Oh God, seriously I haven’t posted anything since Day 2 of tech? Well, again I refer you to Nick’s Blog, which has been kept up slightly better (I think between the two of us we might make up one fairly regularly-updated blog about stage managing this tour).
I am writing from the booth during half hour of an evening performance on an average Saturday here at the Guthrie. The matinee was a very good show. We have been rehearsing The Spy and the 1-hour student version of Henry V like crazy this week, as well as doing 8 performances of the 3-hour Henry V at night, and everyone is very tired, both physically and mentally, but the cast gave a great show to one of our best audiences yet (which is saying a lot cause we’ve had some awesome audiences). We found out at the post-play discussion that they were largely made up of a group of college students who were working on Henry V for an English class, so our talkback focused pretty much exclusively on questions about the text and the task of performing Shakespeare. I love doing talkbacks, so the heavy focus on education with this tour is a lot of fun for me.
Next week we have an additional student matinee, which means a 9-show week (and the corresponding increase in pay), in addition to our intense rehearsal schedule. Everyone is worried about getting worn out from it, especially since at the end of the week we are leaving Minneapolis and traveling to West Lafayette, IN, for another tech for The Spy. I’m anxious to actually start touring, though. It will also be our first ride on the bus, which should be really fun, at least until the initial effect of feeling like rockstars wears off and gives way to “gee I’d really like to sleep in a real bed.”
