Well, dear readers, I am exhausted from exhaustion due to a very long Saturday. So, let me get right to the point, shall we, by talking about the probing of the sitz. We convened at our musical director’s house and met our drummer Tom and our bass player Tim. I hired Tim – he did Hit Song, The Musical and he was delightful to work with. Drummer Tom is also an actor/singer. I do like the idea of a Tim and Tom duo, don’t you? We began at the beginning and ran all the songs. The first thing I noticed was how fast all the tempos suddenly were and that’s just what these songs need – energy and not hanging around too long. So, hoping the drummer is really on his game and remembers, because sometimes in our run-throughs, the tempos are way too slow for my taste. And a few of the numbers are just easier to do faster. Anyway, I think the cast had a good time running the songs and hearing the band. That ran an hour longer than it was supposed to, so we wrapped at one and I told everyone they didn’t have to be back at the theater until three-thirty. I’d only gotten five hours of not enough sleep and I just wanted to come home and have an hour or so to myself and that’s what I did. I was home by one-twenty and ordered fried catfish from Uncle Andre’s barbecue jernt. It was especially good and so were my sides of mac and cheese and potato salad. I answered some e-mails and then at three I moseyed on over to the theater. They were still doing stuff with the set, so the cast ran lines. They wrapped the set stuff at five and I gave a few notes and we ran a couple of things. We then began our run-through around six-fifteen. It was rough but we got through the entire show. Amazingly, we shaved another seven minutes off the first act, which ran an hour and eleven minutes as opposed to an hour seventeen the night before. And if we tighten all the loose spots, we’ll definitely get down to sixty-five minutes and maybe even less. Act two is running forty-five minutes, which is fine and we may get that down to forty. I have a lot of notes after, just cutting to the chase. I made another adjustment to act two, too. Afterwards, I did a quick stop at a 7-11 and got some Diet Coke. I came home, and I’d saved the potato salad, so I had that for my snack. I caught up on e-mails and other stuff, and then it was time to write these here notes.
I obviously didn’t watch anything other than a few irritating YouTube videos, but I did plan out the curtain call, so I’ll stage that today. And, of course, at two we turn our proverbial clocks back and it will suddenly, magically be one o’clock.
Today, I’ll be up by ten, which will formerly have been eleven, and I’ll be at the theater by eleven. We’ll do a complete run-through, take a little break and then do a run-through with costumes. After that, we have a photo call, and then I may spend an hour working any problem things. But I’ll get us out of there by seven-thirty no matter what. Then I’ll come home and really relax.
Tomorrow has to be a ME day from start to finish, it really must. I just need to relax and rest and get ready for the big push to opening night on Friday. Tuesday is our final dress but no invited audience, Wednesday is a preview, but we can cancel if I don’t feel we’re ready, Thursday is a preview that I probably won’t cancel, just because it would be nice to have an audience reaction. Then we open on Friday night, play Saturday night, and then do the Sunday matinee, which looks like it will be pretty full. I think they do talkbacks on the first Sunday now. I also have to find some hours to study for my driving test and I have to get a pair of glasses for the eye exam. All I need is the time and time is all I need.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten, have a run-through at eleven, break, second run-through with costumes, photo call, and work whatever needs working, then I can watch, listen, and relax. 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 gain back an hour of sleep.