"Life is swingin', skies are blue and bells are ringin'..."
I'm in a good mood. As you well know, we had our first full dress
rehearsal/make-up run through this evening. Ya' know what? The show looks good!
When you work so long on a project you really become "married" to it and can't
objectively look back at certain aspects to really see what you have... seeing
what works, what doesn't work, what can be fixed, etc. Many new faces were in
the theatre this evening to see the show in its, almost, complete form and they
were able to offer suggestions. They were the fresh eyes I've needed to nix
certain ideas and bring out others. After the show, I made these changes and I
believe they'll add a lot to a production that looks like, in the end, it will
be successful.
Thursday night will be my directorial debut. I've learned a lot from the
process. When I look back, I believe I will learn more seeing what I didn't do
(or could have done differently) than I will seeing what I did do and what
worked well. It's about learning from mistakes and the "coulda', shoulda',
woulda's". There have been quite a few of those. My next stab at directing will
certainly take advantage of having had already made these mistakes by making
sure that they aren't made again. It was nice to have an environment where I was
able to make the mistakes and take chances experimenting. I think I've
succeeded. I'm really satisfied with what I have after tonight's dress
rehearsal. There have been many times during the process when I've had my
doubts. At times, I've been very hesitant about what the product was would look
like. It's the nature of the beast. I've been in productions that looked so bad,
were nightmare's to live through, rehearsals and run throughs that made me
promise myself that I'd never do another show again. And then, the magic of
theatre sneaks its little head and problems work themselves out, shows end up
looking great, and the promises of no more shows are forgotten soon after
they're made. Pat's costumes look fantastic. Derick's choreography superb. The
music, in the end, now appears to be fine. Things fell into place and for that
I breathe a sigh of relief. The topper to this all, of course, is that our
missing dancer from last night made it to our dress rehearsal this evening.
The excuse given was that she didn't realize we had a rehearsal. What!? Oh
well, she's back and we're glad.
It looks like Newsweek will be interviewing me on Monday for the Sondheim
article hitting the stands the first week of May coinciding with the Paper Mill
Follies revivial.
Now, some bad news: I'm $570 poorer than I was yesterday. The good news is,
in return, I have a car that works. I like that. More good news is that my
classes tomorrow were cancelled. I get to sleep, work, and breathe before the
final dress rehearsal tomorrow night.
I'm not spell checking this entry. I'm tired, it's late, and you all love me
enough not to look down on spelling or stupid grammatical errors. Right?
- mark
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