I wrote a long post about today's rehearsal, and knowing that it was going to get screwed up, saved it. Then, I forgot I'd saved it, and saved the "too many connections" thing to send to our site host. So, I lost the post.
We managed to stumble through the show - I hadn't seen some of the blocking since I originally did it, and that all seemed fine. My pianist had to leave two hours after he arrived, so he didn't play act two - he's never played act two as a matter of fact. Since he still doesn't have tempos down it's worrisome. And tomorrow isn't going to help much, since he can only be there for ninety minutes at noon, and then isn't back until four. Which means I get no full run-through of this show with him or even a full cast. Which sucks big time. I will have almost everyone in the company tomorrow, but must share two actors who have rarely been at my rehearsals and both of whom have big roles. I won't have one ensemble member, and one of the female leads informed me today that she now has to work the early afternoon shift - she's known this schedule for weeks, but allowed her employers to make her do this at the last minute - sorry, commitment is commitment and she should have said no. She's done nothing but do these people favors. She has a big faux torch song but doesn't have a great singing voice, and I told her I now have to think about cutting the song, because I am NOT letting her do it the way I heard it today. Her only shot is to have enough time to run it with me over and over, and I can't do that and take time away from my other cast members.
Needless to say, this will NEVER EVER happen again. I stopped being an amateur when I was fifteen. My new actor has picked up the blocking and the singing very fast, but he cannot get through one line of dialogue without stumbling and stammering. Hopefully, he'll look at his script tonight. I had to be very loud and very terse today, and I'm sure that everyone in the cast thinks I'm an asshole and I don't give a crap, frankly. I only give a crap about everyone not embarrassing themselves, and me. And if that marks me a bad guy, then so be it.
So, tomorrow all we can do is run what we can run, and then I'm just telling everyone to have a good time. What else can be done?
