It is Week 2 of rehearsals.
But I feel like it's been longer than that. I need to remind myself that this show is still very new for my actors. They have yet to familiarize themselves with the details of the story.
Last week, the artistic team and I sat with the whole cast (those who were there) and worked. Now, we divide and conquer. On Friday night, I had the eight actors who make up the "household" learn the Prologue and first song, while KW worked with the Narrators and MZ met with the Psammead. Then we swapped and switched and shuffled people around. I then rehearsed the "Castle Siege" with the ensemble, before moving them on to MZ to work on blocking the "siege". (Blocking is the theater term for movement on stage. This is for any movement that is not dancing.)
And that is how our 4-5 hours go. Each director decides which scene or song needs to tackled and we schedule our actors accordingly. Basically, the actors learn the show in bits, all out of order. We start putting things together when the actors have learned the pieces. My goal is to teach all music by Week 3. This works out especially well because after Week 3 we'll take a week off for Christmas, which will give the actors time to rest and listen to the music at home (on 'repeat', I hope.)
So I arrived at rehearsal all prepared to teach the actors the singing parts that I have heard in my head for so long, when... surprise! There were plenty of new and amazing details to keep me on my toes! I needed another self-reminder: this show is only half-done! We still have many details to work out, and many of these details depend on the actors themselves (how many there are, what they are capable of physically doing, how well they listen, etc.)
Here is what I discovered this week, in just six total hours of rehearsing.
1) Illness at this time of year is unavoidable. I have yet to see the entire cast together. But technology is helpful here. I made practice tracks of all the songs so singers can practice at home.
2) My ensemble is awesome! I started with the hardest singing parts, to ensure that the actors have enough time to learn them, and they have already nearly memorized two of the songs. They listen really well and sit quietly during rehearsal, which means rehearsals go ten times as well.
3) Writing for male voices is hard for a female singer. Everything I wrote for female voices is singable... not everything I wrote for male voices is. We have some tweaking to do, but my actors are okay with trying to sing it in different octaves.
4) My Psammead (the magical sand fairy who can grant wishes) came in to rehearse his solo with me, and he wanted to show me the dance he had learned the day before. I was blown away by his moves! I had never seen this actor dance before!
5) A fun part of divide-and-conquer is when another director calls you in to show you what his/her group had accomplished. MZ choreographed a short lyrical dance for four girls, and when I saw it, I cried. She asked what I thought... I say, if my initial reaction to a scene is tears, it's a keeper!
6) I'm straddling the role of vocal director and writer. If I was solely the vocal director, I would only have to deal with the music and the band, sometimes collaborating with the other directors on dances and timing of blocking. But now I'm asked questions like, "What do you think of this baby doll?" We all agreed that the baby's face was... hmmm... too realistic. So, we're going to make our own baby. And "What is your vision for what the Psammead will look like?" That's a costuming question... I didn't think much about it! So I took some time to do some research, recruited my daughter to photoshop something together for me, just to give the costume committee something to start with. I still don't have all the answers. I don't know how to make a big baby doll or transform a teenage boy into a magical creature. But we have time to play and experiment... and discover!
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