Didn't DRNOEL have a show today....GENERATION F'CKD?
I beg your pardon, the show is called
Generation F'd - including the CK would make it obscene.
What an exhilerating two performances. The cast arrived at the theatre at noon, and this was the first time they had the dimensions of the black box to take into account, and projecting into a raked audience rather than a small rehearsal room. I was told to arrive at 3, which meant I only spent a little over 8 hours in there.
The scenes the director had cut (for today's two shows) were all ones I wanted cut. Amazingly, he left in the septet, despite several lyrics forgotten and a total melt down during the 4 o'clock final dress. The lighting guy arrived at two and the scene changes, most of them, were done in complete darkness. You could hear crashes and ows until I ran up to the booth and suggested a low blue light come up for in-between scenes. I changed a lyric from "Oh my God, he's Latin!" to "Ay-yi-yi, he's Latin!" and, when I first sang it for the actress, I put in an extra "yi" by mistake, which led her to be constantly confused about how many "yis" there should be in "Ay-yi-yi." During the second show, she started her "Ay" way too early but made up for it by insterting six or seven "yis" before her "he's" which was quite charming.
Apparently, I've devoted more hours to this than Second City is willing to pay me. In my discussions with the lady who handles the producing, she admitted that she thought I was infinitely more valuable than the director, which indicated to me that she thought the show was going to bomb.
Boy, was she surprised! That relaxed, guru-like stewardship of our genius director led the cast to be confident, relaxed and truthful. They picked up their cues, when they could, because, often, the audience was laughing too hard to hear the next line. The audience howled again and again at jokes I doubted could ever go over.
Afterwards, several strangers came up to me to say how much they loved the songs and, of course, how catchy they were. I was half-hoping the septet would be cut, because I'd lost faith the cast could pull it together. But it had nice pacing, 3 utterly different couples on first dates, and an ending that topped them all - one that had come directly out of an improv, just as it's supposed to.
Two heroes popped up to help the other numbers go over. One cast member had created the most brilliant props for the opening: Everybody carried laptops made of foam, a hinge, and day-glo paper which really looked like a turned on screen from a distance (ooh, a Julie Gold reference). And, after the hysterical non-choreographic rehearsal before Thanksgiving, a cast member who hadn't attended that night came in and restaged the whole thing, so the closing contained tableaux that moved across the staged, inch by inch.
This is the fifth and final Second City show I've done, and I was most pleased to see actors from all the previous ones there, laughing their heads off and having a good time. On December 13, you have two more chances to catch
Generation F'd
