Back from our second performance. Another interesting show, but I think you all know me well enough to know that "interesting" doesn't interest me at all. Yes, there were a lot of big laughs tonight (we had a really oversold house - people sitting in the aisles and everywhere else), but so much of the show, at least for me, didn't land because we just never had time to finesse, and I never had one minute to work with the actors, and so the performances were all over the place. The leading man was better tonight, but still just wrong for the role and so the show doesn't have its motor. Some people I've worked with before just turned in tired performances and I wasn't so happy about it. I adore Niki, who just gives 130% always. Now that we're done, I can say that the majority of our ensemble were just people I would NEVER work with again - no energy, no commitment, only caring about how many hours they'd worked and if they could get us in trouble with Equity - they tried, but, oops, sorry, it didn't work. Two of them were actually counting up their hours (from their point of view) after the show, because they didn't think their check was for enough money. Mind you, we have a professional Equity stage manager who knows his stuff and who wrote down exactly when they worked, so I kind of trust that he sent me the right figures. Of course, they're conveniently forgetting the fact that not one of those making trouble were EVER on time - one was three hours late to Saturday's rehearsal. If they persist, I will file a report with Equity. This does not include the gal who played Joy Full and does not include the one male ensemble member who was an Adam guy. I've just never seen such lack of energy in my life, even with mics on the stage you could barely hear them, and they simply looked bored most of the time, hence many things just sat there like so much fish. The slam dunks were Rosie, Dick Davis, George Brenner, and Joy Full - those four I would work with anytime and anywhere. Others did okay, but were not at a performance level I found acceptable - they got it done, but in one particular case, after four fantastically funny days of rehearsal, I was presented with a performance that had half the energy, no pace, and only occasional sparks and fun - that performer has the capacity to be brilliant but I really now have to think about whether it will go further than this reading in terms of this performer going on with the show. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't done this reading until I could have cast it exactly the way I wanted to, with a cast that was fully committed to the task at hand and not there to count their hours and kill some time. I guess performers nowadays simply don't look at the big picture anymore, the big picture being that I work all the time, I use singer/performers all the time, and, more importantly, so does my choreographer, who loathed the work ethic he saw, for the reasons stated above.
