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*saisongbird*
Hi!
How did your first dress rehearsal go yesterday? Are you getting excited? Nervous? It sounds like it's going great. I love when things just flow like you described your Act 1 going. Has Act 2 come together? Do you really only have two shows? It always goes so fast at the end. I hope your Sky has reigned himself in. We've had some of those, and it can be frustrating.
We had a bit of an unexpected tragedy after I sent my first message last week. On Saturday morning one of our supporting leads was on her way to take the SAT and was in a head on collision. She was alert at the time, and even though she would need a lot of surgery on her legs, the prognosis was good. The kids stayed strong and made it through the two shows last week really well. They were just flowing like your Act 1 even though the girl who had to take over the supporting lead's part had about 5 hours to learn it. Then, unfortunately, the girl in the accident had some complications during the week. She is still hanging in, but she's not doing as well as she was initially. That made our last two shows hard. They were completely unfocused last night - they missed lines and entrances and were worse than during dress rehearsal. I can completely understand that, but I felt bad for them since the show was being taped last night. On the upside, we took up a collection for the family of the girl in the accident this weekend and raised almost $3,000.
Sorry - didn't mean for that to get so long. I wish you all the best this week. Take deep breaths, be sure to get some sleep, and have some fun with it. I usually say "Break a leg!" but with what happened to my student I'm hesistant to do that right now. I'll just say I hope all goes well!
Re: *saisongbird*
Hi Bubs!
Dress rehearsal went pretty well - there were mistakes, but not unexpected ones, because every single mistake was related to a costume or to hair/makeup. So that's fine, especially because we're also doing costumes Monday and Tuesday. We ran Act 2 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next week, and it became very very smooth, which is great - I just think that I've seen it so much that I'm starting to get immune to the magic and I just see the minor mistakes, KWIM? I also feel like I'm at the point where I can't improve it any further because of the way we're limiting (ancient lighting board and virtually no fernells, etc) so I feel frustrated, but that's my own issue to deal with. I'm such a perfectionist that I want it to be that way, and I just hope it's going to be what I know it can be.
I'm so sorry to hear about your tragedies. That's absolutely awful, and I'm T&P your way. We're having our own share of drama - not tragedies, but drama nonetheless. Our kid playing Big Jule is gay. Fine by me. He's a great kid, but he's 12, so he doesn't necessarily understand where those boundaries are. Well, on Thursday afternoon, he makes a comment to another boy (not in the play) and the kid he made the comment to feels harassed, and my Big Jule gets OSS for the remainder of the day Thursday and all day Friday. He's allowed to come to rehearsal yesterday. We run the show, and he's just not appearing tough enough for the character. When we first gave him the role, he was fantastic, but it's been slowly disappearing over the last few weeks. So when I gave notes, I gave him the note that he needs to appear tougher, and I told him that it had been gradually fading, and we need some of that initial toughness back. Well, a kid who had wanted his part decided to take it into his own hands.
This kid (let's call him boy A) was the sweetest kid when he auditioned for the play. Polite, respectful, an all around good kid. However, Sky has been rubbing off on him. You know that line you just can't cross, as a kid, before you get into serious trouble? Sky knows where it is. Pushes it sometimes, but never crosses it. Boy A doesn't know where it is, because this behavior is new to him. Boy A decides to say to Big Jule "You're too gay to play this role. You can't be tough enough." ::facepalm:: We have to report this to the principal. We're looking at a 2-day OSS, minimum. So that's Monday-Tuesday - the remaining two rehearsals. We're off on Wednesday - staff development day. Thursday is our elementary school performance, and Friday we open.
Honestly, I just can't wait for it to be over!
RIP Dr. Irving Fishman - 10/1/19-7/25/10 - thank you for holding on for me.
You made my wedding day complete.
slpmay - We just closed "Footloose" at the high school where I work, and Saisongbird is doing "Guys and Dolls".
Saisongbird - Yikes! I know EXACTLY what you mean. I am continually having to talk to kids about crossing the line. We've had our share of drama like that. One year was so bad (with the kids harrassing the directors and producer about not being cast in certain roles) that we refer to it simply as "The Show that Shall Remain Nameless." One year our boy playing the Cat in "Honk" was caught with pills in school during show week and received OSS and was not allowed to perform in the opening night performance. Last year a kid in our kids cast was supposedly making death threats backstage. Why can't these kids just keep the drama on the stage?!
You said your one boy is 12 - are you directing a MIDDLE SCHOOL show? If you are, you deserve a medal. Middle school students make me break out in hives! ;-)
I'm a perfectionist, too, but somewhere along the line in my 15 years in doing this I realized that we could put kids on stage in duck suits and make them quack (which we sort of did in "Honk") and their parents would just be happy to see them on stage. I'm still a little bit of a perfectionist (the kids used to call me The Line Nazi since I was so picky about their lines), but I've lightened up a lot.
Hang in there!