No Pressure

In every rehearsal for the principals of No, No, Nanette we have:

1. The Mayor of the city
2. A Tony winner
3. A retired English teacher
4. A retired history teacher

So we've got an expert for everything!

Notes on Joseph

See, I'm making a blog post now because something is happening. As you can see from this ridiculous photo of me wearing an amazing technicolor dreamcoat, I've begun my fourth summer as PSM of The Reagle Players in Waltham, MA. Last year I did a whole fancy mini-blog about the whole season. I don't think I'm going to be quite as detailed this year, as it would just be more of the same, but I will post my thoughts as they come.

Some observations about our production of Joseph:

It's a very weird show to rehearse. There are only four principals, first of all: Joseph, the Narrator, Jacob/Potiphar, and the Pharaoh. Then we have the 11 brothers and their 11 wives. Oh, and the 53 children in the choir, but that's another story. Another thing we've been realizing is that the principals don't actually do as much as you'd think. The story is structured as a narrative, and what really happens is that the chorus is really moving the story along while the principals interject their parts. It doesn't really seem like that in the finished product, but it's basically impossible to rehearse for very long without involving the chorus. It's been a bit of a challenge to not have the principals sitting idle, because there's very little they can work on while the chorus is learning something else. It doesn't help that our principals are very quick learners, and some of them have played their roles on tour, so the little they can work on doesn't even need much rehearsal.

Things are going really well. The whole cast is both talented and nice, which always makes me really nervous, because that never happens and I'm always wondering when the problems are going to arrive, but so far so good. Everyone seems to be having a great time. It's a very fun show, so that may be helping as well. I'm really enjoying it because it's one of the shows I grew up knowing every word of. Aside from Phantom, this is the first time I've done one of those shows that was such a part of my childhood. Some other people in the company also said that they had a similar experience with the show. We've decided that those of us that memorized all the colors in Joseph's coat at the age of 12 are biologically more disposed to remember them than those who are trying to learn them now as adults.

Reagle has done the show twice before, although apparently we're among the first (if not the first) company to do a new version of the show licensed by R&H. I hate hate hate the way the score is printed. First of all, since the show is through-sung, we didn't get scripts, just scores. Step 1 was to make a copy reduced to 80% and stuck in the upper-left side of the page so I have room to write blocking and other notes. To make matters worse, it's got the lyrics written so that multiple verses are written to the same bars of music (i.e. it wraps back around and you read the second line of lyrics the second time.) That's all well and good for a lot of purposes, but I think it's going to be a disaster to call a show that way. If the show were going to run forever the solution would be to duplicate the pages and white out the lyrics and cut and paste as needed to make it read in a linear fashion, but for 8 performances I'm trying to avoid that. I think it will depend how many cues I have in a specific section, and if I have to clean it up some other way I will. But it definitely looks like I'll have to be following the score the whole time, which reduces the amount of time I can look up at the stage. Basically I'm in denial about the whole issue until I see what a mess it is at the paper tech. I may try to schedule the paper tech a day or two early since all the cues exist from the previous production.

One other issue we're dealing with is that due to other events happening on our stage, we don't get the deck until the night before tech. It happens sometimes. It happens on every Broadway show, but in our limited rehearsal time it certainly helps to have done it on stage before tech. It also makes the cast feel good to have done a run-through on stage before tech starts, so they can see the big picture before we get bogged down in the details for two days. Due to the 53 children, we're thinking spacing may take most of our time and we may not get a run that night.

Stay tuned for more!

Reagle Roundup

My summer season has come to an end. I'm currently on the Long Island Rail Road going directly from Waltham to a family barbecue that conveniently happened to be scheduled for today. I am so far enjoying the benefits of civilization like a cell phone that gets four bars and EV-DO coverage in a tunnel. There really isn't any higher form of civic advancement than good cell coverage.

I'm glad to be returning home to my other group of friends and colleagues and to all my stuff, and most of all a big soft bed with nice soft sheets and pillows just the way I like them. I met a lot of great people this summer, and worked again with some more great people, and we put on three very good shows. I'm hoping to maybe get a bit of a break from the PSM thing for a while, but I'll take whatever comes. My future is filled with a couple definite small gigs and some possible big gigs, and the usual subbing on Phantom and The Fantasticks. I don't have any dates booked yet, but I'm hoping to get back into both rotations quickly, especially Phantom as I never like to let too much time go by between performances. I'll need to spend some time with my calling script at home so that I'm ready at a minute's notice if the call comes.

This concludes the summer stock mini-blog (at least this year). Thanks for reading. Hope you stick around!

42nd Street Photos

We're in the Money


Dames


Lullaby of Broadway
See, you can even see the tops of everyone's head on the upper platform.

All photos by Herb Philpott.

42nd Street First Performance

Last night was our first show. We were sold out, which was a little unexpected. I heard last week that the Saturday matinee is sold out, but I hadn't heard anything else in a while, so that was a nice surprise. It was our first sold out show this season.

When I arrived the stage was still filled with sets getting their final touches, and the marquees for the ballet still being wired. Eventually I was able to bring in the curtain and open the house, but work continued behind the curtain until pretty close to show time. Nobody really saw the marquees hung and lit until 1,100 people saw them all at once, and I snapped a picture of the moment.They looked great, although they need a little tweaking to make the heights more varied. Considering there was no way to really check that before the show, they came out pretty well. They actually look a lot better to the audience than they do from the booth because the viewing angle is different.

The first show was very smooth, and everyone was in great spirits afterward.
This is Mugsy. He belongs to one of our actors, and makes a cameo in the "Gettin' Out of Town" scene, as the fictional cast packs up their belongings, "dogs, cats, canaries..." and heads for their out-of-town tryout. He's doing a great job.

Since we had only a matinee, the evening was taken up by a party at a local cast member's house, which was very well attended and a great chance for cast and crew to unwind and mingle after a hectic couple weeks. The party was a fiesta, and of course it wouldn't be complete without a pinata. Somebody got a sun pinata, because "There's a Sunny Side to Every Situation." Here's me trying to hit the pinata. I got in a number of good hits, but alas I was not the one to break it.

Night Crew

The night before opening of 42nd Street, we had our final dress, did some fixes and notes, and dismissed the cast around 11:00PM. By midnight our production meeting was over, and I was well on my way to going home. On the stage and in the shop, however, the crew had been working since the run ended, cramming in all the little details that still remained to get in shape for the first performance at 2:00PM the next day -- painting, set repair, refocusing lighting instruments. They stayed until 3 or 4 in the morning, returning at around 10 to continue work and get ready for the show.

Before I left I took some portraits of our hard-working crew:Ray touches up the paint job on one of the "Lullaby" stair units.

Christina lurks under the other stair unit, doing the same thing.

Jamie starts painting a column to match the pink marble style of the existing ones that frame the proscenium.

Who says the wardrobe crew can't do physical labor? Joe sets up scaffolding.

Matt refurbishes the edge of the big dime to make it nice and shiny. Here he shows off a technique known in the theatre industy as "gaff-painting."

The Glittering Desk Lamps of Broadway

As promised, here is a picture of our electrical stand-ins for the 42nd Street marquees. I didn't get a chance to take a photo of them in the scene, as I wound up rather hastily calling the run from the booth tonight. By hastily, I mean that as soon as the Overture started we realized that even literally screaming into our headsets we wouldn't be able to hear each other over the blaring trumpets and tapping feet, and after about 32 bars, I gathered up my calling script, pencil, God mic, headset, and cup of soda from the tech table and ran up the aisle to the booth, calling cues as I went. We often have this problem of the orchestra sound getting into the headsets and drowning everyone out, but for some reason thought that on this show of all things I could get away with calling from the house. We realized our stupidity right away.

So when we got to the ballet I realized too late that I didn't have my camera with me to get a shot of the "marquees," and anyway I would have been too far away to get a good picture. After the run Steph turned them back on for a photo op. She also corrected my earlier post which assumed they were taped to the pipe. Oh, no. The desk lamp is actually lashed to the pipe by its cord. And of course the clip light is attached by its clip. And I forgot to mention my personal favorite part of the whole display, the extension cord with the end that glows orange when it's powered, adding a nice third light source to the mix. I'm going to miss all of them when the real marquees go up tomorrow.

Fun Things in the Shop

BREAKING NEWS!
Just five minutes ago I was dragged skipping into the shop by our master electrician, Steph, and knew immediately what I was going to see.Here Nick, Steph and Justin show off their creation. It's been a long and complicated process to turn the giant marquees from the national tour (this is the smallest one) into something that doesn't cost thousands of dollars in bulbs, and require more power and counterweights than anybody should really need. A bulk order of Christmas lights arrived in the morning, and even up close they look quite a bit like real marquee lights. They won't be hung until all the marquees are done tomorrow, but for now we have an empty pipe with -- I kid you not -- an upside-down desk lamp and a clip light taped to it to represent the marquees for lighting purposes. It's hysterical. I'll try to get a picture of it.

Competing with the marquee builders for my attention is head painter, Matt, who is refurbishing the fabric on the Regency hotel unit.
The third and final project currently underway in the shop involved Scott, Tim and Ross climbing around on top of the "Buffalo" cars. When I inquired what exactly they were doing, I was told, "attaching mirrors," with the express instructions that it was to be pronounced "murrrs." There's murrrs all over this set, most of which are in need of something between cleaning and replacement. With a lot of the big fixes done, a lot of the little projects in the next two days will involve making all the murrrs look respectable.

42nd Street Week 2 Recap

I haven't been posting very regularly since we started rehearsal. It's been a crazy process and I haven't had much free time, or the mental energy to relive my day after I get home. I have been taking some pictures with the intention of sharing them, so I will try to catch you up.

Now that we've got something very closely resembling a show going on on the stage of the Robinson Theatre, here's what's been going on:

First of all, let me introduce Jameson, our company's "Spiritual Frog."
He sort of showed up one day and I really wasn't sure where he came from or why he was there. His origins are still somewhat of a mystery to me, but he apparently originated with the ensemble men, following them around to various rehearsals and watching over them. When we started working on stage, he was placed in a position of honor between the center footlights on the pit rail, so he could keep a good eye on us. These days he's no longer perched on the cardboard box, he fits quite nicely below the masking for the footlights, where I'm sure he will remain for the run. Update: he's now on top of the piano in the pit, where his view of the stage is somewhat reduced. I'm going to try to get him back on the pit rail, as I think he's helped us out on a few occasions.

You may remember our "Lullaby of Broadway" set that was juuust a little too tall. Here it is in tech, with the top platform and escape stairs cut down by a couple feet.
And here's a typical view from my corner of the tech table:I don't know where my headset is. I'm probably wearing it. But I you can see the little leather baggie that I use to keep my own personal headset safe and separate so it doesn't get mixed in with the theatre's. One of these days I'm going to get a nice hard case for it, as the baggie would do nothing to prevent it from getting crushed.

So tech has been going well. This show is all about quickchanges, and we took some time before our first dress last night to talk through all the major changes so the cast could figure out where to preset their costumes in the wings and work out the traffic. For the most part it worked. We had to stop only once, at the end of "Dames" which features a ginormous quickchange right in the middle of the number. Our goal for tonight is to make that change. There were a few other hiccups, with one or two people scrambling on late, but nothing to stop the show.

We had our sitzprobe with the orchestra on Sunday night, which I managed to get through efficiently while stealing selected people out of the dance rehearsal across the hall. The orchestra sounds great, and it always perks up the cast to hear them for the first time. I had arranged for the whole ensemble to come in and listen to the ballet, but alas time was short and better spent on stage dancing the ballet, so after singing "Sunny Side" they had to leave.

Tonight is our first run with the orchestra.

Allentown, We Have a Problem

M.J. demonstrates why the railway station is just a little too tall.

That's the platform the cast is supposed to enter on. We knew what was going to happen as soon as the set was unloaded, but today the crew assembled the station stair unit, giving a visual element to the assessment that it's HUUUUUGE!!!!

But I learned something today that made the whole set at least make a little more sense. This is a national tour set. See, I was under the impression that it was a large but second-rate touring set. So when I would hear things like some of the drops are over 50 feet tall, I remarked at the production meeting, "Where did they expect to take this, the Fox?" Well, uh, I guess they probably did. Maybe more than once, to more than one of the gargantuan Fox Theatres. Under its worn paint and chipped plywood detail work, I hadn't noticed that it's all made of steel. It also explains why certain corners weren't cut in the design where you'd expect a touring set to be made more manageable. The railway station is a perfect example. It's huge and there are so many pieces, why would anyone ever want to drag all that around and try to cram it into a variety of theatres? Well when you picture it on a national tour it seems perfectly reasonable. Of course the Robinson Theatre is not the Fox. Ideal height of a drop custom made for our theatre: 17 feet (height is a major inconvenience on every show). I believe the grid height is 36 feet, meaning a 53ft tall drop stood up on our stage would be several stories taller than the roof of the building.

I'm not sure exactly which tour the set is from, nor do I know anything about the tours of the original production of 42nd Street to make that determination, but the set has obviously been around the block a few times, so I wouldn't doubt that it could be from the '80s. I'll have to see if I can find out. At any rate, this is one of the things we will have to figure out in the coming days.

Meeting the Dancing Feet

We had our first rehearsal for 42nd Street today. Some of the principals worked on vocals in the daytime and in the evening the full company came together for the meet & greet, then the ensemble learned their vocals, and then went to work on the opening number. They learned the whole thing and it would be no exaggeration to say they tapped up a storm. This is going to be a great company, and there are a number of dancers with whom I've done prior Reagle shows, but haven't seen in a while and am very glad to be working with again.

Meanwhile on stage the crew is going full steam to put this huge set together. The set was just purchased by Reagle at the end of last summer, and this is the first time it will be used. It came in a bit of disrepair from its former owner, and this production will be an opportunity for the Reagle crew to work their magic and refurbish it so that it will be ready for rental to other theatres around the country. The sets, props and costumes that Reagle owns are a great source of additional income. Singin' in the Rain went to Oklahoma as soon as we were done with it, and I believe they open very soon, and the gorgeous Crazy for You package, which is the original Toronto production sets, props and costumes (Robin Wagner, William Ivey Long -- it's amazing), has just returned from Ogunquit Playhouse and will soon be going off somewhere else. I believe the new King and I set is also being saved for future rentals. So getting this set in shape will have benefits far beyond just the next four weeks.

Large objects are springing up hourly. Here we have various pieces of the train cars:
At one point I came out of the shop and onto the stage expecting to look out into the house and found a giant wall had appeared since the last time I passed through. This is the "Maison des Dames," a flown contraption of velour, muslin and hard flats with a set of doors that is used at the beginning of the "Dames" number. The front is quite nice, although it needs a lot of love at the moment to fix some tears and broken moulding.
I believe tomorrow's agenda is for the big railway station set to be assembled.

Also, here are a few shots from the strike of The King and I.
Following the path of exiting scenery, from stage left past the prop table, off the loading dock and into the warehouse across the parking lot.

King and I Final Week

We are quickly coming to the end of our run of The King and I. A large chunk of the 42nd Street set has infiltrated the back of the shop, as seen at right. The metal things in front are the marquee signs for the ballet, which have a place in my heart as I built all the marquees by myself when I did the show in high school. We don't have a lot of height on our stage, so we will have to see if we can use all of them. One of the big vertical signs is 15 ft. tall, which will fit, but may or may not look silly.

I have to explain this photo. A couple performances ago, a mysterious paper fish on a stick appeared swimming across my booth window. I found this an excellent piece of entertainment during a long show, and the fish made several more appearances. Eventually it was joined by a squid or octopus of sorts, and they would have some sort of a battle. Tonight things quickly advanced: the fish and squid were present, but were later replaced by a shark and a larger octopus, who also did battle. In what I thought would be the highlight of my night, the fish appeared swimming peacefully, when a can perhaps representing a discarded piece of trash or a toxic spill floated down into view, causing the fish to go belly-up. Little did I know.

It was during Act I Sc. 7, Anna's bedroom, that I was minding my business watching the scene, when I detected another stirring below the booth window. I was looking forward to seeing what was coming next, but completely unprepared for what happened. In one smooth motion, a complete panorama of suspended sea creatures was hung over the entire center panel of the booth window. I didn't even have a chance to see it all before I completely lost it. I spent the rest of the scene laughing with tears streaming down my face and gasping for enough breath to give my warnings. They were only up for a few seconds because the ends had to be held by hand. By the start of the second act I was ready to enjoy them calmly, and as soon as the Entr'Acte began they were put back up with tape (which is when I took the picture, which doesn't even show the full width of the display), and I happily called the rest of the show with my new sea creature friends.

Also, a small note in honor of a Reagle landmark:
This the majestic Eagle Lake, sometimes called Lake Eagle. We've had a few days of rain, and the lake was in full form today in our parking area most used by crew and orchestra. This isn't the biggest it gets, as the rain has been intermittent, but this is the biggest I've seen it this year. I made the mistake of not pulling all the way up to the edge of the warehouse and had to go wading to get my bag out of the trunk.

Just a few more performances and we're on to the final show of the season.

42nd Street Pre-production

It's our second week of the run of The King and I, and I'm starting pre-production on 42nd Street. On this, our third consecutive day off (I love this schedule!) I swung by the theatre to pick up some mail, and the casting worksheet and contact info for our 42nd Street cast.

My first step is to go through the cast list and make some kind of mark next to the names of people I've worked with before. These will be the first to go on the contact sheet, by copying and pasting from previous contact sheets. If I have their resume in my pile, I will double-check that the info I have matches the presumably more-recent info on their resume. Since I'm in no hurry, I will take the opportunity to update my personal contact files on my computer as I go along, so that my computer and phone will have everybody's numbers on them as early as possible, before I need to call or e-mail anyone. When I get too many of them too close to rehearsals, or on the first day of rehearsal, it can be hard to find time to properly update everything. So I'm very glad to have gotten that out of the way.

Our director, Eileen Grace, has sent me her tentative schedule for the rehearsal period. I checked it for errors regarding allowed hours under Equity rules, sent back a couple notes and questions, and then will send it out to the actors I have e-mail addresses for when it's ready. With that I have also started my calendar (see this post for the template) based on her schedule. I will fill in the details for tech and dress rehearsals after we decide on them at our production meeting.

Putting a show together is like a puzzle... the next ball I have in the air is the production meeting. Eileen and I have decided on 11:30AM next Tuesday, so I have now reached the point where I'm ready to send out an invitation to everyone else to find out if they can attend. But in order to do that I need to know who "everyone else" is, and there were a few I thought might be changing. A few e-mails answered the questions I had about sound engineer and prop master, and finally I'm able to send out the invitation.

With that straightened out, I was also able to make my "42nd Street Reports" group in Entourage, with all the e-mail addresses of everyone who will receive the report. See this post for more details about the report. I've even updated my rehearsal report template to change King and I to 42nd Street, so that will be ready to go on the day of the first rehearsal. The performance report is a separate template, so I can still use the King and I version of that.

The whole thing has only taken me about three hours, so not too much of a dent in my day off, but a big help in getting things ready for the next show before things start to get crazy. In fact, for both shows on Saturday most of the off-topic discussion on headset was about 42nd Street. Things like load-out, the lighting plot for the next show and how similar it will be, and how that will affect the time needed for lighting load-out and hanging for the next show. I was mostly just listening, but for the tech director, production manager and master electrician to be able to sort stuff like that out, it's pretty helpful.

It's a good feeling to be ahead of the game going into the last show. It's an even better feeling once the last show opens to not have to worry about another show after it. But then of course comes the feeling of, "Oh my God, I don't have a job!!" and "What do you mean I'm not getting a paycheck next week?" It's very easy to fall into a routine and forget what a blessing it is to get a regular paycheck, especially one you can live on. I have one sort-of-job on the horizon, should nothing else come up, but I would love it if I had a real show lined up by the time I leave Reagle.

We're in the money!

As I was talking to someone in the back shop during intermission tonight, I saw this over their shoulder and suddenly exclaimed, "Dimes!" I guess they got a chance to dig into the 42nd Street truck during the day. Aside from $1.80 in dimes and some luggage, I haven't seen what else might have been unloaded, but it was enough to get me excited. I rarely if ever look forward to going back into production, but I love 42nd Street, and I think it will be a very fun way to end the season.

We had our official opening night tonight and a little party in the lobby after the show. Things are still going well. We have our only two-show day tomorrow. So far I don't have any grand plans between shows. I hope to get an opportunity to battle my Pokemon against Nick, who is the deck electrician on this show, and all to blame for the fact that I am playing Pokemon at all. We keep meaning to have a battle, but this putting-on-a-show thing keeps getting in the way.

King and I Opening

We had our first performance today, a matinee. Well it was a matinee when it started, at least. This show is long. The running time hasn't changed very much at all through tech, but the show has always felt so fast that I would stare at my notes checking and double-checking my math, thinking there's no way it can be 2:42 without intermission. It's now down to 2:40, but the house generally requires a 20-minute intermission, and God help us if we go up late. Today we started at 2:12, which was not the best way to begin a 3-hour show. We had some latecomers, a lot of whom were elderly and in various stages of disability, there was a line for the wheelchair lift, and by the time everyone was settled in, our estimated end time was approaching Les Miz proportions. And I'm not talking about Les Miz after the cuts.

Also at the performance were the students from Reagle's summer theatre camp. There are about 80 students for the camp's second year of operation. The camp is taught by members of the Reagle staff with master classes from visiting artists and technical personnel from the summer shows. Earlier this week the kids had a class with choreographer Gemze de Lappe, along with some of the show's dancers, where they learned choreography from the show. We had a talkback with them after the show, which was attended by more cast members than I expected, enough that we couldn't all sit on the edge of the stage. The kids were very enthusiastic, asking good questions. I can tell from these events that before they see the show they have spent time learning about it. Next week they will have their master class with me, which will be held at the theatre and include a backstage tour. I have a great time with that kind of stuff, and I can tell they'll be a good group.

The show itself went very well, and we had a larger audience than I was expecting. I had heard numbers like 800 being thrown around a couple days ago, but I don't think I believed them. In my very unscientific estimate out the booth window, I'd say it was closer to 900. Anyway, it's already a bigger house than any on the last show. We've got a few production photos up on the website now, which were taken at our dress on Tuesday (minus a final coat of paint on some of the set), courtesy of production photographer Herb Philpott. This one captures best what I sometimes stop and gape at in certain cues:Set: gorgeous. Costumes: gorgeous. Lighting: gorgeous. And all gorgeous in harmony with each other. This show is pretty. It's not fast, it's not difficult, but it just looks so good I feel like I'm still doing something helpful.

Oh My God, It's a Truck!

When I arrived at the theatre today, I was shocked upon arriving at our parking lot to find a trailer parked at the loading dock. I was highly confused about what show we were doing, as it's not customary for a truck to show up on the day of the first dress rehearsal. I quickly realized that this must be the first of the 42nd Street trucks, arriving simply because it can. Reagle owns the set, which like all of the sets that they rent out, is stored in its trailers and parked at an off-site facility when it's not needed, packed and ready to be driven wherever it needs to go when rented. It won't be unloaded just yet, but as King and I's set is almost completely stored on the deck, there is lots of room in the shop for 42nd Street to start coming in and being put together during the run of King and I.

Tonight was our first dress rehearsal, first rehearsal with orchestra, and the first time we ran the show like a performance. Usually these things don't all happen on the same night, but the show is in such good shape, the slightly unconventional schedule shouldn't hurt us at all. I called the show from the booth tonight. This was only my second time calling a real run, and the first time to really get the uninterrupted flow of the show, but I find it so relaxing I didn't mind. Our master electrician suggested it because she reminded me that when I call from the tech table with the orchestra, the sound is so loud that it gets into my headset and drowns out the calls. I normally move to the booth for the Tuesday run, but usually having had the first dress on Monday to call from the tech table. The show is very quiet at times and we've had to really struggle for the crew to be able to talk quietly enough so it isn't distracting, but loud enough to hear each other. So as much as I wanted to stay in the house for one more day, it was more important that I be able to speak as much and as loudly as I have to, so I welcomed the move to the booth.The run went very well. I had to adjust a little bit, as always, to figure out what I'm listening for in the orchestra in cases where it sounds much different than it did on the piano. I'm having a great time calling this show. It's easy, but quite rewarding. All the design elements are beautiful and complement each other very well, I find the show itself funny and moving, the actors are great to watch, the dancers are amazing, the singers sound wonderful, the kids are cute. The show is looking to be a solid three hours with intermission, but I have not yet gotten bored while calling it. And calling the ballet is like its own little show-within-a-show, and while it's still relatively easy, it stretches slightly different stage management muscles, so it provides a nice change of pace for about ten minutes toward the beginning of the second act. We have one more dress rehearsal and then the first performance at 2:00 on Thursday.

King and I Tech

Done. We had a very successful tech today. Despite my bold predictions earlier in the week that we would be able to run the show or at least one act by tonight, we did not. We did, however, finish the show in less than our ten working hours. In fact -- I can't say I have ever had this experience -- we finished the show, let the cast go, had our production meeting, and stood up to go home at 9:55. Rehearsal was scheduled from 10AM - 10PM. We were all shocked that we were leaving before the day should even have been over.

We didn't really end that early, maybe 20 minutes at most. The tricky part was that we teched the show out of order. It's always an issue in shows with a large cast of young children, especially those that aren't getting paid, to figure out how to use the kids' time without unnecessarily keeping them up past their bedtime, or simply wearing them out to the point where a four-year-old just doesn't feel like going onstage or doing her blocking. So we called the kids first thing in the morning and teched all of their scenes first, which happen to also be the most complicated by virtue of having 50-something people on stage. After several hours the kids were dismissed, but we did not go back to the top of the show because the first scene change is an absolute nightmare, with only a silent and rather uncomplicated crossover to cover it. Anna, her son Louis and the Kralahome (King's prime minister) arrive at the palace. Two sailors are following with a large trunk. They cross from stage left to stage right. That's it. Meanwhile there's five pipes flying, and about 20 people on the deck required to move all the scenery (for which we've used some of the non-union cast to supplement the crew).

Because of all the people involved and the need to assign and teach the change to the cast, we began with scene two and teched from there until the lunch break. The crew set up the first scene during the break. It's on board a ship -- there's several flats including the ship's cabin and smokestack, the sides of the ship, a big paddle wheel thing, a bunch of crates and trunks -- a lot of it was supposed to be flown, but this goes back to the issue at the production meeting about ugly aircraft cables ruining the look. So before even attempting the scene we ran the scene change twice.

Because we weren't attempting to run the scene, I had the unique experience of being on the deck during a crazy scene change. Normally I sit comfortably at the tech table, call the drop in, and then listen on headset to frantic banging and squeaking and calls of "Fly this out! Over there! OK, clipped! Downstage! Bring it in!" then some more banging and squeaking, the sound of counterweights whizzing up and down on the rail, then a few calls of "We're ready. Are you ready over there? We look ready. OK, clear!" then I say, "Go," the drop flies, and there's a nice shiny new set on the stage. So when I realized this I went and got my camera. Unfortunately the video is not nearly as interesting as I hoped it would be. First of all I wasn't able to get it on at the beginning because I was given the honor of calling the start of the scene change and also fumbling to start a stopwatch. And then for some reason I turned the camera off before it was completely over, probably to stop my stopwatch, or maybe because I realized how lame the video already was. But here it is, shot from stage left.

It's not quite a well-oiled machine at this point (this was attempt #2, 1 minute 15 seconds), but after this we went back and ran from the beginning of the show through the scene change, and the crew and crewlike castmembers were done quite a bit before the onstage cast, who were expertly dragging out what could have been a 10-second cross into an entire play about people walking down a hallway. I'm sure it will only get faster. Actually, the show was written with a whole silent scene there in which we see the palace dancers preparing for the next scene in which they dance for the King -- purposely put there to fill time while this unavoidable Huge Scene Change takes place. The alternative if you have a quick scene change is for Anna and company to simply walk across the stage with their boxes in tow. We went the optimistic route, mostly because all the large pieces were supposed to fly, but I think it's going to be fine.

So after running that change successfully, we then skipped ahead to where we were when we broke for lunch, and continued from there in order, but skipping the second half of the last scene in Act I, which we covered earlier with the children. People love speculating about how long tech is going to take. I'm an optimistic person, but I'm also a realist, and I also know it's better to make pessimistic guesses so people won't be disappointed when it takes longer. By lunch we knew we were moving along well, and people would say so, but then in a low voice they would usually say, "We're going to be spending all night on the ballet, aren't we?" "Do you think we'll end the night with the ballet?" "The ballet is going to take a long time, isn't it?" I think we got to intermission somewhere around 7PM. This was when a lot of the real speculation started. My answer was, "Yes. Hours. I expect 1-2 hours, but I think we'll still finish the show." I wasn't keeping score, but I think it probably took a half hour to 45 minutes.

First of all, you may remember I got to see the entire ballet on the third day of rehearsal. The dancers know it inside out, so there was no problem there. They did it in costume for the first time, and aside from Simon of Legree's giant mask/headpiece being too loose on her head and having to be removed, they didn't seem to miss a beat with the addition of costumes. This isn't a dress rehearsal, but in many cases we added costume pieces when possible and where they would cause potential issues, like for dancers. We had a few small things to take care of, like spiking the location for the gong, and assigning who places it. Once we had done those kind of housekeeping things, we ran it once and were due for a ten minute break. Gemze seemed pretty happy with it, and declined to work anything or give formal notes before running it again when we were back from the break. The second run was especially helpful as we had some followspot assignments that needed to be worked out in a more efficient way, which we applied the second time through.

I said yesterday I was worried about the rapid pace of cues and losing my place among all the "Run, Eliza, run"'s, but when the time came I didn't have any trouble. My first attempt was not at all embarrassing, which was a nice change from the Singin' in the Rain ballet, where up until the final performance I was never quite sure if I was about to make an ass of myself. The key with this one is that it requires 100% concentration, and with that it's actually quite easy to call. I just can't lose my place or fall behind, because there's not much time between cues, and once you're lost it's not immediately evident where you are in the script.

After the ballet it was clear sailing. One by one ensemble members with little to do in Act II were dismissed. We were not running the finale or bows because we did them earlier with the kids. By the end of the day we were down to a book scene with just a couple actors, right before the finale. And thus, with a gentle sigh, ended our tech, about 15 minutes early.

Tomorrow we tech from 10:00AM - 6:30PM. We had hoped to do two runs, but we have already scheduled a 2:30 run. Because of the need to give the kids a definite call time regardless of where we ended up today, we scheduled an afternoon run in advance so they could just arrive at half hour. I picked 2:30 because I didn't feel comfortable with less than four hours to run the show (I'm guessing it will ultimately clock in at about 2:45 with intermission), give notes, and allowing extra padding for any unforeseen disasters. So that means a 1:00 lunch, and we're not going to be able to call the cast, get them in mics, and run the show in three hours. I mean it's conceivable, but highly unlikely. So we're going to do the same thing we did tonight and skip the kids' scenes since they won't be there. Then we run in the afternoon, and after dinner the orchestra has their first rehearsal, which also serves as a partial sitzprobe for the cast to sing with the orchestra for the first time, before they have to do it on Tuesday in dress rehearsal. For this sitzprobe we are calling the singers and dancers who are in the ballet, so they can hear tempos and such and avoid any problems, and once that's done they'll be released. Then the principals will stay to sing their songs and make any necessary changes or requests. Then we go home to enjoy our daylight day of rest.

King and I Approaches Tech

I'm sitting in the theatre, approximately 21 hours before tech begins. I got my cues at the paper tech this morning and have some time to kill before the 1:30 rehearsal. The paper tech moved along quickly, and with some discussion of other production-related issues, came in just under two hours, which is pretty much perfection. I've done some for more complicated shows that have taken four hours. Approximately 140 light cues, so not a very busy show, but enough to keep me entertained. Just on paper, I see a few cues I'm already looking forward to. I think the "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet will be fun, but not too hard as to embarrass me, as long as I can keep following along quickly enough. Shouldn't need to call anything off the score, which I like. My opinions on that change, but with recent shows I've tried to reduce it, because I find that following the score means keeping your head in the music too much and not looking at the stage. Even with Singin' in the Rain, I called the 13-minute ballet off the score, but in reality I only really followed the music for a couple cues, and for the most part just flipped ahead to the next cue and knew what it was, so I could be looking and listening instead of being buried in the book and counting.

Took this picture just a few minutes ago:They just put in our groundrow that will go behind the palace. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, but it's really nicely painted, and the set looks fantastic under the lights. I'm loving the gel colors on this show.

Another picture I shot a few days ago but never had a post for:The drop you see downstage is brand new and was specially designed to match our set. This is the "Corridor drop" which is used for almost all the downstage scenes. The audience spends a lot of time looking at it, so it's a good thing it's pretty. This was taken right after it arrived and was hung.

A Run of Act I

Not counting our read-through, we have just completed our fourth day of rehearsal of The King and I. The crew was given the weekend off, as many of the large pieces of the set were put up by Friday. This also benefits us greatly, as we have free access to the stage for the weekend rehearsals.

First thing in the morning, we ran Act I, just because we could. It was a nice feeling. Immediately following that, we ran the ballet on the stage for the first time. I had the opportunity to see the entire ballet for the first time on Friday afternoon in the dance studio, without the singers present. I considered that also a great advantage, to see the whole thing so early in the process, especially since I often have trouble getting sufficient time to attend the dance rehearsals. The dancers are already doing a fantastic job, and I'm sure in the next week Gemze will get even more out of them.

For the last few evenings we've had access to the stage after the crew finished for the day, and we had been working with the principals and singing ensemble on stage, as the dancers did their thing in the dance studio. We've now reached the point in the process where it's beneficial to swap that: the dancers have learned their choreography, and a lot of what remains is for them to adjust to the exact dimensions and surface of the stage. The principals now begin blocking for Act II, which works just as well in the dance studio at this point in the process.

In the three hours after lunch today, we blocked a good portion of Act II. We also accomplished costume fittings for the children and many of the ensemble. All in all we are going to be in great shape when we start tech in six days. In fact, I think my little trick of pre-tech will mean a very smooth run (or two!) of the show with scenery, before we ever start tech. A lot of this is because the very straightforward technical operation of the show will make it easy to do with a reduced crew. I'm enjoying the show itself and I look forward to putting the technical elements on it very soon.

Schedules and Calendars

Another thing I did today during music rehearsal was preparing the calendar to be distributed to the cast tonight. Bob Eagle is directing this show himself, and he's had his breakdown of the rehearsal schedule pretty much done since last week. We made some adjustments and clarifications to the tech schedule at the production meeting in the morning, and with that I went about creating a calendar to outline the entire production in brief for our cast.

In preparing the calendar, it was the first real opportunity I had to examine Bob's schedule in depth. I don't really advise doing this five hours before distributing the schedule, but better late than never. What I'm looking for is two things:
1. Most importantly, is anything scheduled that's a violation of Equity rules? The first thing I look at is span of day. Our contract allows for either an 8.5 hr day with a 1.5 hr meal break, or an 8 hr day with a 1 hr meal break. I make sure it's not over that amount, and that the proper meal break is applied depending on the span of day. The next question is whether the meal break is spaced properly in the day. There is a decent amount of flexibility in this, but there can't be more than 5 working hours on either end of the meal break. The final question is the 12-hour rest period between rehearsals. If rehearsal ends at 10:30PM, the next day's rehearsal can't start until 10:30AM. This is something to keep an eye on at Reagle because rehearsals are late in the day during the week and early on the weekends, to accommodate our cast members with "real jobs." It's an easy mistake to accidentally infringe on the 12 hours between Friday night and Saturday morning.

2. Once I know the schedule is legal, the next question is, does it make sense? One of the greater challenges of stage management is that you're supposed to think of absolutely everything and fix everyone's problems before they occur. Thinking through the schedule and looking for trouble spots or areas that could obviously be improved is part of that. In my perusal of the schedule today, I discovered that we had a 1.5 hr lunch break for an 8 hr rehearsal on the weekend of the first week. As much as I hated to give up that nice long lunch, the fact is we don't need that long of a break if we're taking the shorter day, and were losing a half hour of productive time each day as a result. So we fixed that. I also suggested a time change on the two days before tech to shift an extra hour to the evening so we would have more time for our scheduled runs of the show.

I hate math, and I hate math with time, but it's very helpful to be able to work quickly in your head with common time-usage situations that one might encounter in rehearsal. Part of this is knowing your contract's specific rehearsal rules inside out (or having a copy of the rulebook handy for those really obscure questions, like how many hours can you rehearse on a 1-show day after the week of the first public performance -- I always have to look those up). Equity's web site has all the rule books in PDF format in the Document Library. The beauty of this is that a) they take up no physical space or weight in digital format, and b) you can easily search them for whatever term you're looking for. I was lucky in my early career to have spent most of my non-Equity years working on Equity Showcases (unless you don't count working for like $0.25 /hr lucky), where I had to enforce all the Equity rules even though I wasn't covered by them myself. By the time I got my card I was completely comfortable with all the basic rules. The numbers change (in general as the minimum salary goes up, so does the number of hours you work), but for the most part the concepts are the same. If you can afford to work for very little, I recommend it to aspiring Equity stage managers, as it will allow you to already know what you're doing if you suddenly get your first Equity contract as a PSM and everyone expects you to know what you're doing.

It took me a long time in my career (oh, about five-and-a-half years) to find a format for a calendar that I liked. Any calendar creation software was too restrictive, and in fact I think they've stopped making any kind of apps to do that, they assume everyone uses Outlook or iCal or something. Well I like to have complete control over the layout, and I don't need to sync it to anything, so I couldn't deal with that. When I was production coordinator of Bingo in Florida, the company manager had a rather nice calendar she made in Excel, I decided that was the way to go from now on. I came up with a layout I liked, and have used it as a template ever since. It's very blank, which I like because you can really set it up however you want. You could make Wednesday the first day of the week if you really felt like it. You can also see in my example above how I have made a calendar for "June/July." Since our whole process only takes four weeks there's no reason to waste space and confuse people with a whole calendar for each month. I can start and end it wherever is most useful for the period of time I'm dealing with. Want to play with it? Have fun.

While I'm sharing files, here's something else I had to print out today. The two-foot marks in the dance studio are starting to fall off, and we're going to need to replace them before starting dance rehearsals tomorrow. As a result of the occasional need to rehearse down the street at the Studio of Creative Movement, where we need to bring our own numbers and remove them when we're done, two years ago I created this PDF, which consists of three pages of fairly large numbers, from zero (center) to 18, which is as high as the numbers go on the Reagle stage. Since I pretty much always have my trusty Canon i70 printer in rehearsal, if somehow I wind up somewhere in life needing to put down numbers for dancers, I can print them out in a couple minutes. Having a tape measure can sometimes be the bigger problem, but in a pinch I have used the 11-inch side of a regular piece of paper, adding the extra inch by sight for every foot. Not the ideal way to do it, but it works. When I'm really prepared, I have in my kit a set of these already cut out and held together with a big binder clip, so they're ready to be taped down right away, instead of taking all that time to set up the printer and cut out the numbers. It's a real lifesaver at those horrifying moments when you realize 5 minutes before rehearsal that the room doesn't have numbers, or somebody ripped yours up overnight. Of course if I was really slick, I'd have some pre-made, sturdy numbers like those you'd use to put the street number on the outside of your house. But that would assume I was prepared and planned to put down the numbers. The whole point of this PDF is that it's there when you're caught unprepared.
Enjoy!