Well, dear readers, guess what happened? Well, I’ll tell you what happened because why should I withhold such things from you? That would be unseemly and to be unseemly would be unseemly – extremely. What happened was that we had a long rehearsal that was actually fun from start to finish. Lots o’ laughs, yes, a lot of fumfering and calling for lines and some blocking blocks, but act one is starting to feel like an actual show now. A lot of folks arrived at four and began running lines. I decided not to be in the room, and I’m told that session was fun and extremely helpful and I’m hoping we can do more of it. Then I brought in the people involved in the one song we hadn’t staged. I staged it in ten minutes, and it was really fun. Then I called in the others involved in some background action that takes place during the song and as I blocked them everyone who was watching was laughing out loud. The song’s only purpose is to distract some security guards while our merry band of oldster thieves steal minks. What I was dreading turned out better than I might have imagined. Then we ran a few other things and then we started at the top of act one. I had to run the opening number several times as two actors now have to do stuff they weren’t doing before. We got that straightened out and then moved on. The second scene is just some banter between two characters but there was a lot of struggling with lines, so I had them run that three or four times. I’m now starting to be in pace mode nd explaining that as we go. While the musical numbers are rough, we’re beginning to see the light. It was the polar opposite of what’s been going on in rehearsals and everyone in the cast felt it and felt good. We just have to keep hammering away at the show and the pace and the lines and the songs. We have less than two weeks now but we are damn well going to pull this thing together come hell or high water or heaven and low water. After rehearsal, I stopped at Gelson’s and got chicken Caesar salad, came home, and ate it – very good. And then it was time to write these here notes and guess what happened? I’m writing these here notes.
Yesterday was sure a lot more fun and bearable than the day before. Aside from a very bumpy night, due to the rancid cheeseburger from McDonald’s, which kept putting me on the verge of getting sick, but in the end, I do think I got eight hours of sleep. Once up, I had some texts to respond to, some telephonic calls, and e-mails to answer. For food, I had a chicken sandwich from a nearby jernt – that and a handful of fries. A bit spicy but pretty good. After that, I shaved and showered, watched a few irritating YouTube videos, and then I moseyed on over to the theater and the rest you know.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll eat, I’ll hopefully pick up a package at the mail place – Caress soap – was down to my last bar – then cast will arrive between three and five – they can run lines, I’ll work on scenes if we have all the people in them, and then at five, Cheryl Baxter will come and finish up her three numbers and then at six we’ll dive back into act one and finish it. There’s probably another ten to fifteen minutes to go, then it’s on to act two.
Tomorrow is our day off and boy do I need it. Tuesday we’re back and we’ll be doing a stumble-through and that will happen every night through Friday. I’ll also do a dry tech with my lighting guy, either Thursday or Friday day. Saturday is our sitzprobe, then we do a run-through with lighting and if there are issues, we fix ‘em after. Then we’ll have a food break and we’ll do another run with lights. Sunday is another long day – I want to do two runs as we’ll be adding sound and costumes.
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, hopefully pick up a package, work stuff, have Cheryl Baxter finish her numbers, and continue running act one and then hoping to get through act two. 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, where I shall continue to answer the eternal question: Guess what happened?