Opening weekend

Production week essentially started the Thursday before Thanksgiving, as we had no rehearsal last Wed. and Thurs. for the obvious reason.  Well, we didn’t have Wed. rehearsals period due to the church being used that night.  I have to say that those rehearsals left me drained.  We were there until after 11, and with my sleep troubles and having to be up for work- well, let’s just say that I didn’t always maintain a good handle on my frustrations.  Not that there were any blowouts or even close to them, just periods of anti-social me.  The biggest struggles were moving sets around.  There is no stage crew, so we all chip in with moving set pieces and props around.  Between some scenes there are a lot of changes.

On to the topic, we opened this past Friday to a sold out crowd.  Saturday was sold out as well.  I should add that the small church only seats about 140, so it is actually not hard to sell out.  In fact, at least one more performance is completely sold out and a couple others have less than 10 seats available.  Not bad for a theatre in a church, eh?  So Friday night we performed after a two-night break and I had two spots where I messed up.  One minor, one not-so.  For some reason, there is a set of lines I constantly struggle with.  An excited Dr. Campbell runs out to George and excitedly informs him that the Building & Loan will keep going and that in fact there is a special treat for George (which he doesn’t think is so great, but that’s beside the point).  Well, with the excitement and my slow brain, I tend to fumble some of this.  Even after going over it in my head several times during the day.  Sigh.  The not-so-minor messup was me not making it out in time for the start of act II.  I don’t know what happened- I heard the one-minute call, but it just didn’t register.  I realized the problem when I heard the start of the scene and rushed up there.  Too late.  Well, my role was very minor with one line that wasn’t really necessary, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  Still…

Fortunately the next night I did much better.  I don’t know if we as a whole did much better (the second act dragged Friday- we were told it lasted 15-minutes longer than it should have!) but I would be surprised if we didn’t.  Anyway, I don’t know if there will be a pickup rehearsal or not, we’ll see.  Otherwise, next performance is this Thursday.

By the way, you may have noticed I wrote “Dr. Campbell” above.  In addition to Mr. Gower I play three other roles (two others really- I combined a couple of them).  Mr. Partridge is the third.  His first name became Charlie, the fourth role.

Derek