Just wrote a long e-mail to the creative team of the long musical. They are, of course, already in full panic mode and I told them there will be no panic allowed at any time during the rehearsal process. Also, the co-author, despite my having told him time and again, continues to labor under the disillusion that I will be directing this brilliantly. So, once again, I have informed everyone that a staged reading is not about the director's brilliance or lack thereof. It's about hearing the book, music, and lyrics of the show. The audience knows what a staged reading is - normally, it's the entire cast seated on chairs, rising for their scenes and crossing to a music stand, and then reading a scene or singing a song. That's it. This will be slightly more than that as the theater doesn't have twenty-six chairs, and that's too many people to put on this stage. But I told them that the minute you introduce anything that's more than a suggestion of blocking, suddenly it starts to feel like something it shouldn't - a half-assed production. The co-author wants some props and I'm allowing one at this point, for a food gag.
