Week Wrap-Up

To be honest, I'm losing steam with this. I wish that weren't the case, but alas. I think part of the reason is that these posts can, on occasion, meander through the day-to-day. I want to continue writing about the work, but I think honing the focus will help things out.

Anyway, the season is winding down (in the sense that we're going to stop rehearsing). We've got three weeks left?!

From what I can tell, the first three shows (As You Like It, Servant of Two Masters, and Timon of Athens) are in some kind of well-oiled machine land. Servant may be less so given the challenges of rapid-fire comedy. But since I don't have much going on in that show, it's hard for me to tell.

Epicene will continue to be a bear. We did a Sunday matinee yesterday (our first for this show), and it wasn't our strongest effort. I got to the theatre an hour early to stretch, warm-up, and review my second half lines. I felt pretty good energy-wise, but the long week caught up with me. There were some flukey mishaps throughout the show. None of them were major. But we were white-knuckling this a bit. I wish that weren't the case. This is a hard one for me, and I'm going to be thinking/learning about this whole experience for a long time.

Before the show, the cast assembled to finesse some storytelling moments. I think they were good fixes. These "changes" involve either delaying or cutting a group response (something of that nature). There's a puzzling moment still--and I won't get into the nitty gritty details--and I wouldn't be surprised if that requires some ironing. The more I do this show, the more confounding it becomes.

Yours truly and Andrew (as Dauphine) in Epicene. Photo by Pat Jarrett.

A big characteristic of this play is that everyone is serving Truewit's plotting, but the folks are at different levels of consciousness of the plotting. Even his "helpers": Cutbeard and Otter, are pawns and subject to Truewit's ridicule. The Collegiates are also accomplices, but Truewit banks on their natures, rather than letting them in on the whole jest. To throw another wrench into the mix, Truewit isn't even privy to the ultimate jest of Epicene's identity... While this all makes sense to me, it becomes difficult to orchestrate group reactions in the big scenes. Each of the characters has a supremely individual response to the action, which can be problematic for the larger storytelling (my kingdom for a director!)

Epicene may not ever get to the well-oiled machine land, which is a shame because this show could use it. I think the best solution to this is doing this show more than once a week. A Jonson City Comedy needs to fire on all cylinders and quickly. I will continue to give my body and mind the best prep before it arrives for the remaining weeks. I'm also optimistic the show will start clicking along.

I should point out that I'm not saying Epicene is a failure. This is more of an artist's "divine dissatisfaction." Audiences who venture to the playhouse to see an obscure 17th century comedy have been enjoying it, and I think we've drummed up some vivid characters in some hilarious predicaments.

MEANWHILE, while all this is going on, we're rehearsing The Maid's Tragedy!

I'm grateful for the break in responsibility, but others have giant loads to bear. I'm in full support mode with these rehearsals. We have our first dress tomorrow afternoon, and I need to make sure I review everything before then.

And in other news, I published by new website. Take a look if you'd like (there are more Epicene photos there).

Recovery

I've lost track of the number of days. Maybe I'll figure it out sometime. Here's a quick recap of things:

THURSDAY, FEB 20
Epicene preview. I was a bit nervous, but doing the show once yesterday was a gift. The folks seemed to like it. Our pace is just off. But that is to be expected for a comedy that we've only been working on for, what, ten days or so? John Harrell mentioned in the talkback that Ben Jonson plays need to click along, and I agree. I feel a pang whenever there's a little gap in the action. The troupe is getting more and more solid with lines (myself included). Another wrench: I've picked up a cold that's been hovering around the Blackfriars. A couple of us have it. It's just a pesky cold (exacerbated by this schedule, no doubt) but it's supremely annoying.

FRIDAY, FEB 21
The afternoon we had a four-hour block to look over stuff. We tweaked some things here and there. We cut a couple lines out of the final scene, which helped smooth out some jagged edges. They both affected my cues and lines--so I made sure to review those again before the performance. We opened Epicene to a great house. The pace quickened. I nearly stopped the show on the line "How? Maim a man forever for a jest?" There was a moment of panic when I forgot to grab a gallant stool for an intricate prank scene, but I was able to get things back on track. I felt great before the show. The energy continued throughout. It was just plain ol' fun. I know I went beyond what was healthy for my voice though, and...well...you'll see how that plays out in the days to follow...

SATURDAY, FEB 22
The adrenaline got the best of me and the cold sort of returned with a vengeance. My voice felt pretty ragged. I opted out of singing "MoneyGrabber" for Timon and "Hongry" in Servant. The shows went just fine. I was incredibly hoarse during Servant, however. Fortunately, it's a tiny part. Been sipping water and teas all day.

SUNDAY, FEB 23
In bad shape voice-wise. My body/energy felt fine. The cold is pretty much gone. The vocal folds, however, are probably in shock. I did, however, sing "Royals" during the interlude. It's not a demanding song range-wise (we changed the key from the original). But my Hymen Hymn was something else. I made up the melody. I attempted to figure out a way around the hymn and the vocal choices I made, but nothing came to me. If this hadn't been the last show of the week, I may have even asked for an understudy, or some kind of re-staging of Hymen. I dunno... The end of this race was something just short of a trainwreck. I immediately went on vocal rest after the show. Our stage manager Sara appointed Symmonie (our all-time understudy) to read my lines for The Maid's Tragedy read-through that evening.

MONDAY, FEB 24
Woke up feeling incredibly rested. But remained on vocal rest through the whole day. It's getting better. This day off is exactly what I needed. I got some reading done. Worked on my cue cards for The Maid's Tragedy. I also started working on a new actor website. It's simple and pretty easy to manage. I'll share it someday once it's finished.

TUESDAY, FEB 25
That's today. I have nothing more to share (other than I'm on the lookout for a job during the months of April, May, and June).

ARS Day 35

Double-Show Day: Timon of Athens matinee + As You Like It on a Saturday night (! -- it's been a while)

No Epicene rehearsal.

We had a nice mid-sized crowd for Timon this afternoon. I thought the show went pretty well. BUT...

(sigh...) I called prithee at the beginning of my cave scene with Timon. (What we say instead of "line" at ASC.)

I went blank when I discovered "yond despised and ruinous man...full of decay and failing." It was a moment when I had no idea what was coming. I considered trying to struggle through it, but it was a little soliloquy, and my attempt to patch up the memory lapse would have resulted in laborious paraphrasing and stumbling that the audience would have wince at. After some quick deliberation, I called prithee. Chris, as prompter, was primed (probably alert to the longer-than-normal pause), spoke the next two words, I immediately knew where I was line-wise. It was pretty terrifying in that instant. But I think I handled the situation as best as I could.

I don't want to call "prithee" if I don't have to (I don't think anyone wants to, really). I fully expect that to happen in Epicene (not that I'm banking on it--I just know it's possible, if not likely for this particular show). There have been some moments in Timon when I've mentally jumped to other scenes. Flavius has language in speeches that, on paper, seem very similar in others. He repeats turns of phrase often enough.

Anyway, it's out of my system. It may happen again, and I'll just keep going along.

That evening we had a large crowd for As You Like It, which was a treat. We hadn't done a Saturday evening AYLI for quite some time, and it was fun. Saturday nights are often the big ticket each week. I knew we were in store for a fun show from the very beginning when people snickered throughout at Orlando's first speech. Greg has navigated it clearly, it's full of tension and some good little parenthetical remarks. He manages to create a young man with strong convictions, but also lets his doubts slip to audience members and Adam. And there's humor in that.

ARS Days 29 - 31

Well, folks, the 2014 Actors' Renaissance Season has opened three plays within a month.
That's quite the feat. The shows couldn't be more different from each other.

On Friday, we spent a bit of time looking at a couple big crowd spots, but most of the time was devoted to working up a song ("Everybody Knows"). Meanwhile, I spent some time at the theatre to work on more Epicene lines.

I was pretty nervous about opening. For whatever reason, this evening felt like a "real" opening night. There was a big home-town crowd with many familiar faces. I think the show went well. The standing ovation we received at the end was the rare "leaping out of seats" kind of ovation (which I haven't experienced for a while). People laughed a lot too. My scene with Timon at the cave had plenty of chuckles. I was startled by it (because Flavius is a pretty vulnerable situation). Afterwards, I realized that if people are laughing this late into the play at a man who has been railing against humanity for the past 45 minutes, I think we're doing something right. I'm not saying this was a laugh-riot scene, but it was energized, and people keenly listening.

I'm not above taking costumed selfies. Here's what I'm rockin' as Flavius.

The next day we had an As You Like It matinee (with 200+ people!) and then a Servant performance that evening. This was the first AYLI were people sitting in the middle section of the Lord's Room (the balcony that sits above the stage where we play most of our music during pre-show and interludes). That was a new kink into playing Hymen from above. I could only see a few actors. There was even a moment when I got on my tip-toes and had to stay up in "relevé" for a few lines. I'm not quite sure what was going on. I was most likely shouting and spitting into the ears of those young women, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Servant went just fine, I think. The long weekends of rep tend to get blurry (and I'm writing this on Monday afternoon).

On Sunday, we had a matinee of Timon. I jumped in on trumpet for "Everybody Knows." It needs some work still, but I'll get it. I wasn't thrilled with my performance. I don't wanna get bogged down by it or make excuses. But it was a long week.

I decided to give myself the rest of the night off and spend Monday (today) working on Epicene lines. I actually watched The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's been on my Netflix list for a while, and after hearing about Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, it just felt like the right thing to do (and I don't care about football). I'm always saddened to hear about the death of great artists, but this one has struck quite a nerve (one that I wasn't expecting).

ARS Day 28

FIRST PREVIEW OF TIMON OF ATHENS!

But first, we had our first student matinee of As You Like It.

The audience was a bit of a tough crowd, to be honest. We've been spoiled with generous houses in the past weeks. I don't mean to disparage this house. It just goes to show that, as a troupe, we can't get too comfortable with the ebb and flow of response and laughter. Not every Romeo and Juliet matinee that we had last year was raucous and I don't consider As You Like It is not wild romp of a show. It's witty and amusing (and the beginning is FULL of tricky exposition and quite dark, actually), but not full of all the bawdy humor that R&J has in the first half. Anyway, It was a good lesson in picking up cues when the jokes don't audibly land on students like they do with adults. Also, there's definitely a culture about attending performances at the Blackfriars. For those who aren't accustomed to how immediate and interactive, it can be daunting. I think seeing plays here demands a lot on the audience (for the better, I believe). This is not a passive theatre-going experience. But if you're not used to that kind of thing, it can be a bit disorienting.

As much as I grumble about waking up earlier for student matinees, there is something incredibly energizing about telling these stories for students. I'm always certain that a matinee performance is the first time some have ever seen this play, possibly the first time they've seen Shakespeare live. I also bank on there being at least one kid whose life is altered by a show. And I gotta say, it's endearing to see kids sing along with a song like "Royals" during the interlude.

After the matinee, we had five glorious hours off before the preview. I took that precious time to relax.

I arrived at the theatre a half hour early and still wasn't ready for the pre-show. One of the hardest parts of this job is opening a show--especially when there's a lot of backstage business. My mind is preoccupied with finding the backstage path of least resistance. Sometimes it's actually easier to keep some costume changes in the dressing room--other times, that's just impossible. I have one major change from my messenger into Flavius (it's, thankfully, not a quick change) but then I'm shuffling around instruments and props, paging curtains, etc. With the exception of Timon and myself, it seems that everyone else in the troupe has anywhere from four to seven changes throughout the night. This routine gets exponentially easier every time we do it. So I'm not worried. But it is my world right now.

There were about four moments when I wasn't completely sure what the next line was and that dash of panic set in. But my mouth knew the words, and if I can just get out of my own way and trust the preparation, the story does come along. Timon is one of the first shows since I've been here where I have very little down time (absolutely none in the first half). Quite a change from Servant and As You Like It.

We had a talkback after the show and some folks were keen to discuss about the play's reputation. This is not a play without issues (which one doesn't though? That's part of the reason we get to revisit these stories over and over and over).

But I don't think it's a "bad" play. It helps to have a strong cut (and ours is a swift one). I think it's fascinating and think we've assembled a story that's full of sizzling, epic language. This is a play that will get people talking afterwards. And I'm honored that this production will be the first time many will have ever it. It doesn't have the interpersonal/familial relationships. It's political, but doesn't deal with the lives of royalty and kingdoms (I suppose you could argue that Athens is a kind of kingdom). There's really nothing like it in Shakespeare's canon.

We officially open tonight. We've got a block of time to sort out any remaining issues (and some songs need attention). But then, the rest of the weekend is devoted to repping three shows.

On Tuesday, we begin Epicene rehearsals. I'm thrilled and terrified for that one.

ARS Days 23 - 25

Happy Monday "Morning" (it's morning for me because I slept in)!

This weekend was full of performances and a bit of Timon rehearsal. The exciting thing about this weekend is we had our rock star Symmonie go in for John since he was out of town for a wedding. She went on as Touchstone and Pantalone. This meant that on Friday, we devoted rehearsal for put-ins. She had the lines down, even stepped in to sing an interlude song that John sings right before we start the second half of As You Like It. It's always fascinating to play with an understudy. Things are just inherently different. In fact, I discovered some new things in my various interactions with Touchstone as a result.

We also had to do some music shuffling. John is a stalwart in the music parts of our troupe. He's mostly covering on the brand-new upright bass. I'm not sure how well it carries into the playhouse, but that instrument is critical for the ensemble in holding down the roots of all the chords. I most missed it during the interlude music during As You Like It.  We did end up cutting two songs in each pre-show, which just meant that we delayed when the musicians came out to play for the audience.

All in all, it was a good weekend. It wasn't without some glitches. I'm starting to understand the true excitement of Ren Season. I'm quite used to repertory now, but rehearsing Timon for three 8-hour days and then revisiting Servant after not touching it for a week is a little nerve-wracking (and I'm hardly even in that show). I can imagine it will only get more frantic as we add the other two shows....

Though this picture doesn't seem like things are that frantic: William and Silvius crush some candies...

I had a great treat on Saturday to have my voice/text teacher, Sara, visit Staunton. It was wonderful to catch up with her. She just finished coaching Private Lives at PlayMakers Rep in Chapel Hill, NC. She has a great little interview on the URTA website for those who are looking into grad school. I owe a lot to her teaching.

On Sunday, we rehearsed for a couple hours in the evening (this is our Friday night, need I remind you...). We finished blocking the play (the epitaph scenes). Since I wasn't in those scenes, I worked on figuring out the notes to an opening "party" song that will start off the show. If all goes well, Greg and I will trade off noodling on our respective horns to help set off the festivities of Timon's great banquet. After that, we plugged everyone into the Masque. There's dancing, a leap/backbend off a table, music, and lots of revelry. I'm doing my best to play the bongos. It's about as Baz Luhrmann as you can get on the Blackfriars.

I'll provide a link to some rehearsal photos. But I will say there are some possible spoiler alerts if you'd like to keep some parts of the show a surprise, you may not want to see some of them. But here it is...

Okay, I'll leave at that. I want to see Inside Llewyn Davis today, but I only deserve that if I make uber-progress on my Epicene lines (and review all of my Timon lines).

ARS Days 17 - 19

Friday, Jan 17

Opening Night!

We had a short rehearsal. Some folks wanted to look at a few spots in the show, and then we worked on music for a while. I was able to get out of rehearsal a good 90 minutes early (and able to get some much-needed grocery shopping done).

Then, it was showtime! The house was pretty big and very generous. The pay-what-you-wills are always a nice hometown crowd at the Blackfriars.

Afterwards, some of us got drinks and a lovely couple who had just seen the show paid for our tab. We were able to shout a thanks to them after they left (and we found out about it from our server). It was such a nice gesture. And on the chance that you're reading this blog (I don't know their names): THANKS AGAIN!

And for no reason, here's an incredible cover of "I Want You Back." We've been jamming to this in the men's dressing room:

Saturday, Jan. 18

Two show day, but now we're repping! (I'm getting really spoiled by doing theatre in repertory. The prospect of just doing one show is becoming foreign to me) The afternoon was As You Like It. We hadn't done it in a week--which is a long time, especially when our brains and bodies have been concentrating on Servant. But I think we got into a groove.

Then we jumped back to Venice in the evening. It was another good crowd with some familiar faces. I'm beginning to understand the rhythm of my track for the show. I reviewed Timon lines in the first act (which I'm not in at all--it's strange to do a set of music and the pre-show speech and then have at least 45 minutes "off"). After the bell rings for the first interlude, it's go-time for me.

Sunday, Jan. 19

We had a good-sized crowd for the As You Like It matinee this afternoon. The music went much more smoothly than the night before, I thought. I can't believe we've been performing this show for three weekends already. This season is going to pass quickly.

After a dinner break, it was time to begin work on show number three (!): Timon of Athens. This show will mark the completion of Shakespeare's cannon at the ASC (and quite nice that it happened during it's 25th Anniversary). I'm excited about this show.

We just did a read-thru, and it clocked in at 1:50 minutes or something like that. We'll probably add some more time, but the cut is quite swift. Critics seem to hate this play. I don't understand it. No, it's not perfect, it's not without its issues (but, you can say that with most of Shakespeare's plays). The language is percussive and oozing with brilliant imagery (it's biting and often ferocious). There are some great, iconic scenes and images. I think it'll leave audiences with plenty to think and talk about, and I think we're already headed in a great direction. I can already "see" this play in my mind after this first reading with the troupe (plus Rene's great idea for the "world" he'd like to create--he's playing Timon). I'll keep mum about any more details for now.

Tomorrow's a glorious day off. I'll have to set aside at least a couple hours to work on Epicene lines, but you can bet I'm gonna sleep in and do a hefty amount of lounging.

ARS Days 10 - 13

I thought this was going to be a daily endeavor, but there's not too much to report (and there's no denying: I'm busy). We also had a full weekend of As You Like It performances. Here's a photo:

Sarah Fallon (Celia) and Tracie Thomason (Rosalind). Photo by Pat Jarrett.

You can see more production photos here.

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Letsee...on Sunday night, we met for a couple hours to solidify more music for Servant. I'm jumping on accordion for a song--an instrument I've never played. But the licks I'm playing aren't too bad. I think I'll get the hang of it. The song I've been doing the trumpet transcription for is going over quite well. Many fellow troupe members have been complimentary for that. I've got some more notes to work out for a couple other songs, and I think the bulk of the work is done! We'll be in good shape to preview Servant on Thursday (if I have the schedule correct).

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For the past couple years, I've been using Pinterest to collect images (and some videos) that have some kind of link to the shows I'm working on. Often, they are photos from other productions. But paintings from the era or ones that evoke the right tone appear too. There's also costumes and locations that offer pathways to more imagination. Here's my AYLI board (which includes a lot of pins from when I was playing Touchstone back in grad school).

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Other than that, today I've been enjoying the day off, working on more lines and other odds n' ends.
We start back up tomorrow with a full day of Servant rehearsal, which reminds me, I need to work on the pre-show speech for that (more on that later).

ARS Day 6

Sunday - January 5

Got to the theatre a bit earlier than call to do a good ol' fashioned voice and body warm up. My voice was pretty tired. I'm glad I took the time to do that. I don't really have a pre-show ritual at the ASC. Each show requires different preparation. More often than not, it depends what my voice/body needs and what show it is.

I have a 12-minute walk to the theatre, which is a great time to listen to any songs that I need to do a lyrics brush-up on or listen to music that helps focus me on the show--a soundtrack of sorts.

Last fall, I went through all of my lines before every Troilus & Cressida performance. We usually only did it once a week, and I had a couple big speeches and scenes I needed to keep cycling through my voice and head.

Here, there's so much activity going on before a show: props and costumes to set, instruments to warm-up and tune, fight/dance/music call. Often, we all get to the theatre 90 minutes before the show begins (and don't forget, we've got the pre-show music). Now I have to add graying out my beard for this show. I'm considering just having a goatee for this season; it's less gunk to put on my face.

After the show and a dinner break, we returned to the theatre for our first The Servant of Two Masters rehearsal. Part of the evolution of the Ren Season (I guess) is to hold a Sunday evening read-through of the next play. It gives the troupe a chance to get a sense of where people are headed with their characters and such.

This play is FUNNY. It's also never been done on the Blackfriars stage before. (A bit of trivia, with the exception of As You Like It, the rest of the plays for this ARS are Blackfriars premieres!) I think people will love this. It has some challenges, of course, and I will likely elaborate on those as we dive into rehearsals.

After the read, we got on the same page with the pronunciation for the Italian proper names (and I have the pleasure of saying "Singor Pantalone dei Bisognosi"). I believe some folks started work on the fights afterward. I'm just bracing myself for the big restaurant scene and learning a lot of music. This is the smallest role I have in the whole season, which will be nice given that I still have quite a lot of lines to learn for Epicene (which is definitely on my homework list for Monday).

ARS Day 5

Opening night!

We had two "pay-what-you-will" previews today: a matinee and then opening night, and I think they went rather smoothly.

We changed the end of the wrestling match after the matinee. Orlando's language says that he's ready to keep fighting after he takes down Charles. For the first two previews, the audience gave Orlando a big cheer before he says those lines. We had some action that indicates the fight is clearly over. So we cut some business to make the end of the match a little more ambiguous before Duke Frederick officially declares him the winner.

For the evening show, Greg suggested to me that I enter first in the beginning and immediately head downstage. He has been entering first (since he's the first to speak), I hang up stage a bit and then make my way downstage. Admittedly, that cross has been feeling weird for the couple shows we've done. This solution has solved two problems. The Ren Season allows for changes, even after we've opened (something that usually doesn't happen).

I don't really have anything else to report. There was a fun opening night party in the Cutaia Lounge after the show. It was fun to chat with the audience (and eat some delicious smoked Gouda).

ARS Day 4

It's the day of the show y'all!

Photo by Jay McClure, which he snapped while I was rehearsing a scene as William.

We had a morning meeting to go over what we would do for the next four hours. It amounted to about one hour of scene work/blocking issues and then three hours for music. Chris managed to learn how to play "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones in twenty minutes, so that was plugged into our pre-show lineup. I spent some time before rehearsal to transcribe the guitar/sax solo in the funk song "Couldn't Get It Right."

I had a good hour to work on my own while everyone else was rehearsing other songs I wasn't in, so I used that time to look at my big Flavius soliloquy in Timon of Athens ("O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!"). At a first glance, it looks like a long list of saying the same thing over and over. That is dangerous. But as I looked at the language/verse more closely, I realized that Flavius changes his mind toward the end and fully commits to sticking with Timon, even though both of their lives are essentially ruined. So, Flavius blasts away the compounding factors of Timon's downfall. Navigating those shifts will help memorizing and keep the drama pumping in a seemingly "speechy" play.

Anyway, after a 90 minute break, everyone returned to the playhouse to get prepped for our first "Pay-What-You-Will" Preview. HOLY COW! There were at least 200 people in the house. Greg (playing Orlando), told me he startled a bit right after saying the first line of the play ("As I remember, Adam..."). He plays the drums for the pre-show music and can't really see the crowd.

I've opened quite a few shows in my young professional acting life, and it's always nerve-wracking to step on stage and say the words the first time for a full house. I only have three lines in the first scene, but I admit I was relieved getting offstage after that first scene.

I guess a few "prithees" were called (what we say instead of calling "line"). But the audience doesn't seem to mind. Yes, we have a prompter sitting just to the side of the stage for the Ren Season. There are some legendary "prithee" moments in past Actors' Renaissance Seasons. Perhaps we'll have our own; it's all part of the fun.

Tomorrow, we have two more previews (with the official opening on Saturday night). We're actually done rehearsing As You Like It. The music still needs some work; luckily, we always have a music call before each show, which will give us time to work out the kinks. With the first show, this is the most time-compressed we are for music. The others have some more time to let the songs marinate.

Out-of-context quote of the day: "Are those supposed to be sheep noises? Because they don't sound like sheep."

ARS Day 3

Dress Rehearsal Day!

During our morning meeting, we determined to go through the whole play, stopping and starting as needed. Before that, we had a music rehearsal for the in-show songs. If I'm not mistaken, As You Like It has the most songs of any Shakespeare play:

"Under the Greenwood Tree"
"Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind."
"It Was a Lover and His Lass."
"What Shall He Hath That Killed The Deer."
"Wedding is Great Juno's Crown."

We also bring "Blow, Blow" back at the end with a dance.

We managed to make it through the show in the morning. I used it as a practice dress rehearsal and tried out all my costumes, since I wasn't exactly sure how much time I had for my changes. Backstage, stage management has posted a scene chart with the number of lines in each scene along with who's in that scene (remember, we've only been provided with cue scripts). It's a good way to gauge, early on, how much time we've got before the next entrance. I learned my changes are pretty easy. There are some times when actors have to leave a scene as one character and enter in the next as another. We're working with some creative ways to get those people off stage earlier to help with the quick change.

I MUST MUST MUST write in new entrance cues for some of my scenes. Often a character will say "here comes ______________" and that's the cue to enter. But given that we've got doors on the Blackfriars Stage, it doesn't make the most sense for a character to magically know that another is entering without seeing them. This means the cue has to be bumped up a line or two.

After an hour lunch break, we got ready for our dress rehearsal. We used music call to work on the interlude music. Our pre-show music is not quite ready. I think we're using the four hours we have on Friday's rehearsal to use for that. Some staff from the theatre staff showed up for the dress. We even had a person sit on the gallant stools on stage--always helpful.

I imagine we'll get some notes about how everything looks and flows on Friday. I know there's a few blocking snafus that I'd like to adjust in a couple of my scenes. They may or may not get rehearsal. We can discuss as needed. I love how open and willing everyone is when it comes to addressing concerns or little problems. There's absolutely no ego involved.