips for a snack. Prior to all that, I got a whopping ten hours of sleep, got up, answered a ton of e-mails, one of which was the galley and covers of the new book. I approved it, and now they’ll get me the sign-off documents as soon as the final price is set, which will hopefully be this morning. Then off to the printers it goes, and I’ll get my test soft and hardcover copies in a couple of weeks and then I can place my book order. Very exciting. I wanted something quick for lunch, so I ordered three slices of pizza from a local jernt – those arrived quickly, as they always do, and they were fine. After that, I had a few telephonic conversations, relaxed, did a little prep work for the rehearsal, showered, and then moseyed on over to the theater. The rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll eat, I’ll gird my loins for the first night of assembling the show. I’ll stop at the mail place to see if any of the important envelopes have arrived. Then we’ll have our rehearsal and after that, I’ll come home and relax.
Tomorrow is our day off and also the final day of February. I will have a ME day, I’ll try and go out for a meal, and I’ll definitely try to watch a motion picture or three. Saturday is our four-hour rehearsal. We’ll continue and finish assembling the play and then in whatever time is left we’ll run scenes and songs. Then Sunday and Monday are off, and Tuesday we begin run-throughs, followed by clean-ups for every rehearsal.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, eat, gird my loins, stop at the mail place, have a rehearsal, then come home and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite rousing marches – from shows, operas, operettas, and movies? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as we head into our first night of assembling the show.