A Musical is Born! -Part 15- The Set

It's a busy week, so this will be my final post before OPENING NIGHT!

Last Saturday, we moved into the Village Theatre in the town of Danville. This theater is not very large; it has two small dressing rooms and almost no backstage. For our larger cast, we put actors (and costumes) in the dressing rooms and spill out into the hall. Large props that cannot fit backstage must sit on a covered porch right aside. The great thing about this small theater is that there is no bad seat in the house. Every audience member has a wonderful view of the stage.

And this is what they will be seeing:

The lower part of the stage in the front is the "apron". We added those platforms to extend the stage and give our actors more room to move. There are steps leading up to it. We also added a platform to the left for the sandpit, where the sand fairy will live. And you can see that there is no "pit" for the band, so we fit the five-piece band to the right of the stage.

As far as sets go, this is pretty simple. There are some doors and fences that come off and on, but not much else. We could have made it more elaborate (which would have been hard in such a small space, but not impossible), but KW wanted to do this show in a more "poor theater" style. "Poor theater" is when everything is stripped away except the stage, the actors, the audience, and the pure essentials. The audience must use their imagination more because there is no "Disney theater magic" happening. Even our scenes that involve magic will have no fog machine, no flashing lights, and no explosions. The audience will see everything that happens, and feel like they are a part of the magic!

So we are eagerly counting down the days. It has been refreshing to get to rehearse on the stage. The past two days (part of what we call Tech Week) were all about problem solving. 

"How do we actually get that bike on and off stage?" 

"What should the lights be doing at this moment?" 

"How do we time that sound effect so it matches the action on stage?"

"Why can't I hear that actor when he's onstage, but I can hear everything he's saying backstage?!" 

I'm just kidding about that last one, though we did have some issues with mics.

Tonight, we put mics AND costumes on the actors, which really makes the show come to life! But with costumes means timing costume changes and making sure everyone is wearing what they should be at the right time!

Tomorrow night, we add make-up, which is the final element.

Then on Wednesday, it's our dress rehearsal, when we run the show from start to finish as if it was the real deal.

This is it! We are on the last few miles of this marathon!!

A Musical is Born! -Part 14- The Happy Accident

We are on week 10 of rehearsals.

I don't have much to report today. We continue with run-throughs, fixing little things here and there. MZ (the choreographer) rehearsed parts of the dances that didn't look unified. I rehearsed all the ensemble songs and was as nit-picky as I could be about vowels, cut-offs, and breathing.

I can see that the cast felt tired today. At this point, we all feel comfortable enough with the show to relax a bit, but we are lacking the excitement of the first few weeks. Doing run-throughs over and over again helps us refine, but it also means a lot of sitting around for most of the actors–times of quiet concentration, followed by a need for a sudden burst of energy.

It's all wonderful training for these young actors. These are the practices and scrimmages that will help us win the championship. And I am certain that these actors WILL win the championship! With every run-through, I see them grow more confident and more clear about their characters. Their stamina is growing during these long rehearsals (the show will be about 2 hours long). And once we are in the theater and the stage (!), the adrenaline will flow through us and it will not be difficult to find our energy again. Everything will come together beautifully!

So what is this "happy accident", you want to know?

All throughout, I've been making changes here and there–adding music where music was needed, removing music where there was too much, changing a few lines to better match the action that is happening in the scene. For the most part, my job at the rehearsals is to just watch, play the piano at the right times, and take notes on what can be improved upon. At one rehearsal last week, one of the actors missed singing a snippet of a song, and the scene continued until she remembered to sing the song. This happened right when the sand fairy made his exit. The moment was so tender (it made me tear up), that I didn't even realize until later that this was different from what I had written. When this hit me, I grabbed a script, saw that it was indeed an easy change (the lines flowed effortlessly without the song there) and the scene was indeed much better by putting the song at the end! How happy I was that this mistake had been made during rehearsal!

So, you can see how this musical is a living, growing thing. And if you come and see the show, watch for this moment in Act 2, Scene 4!

As I mentioned earlier, we will soon be at the theater. Next Friday, we will hold a regular rehearsal. Then on Saturday, we load-in at the theater! This means the sets will get moved in (with the help of a rental truck), all costumes and props will need to find a home backstage, the band will set-up in the "pit", and for the first time, the actors get a real feel for what it's like to been the sage with the lights and limited space. We have less than two weeks until opening night! It's so exciting!

A Musical is Born! -Part 13- The Costumes

Three weeks to the show, and we are chipping away at our to-do list: band, choreography, blocking, costumes, props, sets.

The props are still being rounded up, but we did finish choreography for the finale today (yay!), the sets are done (though I haven't seen them yet), and I saw the actors in costume on Friday!

First, I have to give credit to our costume moms. CYT does not hire "professionals" to build or paint our sets or make our costumes. These are all done by our parent volunteers. Our parents spend endless hours lovingly working to bring the vision to life–and they always do an amazing job! When I first started with CYT, I was put on the costume committee, so I have a special place in my heart for these moms who are at our rehearsals hemming, sewing, fixing, and fitting to make sure ALL our actors look perfect on stage.

Because Five Children and It takes place in 1907 in England, we have racks of long skirts and blouses for the women, shirt dresses and pinafores for the girls, knickers for the boys, and slacks, shirts, and vests for the men. Boxes hold bowlers, newsboy caps and floral hats. Brown and black leather shoes and boots line the walls, each labeled with masking tape on the inside of the shoe.

What is unique about the clothes for this show is the color–or the lack of colors. KW wanted the color palette to be like that of the ocean and beach; everything is in shades of brown, gray, blue, or green. Why? Because (and this is brilliant!), when the "magic" happens on stage, jeweled tones will appear on stage and brighten up the scene (which makes this idea brilliant both literally and figuratively!) The actors will then come out wearing a brightly colored hat, or sash, or tie, or skirt. This gives the audience a visual that something is different in the town, though the actors themselves look the same.

Now normally, we would do something called a "costume parade." All actors get into costume and "parade" in front of the director and costume director in small groups. This way, the directors can see not only how individual costumes fit, but also if they go well with other costumes in the show. A family should look like they go together. People of a certain working group or class should look similar. Then the directors make notes and give the costumers time to shorten, lengthen, or change any items.

For this show, we didn't have time to do a proper "costume parade," so we did a virtual one. Actors were photographed both by themselves and in groups for the director to review later. 

This weekend, we also added a new element to our rehearsals, what we call "rehearsal clothes." This means that girls need to bring (or wear) a skirt to rehearsal, boys need slacks rather than shorts or jeans. Actors should also wear shoes similar to their characters' shoes. This is so that the actors get used to moving in clothes similar to what they will be wearing on stage. 

You might have noticed that I did not mention one particular costume at all. The Psammead's costume was not ready, because it is being hand-made (one can't just go and buy a Psammead outfit on Amazon!) I saw the beginnings of it, and it was delightful. But I want it to be a surprise, so that is all I am going to say about that...