Counting Down

Yesterday I suddenly realized that the countdown to the first show begins.  Scary!  Monday night we have an audience for the first show.  Though the performance is billed as an "Invited Dress Rehearsal", lets be honest, when people are sitting in the seats watching that is not a rehearsal.  So the pressure is on.  The actors are feeling it, directors are feeling it, designers are feeling it.  

The problem now is that the actors (most of which have never been here) are starting to realize that their brains are already full of information from the show they learned last week.  Now they're adding to it with this show, the one that needs to open first.  I'm not sure how actors do what they're doing.  It's really quite admirable.  I could never make that work.  

Thankfully, the first show is really central around 3 ladies in the lead roles.  Those three are VERY poised and seemingly confident in rehearsal.  But every 5 minutes the show breaks out into another show stopping number which showcases the ensemble singing and dancing around them.  These numbers take time to rehearse and so for the last two days we've been behind in our rehearsal schedule, almost from the moment we started.  Well, because of that fact it feels a little bit like we're playing catch up for the next few days so that on Monday when we get into the theater (which hopefully will be completed in time) we can have a show that is ready to open.  

I've been telling this to everyone but it seems like this cast and this show particularly have the potential to be some of the best work that I've seen and worked on at this theater.  That's exciting!!!

Wish us luck in the Mountains of Musical Madness.

CK