Archive for the ‘Oliver!’ Category

We have our first public performance tonight!  It’s a preview which means we still have the option of stopping the show if something goes terribly wrong.  Which it won’t (as I knock on wood).

This week has been rewarding, tiring and filled with hard work.  We’ve gone until 10:00 every night – which isn’t easy for the younger ones – and our crack technical and artistic staff then meet until about midnight and we all give our notes for the next day.  This is everything from changing a light cue to making a costume adjustment to deciding to use a different prop.  One of the many things I love about Lyric Arts is that they actually give you enough stage time to be able to consider and make these changes.  Things look VERY different in the rehearsal room - and I’ve worked some places where we didn’t get the stage until two or three days before opening.  That’s crazy-making for everyone – so THANK YOU, Lyric Arts!

And speaking of Lyric Arts – I’ve already talked about the great designers, and the wonderful cast – let’s talk a bit about our producers:  Lyric Arts.  I really, really like this theater – I like the building, I like Anoka, and most importantly, I like the people that run the company.  They are incredibly hard-working, nice, funny, deeply caring, so smart they scare me, and they are devoted – DEVOTED – to creating quality theater and to theater education.  I like that mission – a lot.  I can think of few things more fulfilling than seeing a young person gain confidence and discipline by doing a show.  Or working with an adult who knows (s)he wants to be on stage but hasn’t had much opportunity – and seeing that person blossom as he realizes he has talent.   The experience of witnessing that life-changing (and I don’t use that word lightly) transformation has choked me up more than once.  Theater can do that, people!  That’s why YOU need to support Lyric Arts – come to their shows and give them a donation.  They’re maybe not going to solve the world’s problems, but trust me, they are touching people’s lives and making a difference.  Yeah!

OK – over and out – I need to go and WRITE A CHECK to Lyric Arts.  Hoping you do the same!

BN

Tech rehearsals – oy.   We’ve had a long and productive weekend in the theater adding the technical details – lighting, set moves, timing everything to music, making sure no one trips over anything in the dark.

I’m a little weird because I sort of like tech rehearsals.  First of all, they’re a challenge to your time-management skills and I like that challenge.  More importantly, tech is when you finally find out if what you imagined in your head actually matches what you’ve got on stage.  This can be exhilarating or devastating.  Thankfully, I spent most of the weekend exhilarated.  Lighting is such a creative art and I’m so grateful there are people like our designer, Dan Thorson, who understands it technically AND thinks like an artist.  That makes the whole process enjoyable.

It fascinates me how making theater can be so all-consuming.  You become so focused on creating a specific world and then you go out in the lobby or step outside and are a bit shocked that “real” life is continuing.  “You mean the sun is out?”  “You mean people are driving around?”  “But wait, I was just in 19th-century London.”  Anyone reading this who does theater knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Anyone reading this who does NOT do theater probably thinks we’re a bit crazy.  If you’re in the latter category, do a show sometime and you’ll see what we mean!  Living in that alternate universe is pretty cool.  And it’s the only way to lead an alternate life without being considered completely insane and shunned by polite society.  OK, some of us are still shunned by polite society, but that’s for a whole other blog.

I continue to LOVE this cast.  Nice, funny, thoughtful, hard-working, talented, did I already say funny?  I was especially amazed yesterday at our dinner break.  Arrangements had been made for a pot-luck dinner which I remembered at the last minute and contributed some crappy store-bought valentine cookies loaded with sugar and manufactured ingredients.  I was in the minority.  The lobby was filled with all kinds of crock-pots and home-made you-name-it.  My dear colleague, Irene, even made gruel!  Seriously.  And it was delicious!  (um……sort of seriously – c’mon, it was gruel)

So if you’re reading this, buy a ticket to our fabulous show!  It’s Dickens, it’s a musical, the cast rocks, it looks great and we’ll give you free gruel.

BN