This morning we did our first full run-through of the show. It’s only been six-and-a-half days since we started staging the play. It went very well. Some fun stuff has been happening around that.

This event is quickly making the rounds on everyone’s Facebook pages.

Last week when we were staging, Alejandro (Romeo) was looking for a place to sulk to get into the proper frame of mind for his first entrance (where he’s been hiding in the woods pining for the fair Rosaline). He chose one of our prop boxes, which currently sits empty in the back of the room. It soon became his favorite spot to recline during rehearsal. Today Jamie (Paris) and Ben (Tybalt) demonstrated this rehearsal room oddity for the camera.

It’s pretty common for people to develop “their” place in the rehearsal room or offstage in the theatre — usually a favorite chair or corner. Clearly this is his. So Meaghan made it official by labeling the box.

And finally, a shot of our bed / tomb, which is named Fred. Sometimes really difficult pieces of scenery attract so much discussion that somebody finally decides they need a name. Well Fred had a name months before rehearsal started last year, long before he was ever built. And he has been known as Fred to everyone who has ever worked on the production — directors, designers, cast, crew, staff and local stagehands around the country.

The real Fred is with us in the rehearsal hall this year, which is a great luxury. He also has all his blankets, pillows and padding. During today’s run, his bedding got a little disheveled in the course of all the dying and such, revealing the lovely period padding underneath. You don’t think we’d have Juliet lying on that thing motionless for a half hour with anything less, do you?

And finally, he’s a slightly weird panorama of our rehearsal room, taken with the iPhone app 360 Panorama. The concept is cool: you slowly turn your phone and it stitches the image together in real time. It works about… this well:

I have better luck getting decent panoramas with Pano, though it’s not really designed to take full 360-degree images.

That’s the stage management desk on the right, and the director’s desk on the left. The director and myself sit at the inside places closest to center, with our respective assistants on the outside. It’s also a good idea to have the stage management desk on the side by the door, because it conveniently positions the ASM in the best spot to discretely enter and leave the room.