Backstage Goings-On

Our cast has said in a number of interviews that we may not be the funny Frankenstein, but we're funnier backstage. On this show I have been introduced to a Halloween tradition that I had never experienced before: the Boo.

It started maybe two weeks ago. One day we came to the theatre before rehearsal and found that Becky Barta's dressing table had been hit by an explosion of Halloween cheer: fake cobwebs, plastic spiders, pumpkin decorations, and even a bobble-head Frankenstein. Taped to the mirror was a note: "You've been Boo'd! Pass it on!" Apparently everyone in the cast drew dates for which they are supposed to boo another cast member. Nobody knows who has boo'd them, and people can choose at random who they boo, as long as that person has not yet been boo'd before the date they have drawn. Today we had a big surprise when the entire backstage hallway and both dressing rooms were boo'd, with signs proclaiming that we've all been boo'd by the original boo-er.

Some of them have been really inventive. One was in the form of a scavenger hunt, in which the boo-ee had to follow the clues to talk to various people backstage during the show, who would then present them with the next clue. I was incredibly honored to be one of the stops on the scavenger hunt. The clues were on white paper with a seal drawn on in pencil to evoke the clues used as props in the show (until they were cut a couple days ago), which were distinctive red letters with wax seals. The boo-er made some comment to me about trying to make them look like the clues, so I dug into my stack of used paper props and found the ones in best condition. The clues were rewritten on the actual show props before the boo was carried out. I was very happy to be able to participate in the boo, and later assisted in setting up another one.

Finally, today we came in to find that stage management has finally been boo'd. Josh's spot in the booth got a little cobweb treatment, and a gummy bloody handprint stuck to the outside of the window. My desk stage left was completely covered in candy, a rubber severed hand, cobwebs all over the desk and the nearby video racks, as well as the entire handrail of the escape stairs behind me. The final touch was the rubber snake on my chair. Pic:

The camera flash is way more light than stage left has ever seen. This picture is the only time I've ever seen what it actually looks like. We use a real flower in the show, and quickly learned we can't store them at the prop table because they die overnight. We have to keep them in the kitchen area downstairs where they get some florescent light.

Week 3 of Previews

First of all, a new video about Frankenstein that I just found today, from Broadway Beat.

The most major changes have gone into the show. Some pretty big rewrites, and completely new orchestrations (which will continue to be added to and tweaked). The plan is for the show to be frozen tomorrow (Friday). The things we're working on now are some tweaks in the more tech-heavy sequences, putting music into the curtain call, that kind of thing. After today's rehearsal we have only one more 4-hr slot tomorrow afternoon to finish whatever is going to be done before the show is frozen.

We had another day off a couple days ago, and for the third time in a row, I did absolutely nothing. My body has been hurting in various places since tech, and I have been trying to get enough rest so as not to make it worse with each additional day's work.

Once we get to the point where we don't have rehearsals every day I think I may be able to rest and also accomplish something. Freezing the show and opening isn't exactly the end of all that, as we go full-force into understudy rehearsals right away because we have some planned absences coming up in the week after opening. But someday, eventually I think I may set foot someplace besides my apartment, 37 Arts, the Starbucks on 39th/8th, and the bar at the Zipper.

Week 2 of Previews

Yesterday was our day off. Like our last one, October 3, I did absolutely nothing. Well I did get to make some progress setting up my new phone, which is a whole other category of blogging I need to catch up on. From this point on, I will get a day off every Tuesday, so hopefully once I get used to the concept I can make it more productive.

I'm realizing now why it is that sometimes shows don't seem to change very much during previews, or at least not as fast as an observer would think. While 18 hours of rehearsal in a week of 8 performances seems like a lot, it really isn't very luxurious. You really have to think in small chunks. "Today we work on this." There's not time to change everything that needs work in a 4-hour span, especially considering that when you change staging you also need to allow time to re-tech the scene. And then hope that you don't put it on stage that night and say, "Well that didn't work!"

Rehearsal is short-to-nonexistent on two-show days (either 2 hrs on one day, or one hour for each), so today we have no rehearsal, and it will be the same show we did on Monday night. We still have two weeks, but only a little over a week before the show should be frozen, so there's time, but not as much as it seems at first glance.

I'm not worried, I just find it interesting how even with a fairly long preview period, you have to be very careful about budgeting time to make sure the most needed work gets done.

First Preview and Some Links

We had our first preview tonight. The whirlwind that has been this production is coming together and several hundred people happened to be watching it tonight. The performance was our second complete run of the show in real time, which is better than some shows get, and considering we only started rehearsal 22 days ago, it could
have been much worse.

Bill (our director) gave a funny little curtain speech before the show basically saying "welcome to our first preview, please bear with us if there are any train wrecks." He actually used the word train wrecks. Maybe more than once. Thankfully we had none.

I don't think we were really at a point where there was a big chance of a trainwreck, unless the huge sliding doors that are involved in a large percentage of the show had stopped working completely. They go through moods hourly where they are happy or unhappy, and we knew they were unhappy when we opened the house. I wasn't counting but I'd say they got stuck maybe five times in Act I, two of which required me to apply an inelegant amount of direct force to get them to close all the way. We've been dealing with the bothersome stage right slider since the beginning, so it's become routine for us, and aside from not closing or opening as smoothly as they're supposed to, it was nothing that really affected the show. In many cases it probably couldn't be noticed because we almost always had someone posted on the stage right side physically holding the slider as it moved, ready to apply extra force at the first sign of trouble. Unbeknownst to me, some adjustments were made at intermission, which explains why they were behaving during Act II, and more work with be done tomorrow morning.

Overall it was a very good show considering how little time we've had to get comfortable with it, and things will continue to be added and improved as we rehearse during previews. Afterwards, just about everybody involved with the production headed over to an informal gathering at the bar adjoining the Zipper Theatre to relax and celebrate.

Meanwhile, some press is showing up as the result of our open rehearsal from last week. We had a ton of press there, for an Off-Broadway show at least, and here are some of the links we've found:


Interviews:

NEW:Broadway.com - First Person with Hunter


NEW: TheatreMania video.
Christiane just tipped me off to this one, which we just watched during rehearsal. My computer at my desk stage left has become the nerve center for the cast and crew to check up on what the buzz is on the internet (and for the inexplicable number of Red Sox fans to check the playoff scores as they pass by during the show).

Photos:
Playbill
Broadway.com
Broadway World
...more Broadway World! (more set photos and stuff)

Video:

Stage Notes blog
Broadway.com

I have to share my personal favorite, though:
Being in charge of props, I was kind of mortified to see this picture featuring Struan Erlenborn, Mandy Bruno, Steve Blanchard, and Hunter Foster playing background while the photographer decides to take a nice juicy close-up of the bar code painted onto the ball. And yes, it's painted on -- there's no way to get it off. Of course that's not the actual ball used in the show. You should have seen the infamous Scooby Doo ball we used before we found a red one. Anyway, would ten seconds of Photoshop work have killed them?

Well I have to get to bed. We're all thrilled that we don't have rehearsal until 3:00. It's almost like a day off. Next Tuesday will be our first day off in 13 days, and it will be very welcome!

Glimpses of a Tech

A few thoughts as we continue tech (scroll down for the latest updates):

"Watch your eyes, folks!"
Most common phrase of tech. There is a lot of light. Insane amounts of light. There's one place in the show where my track takes me down a set of escape stairs just as a bunch of giant strobes on the boom at the foot of the stairs go off in my face. That one always catches me by surprise. I also like our signage in the lobby which warns of "Theatrical Haze and Intense Strobe Effects." Not just your garden variety strobe effects. Epileptics in Jersey should be covering their eyes. I'm told it looks even brighter in the house.

10/08/2007 2:38PM
The word of the day.
We've developed a little thing among those of us on the deck channel on headset. Every day there's a word of the day, which we discover as events progress. Yesterday's word cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog. Today's word is "cut." Over the last couple days we've been weeding out props and scenic elements, and today it continues. Letters from school officials? Cut. Noose? Cut. While some of us have gotten very attached to certain props, notably the "implements of death," I much prefer a show that cuts props at the last minute rather than adding them.

10/09/2007 11:00AM
Just arrived at the theatre and plugged in my computer. I just realized how stupid it is that I've been bringing my power cord home with me every night. This week I have spent about 15 of my waking hours at the theatre, 2 hours on the train, and about 2-3 at home. My computer has a battery life of over 4 hours. Well I will be smarter tonight, and that will be the only chance I get to use it, as we start previews tomorrow. I don't like the sound of "tomorrow." We have 15 actor-hours to work before we have a paying audience. In some ways it's a lot of time, and in some ways it's really scary!