Requiem
So. 2009-JUL-19, eleven minutes past seven. The final performance of Evita’s 2009 rendition will begin in…forty eight minutes. … And as I sit here in the AV booth, I find myself at a relative loss for words. Unusual, but not unpresidented. It seems crazy, but I’ve seen this production fifteen? times now, and I haven’t written about it. I would consider writing a long essay now, but I find the iPod touch keyboard to be very…confining.
One more Evita, seven more King & I, and seven more Producers — at which point I will start a new lifetime.
Bottoms up.
mlk
Duel of the Fates
…2009-June-17. 457 in the evening. The new, Broadway symphonic orchestra recording fail safe-just in case-emergency backup-plan is here and playing wonderfully well. … The King & I has its hard opening tonight — people are paying to see us.
…552. We just finished Springtime for Hitler with the prerecorded OSV — and it worked!! For the first time ever The entire number worked! We are all back stage, high fiving each other while in a general state of euphoric shock. OMG!
…752. Webb has given us his deck speech, talking about the fact that, in this current economic situation, people are still willing to do this. They have cut many things out of their lives, but this is not one of them…theatre remains a part of the open cultural identity of these people.
Time to go.
1019. About 75% done with Act II. “Shall we dance” plays in the background, as I mentally prepare myself for the torture sequence by thinking of an old love…
1100. Show is over, and people are streaming into Nippons. Maggie. Shane. Chris. Miranda. Jill. There is a cute guy, employee, at the bar — but my headache and own fears prevent me from talking to him. I finish my green tea, thank Webb for a lovely evening and flee…cursing myself on the way out the bloody door. Argh!
Zealous charge
2009, June 14. 106 in the afternoon, the sun is shining and the weather is a wonderfully perfect 67 degrees. The first Producers rehearsal with a full stage to play with should have started eight minutes ago, but we don’t have the full cast yet. Webb is talking, discussing todays order of battle. … Go from opening to Whitehall, and then go back and spike everything. … There will be ten crew people on deck for today’s run through today alone. In the end, we will have thirty crew people… !
In a five hour run through, Webb will be “thrilled” if we get through the first act. Today will be a first tech — one in which the full set isn’t hung and with no spotlights…
…running the opening number / king of old broadway… massive spacing / timing / synchronicity issues … this lasts for over an hour — its now 237. On the final spinning circle thing, I trip over Josh Raether’s shows and am literally thrown out of line and smash into the floor due to momentum.
Josh helped me up, and continued the number without stopping to see if I’m okay… The number ends on a low note, and Chris Brady & John Chance begin the first office scene. As we wait for Whitehall to begin, John Hill, Jr and the rest of the people on stage left listen to the Greudo Valley theme (link) while Josh and I listen ans laugh while John reads from Cloten (Josh’s) horribly delivered song from Cymbeline Act 2 Scene 3…
Whitehall begins, ans it takes nearly twenty five minutes to setup. … 357. We are now in Rodger’s apartment. My lipstick — Maybelline e440 go currant — is on, I have my walker, and I await Little Old Lady Land…
… Rodger is done, and I ask Josh if my lipstick works well for LOLL. “Speak truth.” “Truth? Honest, brutal truth?” “Yes.” “… You’re gay!” (immediately, catty) “Yes, we established that already!”
… Little Old Lady land comes and goes thrice over. Springtime for Hitler comes and does, twice.
It is now 600 in the evening. The cast is quite rowdy, and Webb just yelled at is to “Be quiet. QUIET!” … King and I has been in setup for an hour…
820. King and I has started. Gods, let this work. ….. 901. John Hill has ripped his costume so badly that I have had to put about 16 pins on him just to keep it together…
1130… We are all out of costume–but not out of makeup–and taking notes. We have one more dress rehersal, and then we open…
Down the rabbit hole
My Gods. I mean…wow. I arrived at Starlight Theatre at 744 Saturday morning. I left Starlight Theatre at 219 Sunday morning. Let me provide a brief overview of the events of the past two days, and where we as a cast are heading before Tuesday.
- King and I ran began lecture at 800am. We spent an hour in dress in makeup, places were called at 905. We ran until 1150am, and had notes until 1230pm.
- Evita tech/setup lasted an hour, or so, from 1245 to 145. The show began promptly at 200, and ran until 403. We then had a light lunch, and your hero took a nap from 500 to 600. Evita was then resetup, tweaked and “made betterer” util the show opened at 800pm. It closed at 1005pm.
- At 1010, we began breaking down the Evita set. That. Was. A bastard. Two and a half hours later, we had a pizza/coffee/talking break.
- From 0055am to 219, we setup King & I, broke down King & I, and cleared the stage for Producers rehersal, which will begin in… Gods. Seven hours.
I’m off to bed.
- MK
Cognitive flatulence
Well. That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be — though that doesn’t necessarily make it “good” either. This morning’s run-through, including intermission, ran at 165 minutes.
>_<
Collectively, it was a step forward — not a step to the side as I feared it would be. Now, if we can continue that momentum and avoid moments of cognitive flatulence… I agree with the director in his theory that “half our problems would go away if you just stayed in the play.” I also find it horribly ironic that, as Webb said those words, the little girl sitting in front of me was looking around at the birds.
Perhaps the play isn’t as lost as I feared it would be.
Time to go
Saturday, 2009-JUN-13. 743 in the morning. Its cold and raining…a fitting mood setter for this, the first dress rehearsal–on the Evita set!–for The King & I. I’m not nervous, I’m terrified. This feels like a train wreck to me…not quite Cymbeline in potential weirdness, but pretty darn close.
If I were the director, and I’m not–then I would do one or two of the following things:
- Close the production down entirely. Not exactly my preferred option, but it seems like one of the more realistic ones. Alternatively, we could cancel the June run and focus on making the July run the best it can be. To loosely quote the great Shigeru Miyamoto: “A delayed [performance] is good eventually, a rushed one is bad forever…”
- Kill and/or fire half of the children. Twenty is just too many to deal with, and they are holding us back, both in terms of time constrains, and their backstage presence.
902.. I literally spent an hour in make up… Call time is going to be seven pm, I’ll be here at six. … Curtain is down, places have been called, and we sit here. Waiting.
912. Hopefully this dress will actually excite me, and lay down my fears. … And… Here. We. Go.
Edit 20090613 ± 1926 UTC: spellcheck, random formatting errors
Theatre thoughts
It’s five pm. We are about to begin Producers rehersal…D-day is in eleven days. Today, however, is a costume day…figure out what works and what does not.
…
First costume is the little old lady costume, without wigs. … My costume is too loose around the waist, and my “breasts” aren’t. Webb tells me “You can be a a good [transgendered] person!” I yell at him, bowing sarcastically and telling him “Thank you for outing me in front of the entire cast. He counters by saying I was wearing lipstick in my Facebook profile picture — which is true, but does not me necessarily make me more comfortable with my fellow cast members…..
Nazi soldier uniform, which is causing a massive allergic reaction on my chest … Accountant’s suit … Random suit #1 … Hitler auditions, which go suprisingly well … Random suit #2 … and we have twenty eight minutes until 7pm — Evita call time.
An hour later. Springtime for Hitler, and my tap shoes along with it, went wonderfully not good. I’m not nervous…I’m terrified. And now I sit here in this, the audio guys’ lair, eating salty stale popcorn. Webb just gave his announcement, and the music is playing. Twenty seven minutes…here we go.
Aftermath
Sixty seven minutes to midnight. I’m sitting in JMK Nippons, listening to Kevin Poole (?) sing badly amidst the noise of the Evita cast and crew. I’m the only one in this side of the restaurant…”seeking out desolate shade.”
I wish I could function well in these large unscripted social groups..but I cannot. As such I sit here, wondering aloud what — besides buying industrial earplugs — I can do to cope in these situations.
This sort of thing actually captures everything that was so wonderfully wrong within my last relationship. That person — his name was, is Sean — would and does thrive in these situations. I don’t, and I have no ability to well deal with them. Until I discover how todo so, or I find a person who is closer in attitude to myself that Sean — I fear I am doomed to a life of solitude…
Intermission
Intermission … Random little screw-ups abound. Audio EQ issues, Jason has a cold (or allergies), dark echoes, broken gun, prop left on stage, a missed spot movement…..
We’ll see what the rest of the evening brings…
