Well, dear readers, it is late and therefore I shall write these here notes faster than a speeding bullet and they shall be more powerful than a locomotive, and they will be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Supernotes! Well, that was invigorating, wasn’t it. I am invigorated, I tell you. I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic, I tell you. I am read to tell tales and believe me, there are tales to tell, including the tale of The Randy Vicar and the Swizzle Stick. That one’s a corker and a half. Anyway, yesterday was quite the day. I got five hours of sleep and awoke to a text and photo of our actress who was in the car accident. One look at that photo told me instantly that she would not be healing from her black-and-blue-and-purple bruises and broken nose. I was not going to let it become a negative thing or get me crazy as it did when this stuff happened with 70, Girls, 70. I had some ideas for replacements, including the one other actress who read for the role, although she’d recently quit the theater. I talked to one actress I’m really fond of and know a tiny bit – she’s starred in two Broadway musicals and is terrific. She was very sweet but said she’d be out of town while we’re still playing. She said she was a fast study – it didn’t occur to me to ask if she could do half the run, because my assistant director could do the other half. And we’d have gone with her in the first place, but she can’t do two performances on the opening week. Meanwhile, I’d talked to the actress playing the leading man’s mom and asked if she’d switch over. I could tell she was reluctant but said she’d give it a try. By the end of act one, I knew it wasn’t going to work for a whole slew of reasons. Doug then called an actress who is a member of the theater, who’s worked quite a bit, has a good reputation, can be funny, and can sing. She agreed to do it, so she’ll be with us tonight to watch, she’ll have Monday to work with the assistant director to get the blocking down, and she’ll begin run-throughs with us on Tuesday. Whew! That gives her a bit over a week before we play to an audience. It’s short, but it’s not huge a role – several scenes, but not a lot of dialogue and only one song, although it’s a tricky song, but she, unlike the lady who we cast, is a trained singer. Anyway, let me segue to last night’s rehearsal. We warmed up, our costume designer arrived to watch, as he can’t attend tonight’s designer run-through – my assistant director will fill in for the new actress, who’ll be watching. The run-through had a few good moments but was way too low energy for me. The designer said he enjoyed it, so that was nice. A couple of scene changes took way too long and weren’t right – we’ll get all those fixed as they must happen quickly – but the amazing thing is the first act ran just a tiny bit over an hour and the second act ran forty-six minutes exactly. So, we’re within two minutes of where I’d like the show to be, which is great. Anyway, I gave my kind of pep talk – with HUMOR – and that was that. I stopped at Gelson’s on the way home and got some chicken for faux chicken stroganoff and also for a chicken sandwich, since I hadn’t eaten for ten hours. I came home, pan fried a chicken cutlet and put it on an onion pocket and it was really very good. Then I caught up on e-mails and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven at the latest, I’ll do whatever needs doing, then just relax until it’s time to mosey on over to the theater, unless I decide to go early and have some food at either the Coral Café or the nearby (to the theater) Mexican jernt. The cast is arriving at six. I have to fix a few things in the two person scenes with the leading lady and man, then we’ll attend to the worst of the scene shifts and get them smoother. Then we’ll warm up, our designers will arrive, and we’ll do a run-through. We’ll also finally have the second three-sided periaktoi. We’ll run scene shifts with those, too, prior to starting the run-through. After the run-through, I’ll give a few notes, perhaps, then come home.
Tomorrow is a ME day doing ME things and I don’t care WHO knows it. And that goes for the evening, too. Damn them, damn them all to HELL. Then tomorrow we’re back and we’ll do a full run-through, then do fixes after. I still have not heard from the lighting designer – he has told everyone he’d call me, told them repeatedly, and yet, no call. Not sure how he plans to light a show he has neither read nor seen – you kind of have to see the damn thing to know how to light something, where I want isolation, what specials we’ll need, the fact that we’re using a strobe and that as to be worked out, he has to hang the show, and he has to dry tech with me – all by Friday. I just don’t get it. Wednesday is another run-through, then fixes, and Thursday is the same. I should be dry teching on Friday day, and then we do a run-through and hopefully the lighting guy will do a light over and teach our stage manager how all that works. Saturday, we begin at ten or eleven, do a run-through, then at three-thirty we do a cue-to-cue and do whatever lighting fixes need to be done. My goal is to be done by six, seven at the very latest. Sunday, we do a run-through at eleven, then notes and fixes, then a sitzprobe at four and done by six or seven. If I had my druthers, I’d do two run-throughs on Saturday and Sunday, but I don’t think that will work.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, do whatever needs doing, relax, mosey on over to theater or eat a meal before going there, at six I’ll work three of the Bob and Alice scenes, then the scene shifts, then we do our designer run-through, then a few notes, then home. 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 postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, grateful to have found a replacement actress and happy to have finally finished these here Supernotes.