Things are a bit stressful at the company right now. We're working on four shows (performing two, rehearsing one, and pre-production on another). I'm only involved with two of those, so I've got more of a break than others. But the stress can spread. Additionally, we're nearing the end of our summer/fall rep. This means people are snatching up tickets like hot cakes. We were sold out for The Odd Couple (tonight's show) on Monday. I think this is a record-breaker of some kind. Around 7500 people have seen this show. Last year (a five-show season) had just under 20,000 people attend our theatre. This show is going to have almost HALF of our our audience this year...well...that's how it's looking so far.
In any case, the artistic director mentioned something that his screen saver says: "we're all on the same team." We're all here to make excellent theatre. We've got different ideas of how that's best done, but the results point to the same end. I mean, we live, eat, work, play, sleep theatre. It was inspiring, actually. It was a nice little reminder.
Only five performances of The Rainmaker remain. My aim is to have the best show on the final night. I've always had that idea in the back of my mind. It's been a continual arc (with some blips, some small, some not-so-small), and I'm immensely proud of all the work that everyone has done on this show. It's grown into something quite beautiful. A week never passes when some stranger says this is the best show they've seen at the theatre. It's hard to take in just what that means--especially when these are season ticket holders and donors. They've seen them all, and keep coming back. I'm grateful The Rainmaker has had so much success. It's going to be bittersweet to finish it off (that sounds like I'm going to kill it or something).
In other news, I just finished playing the trumpet for an hour or so. I probably played too long, but I'm trying to build up endurance. The tone quality comes back relatively quickly. I haven't played trumpet in over a year. But I'm playing it in The 1940's Radio Hour right after Thanksgiving. It's a canned show, which means we've got a recording of the music to sing to every performance. There's no live music. Well, the one exception is when Biff (my role) brings out his horn for "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Today I transposed the trumpet solo in the middle. It's a bit tricky and requires a lot of lip slurring (multiple notes can be played with any one valve combination--so I have to change the note with my lips and air).
Finally, on Monday, I'm part of a staged reading that will be taped. It's called Mettle of Honor--a historical play about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. She's the only woman to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's basically all voice acting, but I'm playing a variety of characters: her husband, a couple soldiers, a Yankee Killer, and a sideshow barker (and a dog...who barks...). They require different voices (especially since we're just using stands and changing hats every once in a while to distinguish scenes). I don't consider myself to be a voice/dialect person. But I'm working on it. The sideshow barker is fun. I usually just accept that with my baby face, I'll be an ingenue type for a while. This small project allows for some stretching, and it appears to be going well.
I think tonight (I have the night off!) I'll look over some scripts and start narrowing my monologue options, maybe even start crafting some first drafts of cuttings. We'll see how that pans out. Some tv shows on Hulu are tempting.
The list piles. The more I consider what I've got on my plate, the more I realize just hoe much is going on. Many of the projects are in the near or distant future--nothing is too immediate. If I'm wise, I'll start tackling some of the bigger things now.
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