Today is the Thursday of the second week of the run of Into the Woods. Let me explain how things work at Reagle: we rehearse for a week. Then we have a day off. Then we go back to work (usually just around the time we start work on Act II), and from that point on, we don’t have another day off until two weeks later, when the show has already done 4 or 5 performances. We go from barely having staged Act I to a finished, polished product, while living, breathing and sleeping nothing but the show for two weeks. Then we have a luxurious three-and-a-half consecutive days off. It’s actually a really awesome schedule, once the hard stuff is done.
But coming back after that time off is always rather interesting. It’s sort of like cramming for an exam. You work so hard to learn everything there is to know in a short time, but then when you step away for a while you get to see how much of it you actually retained. I feel pretty good about my comfort level with this show, but it’s always a little weird to come back and feel like you’ve been away forever.
…And it looks like we’re about to have a flash thunderstorm just as I need to leave the house. So I’m going to try to get to the car before it starts pouring. Wish me luck!
Edit: made it to the car. Got about 3 mins down the road and it was raining so hard I literally could not see through the windshield with the wipers going full speed. Since I’m not getting out in this anyway, I pulled over the first place I could. It’ll be done in 5 mins anyway. It’s already pretty good. Oops, it just stopped. See? Crazy New England weather.
The Boston PBS station, WGBH ran a profile on our production of Into the Woods tonight, including clips of the show and an interview with Rachel York. They also did one last year on Lee Meriwether in Mame, which was quite good.
You can see the video here.
Just a little plug for Playbill’s Article on Into the Woods‘s opening, with a full photo gallery. Update: just realized the gallery isn’t linked from the article. It’s here.
I call that Rachel’s Technicolor Witchcoatâ„¢, btw.
Well we just finished tech.
It was a long few days. Things moved along quite smoothly, but just slowly. The show is a unit set, and as such, it’s very simple in terms of moving scenery, but a lot of care had to be taken to create new looks for each scene, and that takes time. The show is also LONG. I think most people probably aren’t aware of it, but Into the Woods can apparently reach three hours with intermission in many productions. The script is 188 pages long. And the show switches setting sometimes several times per page, so there’s a lot of tech to be teched.
Today was supposed to be our first dress rehearsal, but we ended up using the day to finish teching Act II, and then we ran Act II, which was all we had time for. The run actually went very well. It’s one of those shows that goes like a freight train, and it was a very smooth ride, that felt much shorter to me than the hour and four minutes it took.
I’ve been very wound up for three days, because my job is to tech the show, and the difficulty we were having keeping to our timetable has been very heavy on my mind. The first night I got a very restless sleep, dreaming about mics breaking and other assorted theatrical disaster. Last night I slept a little better, mostly because we had already sketched out a contingency plan for tonight, and it was one I wasn’t too worried about being able to pull off. Today for the first time since Saturday morning, I felt I could walk out of the theatre with my head held high, knowing that we have something resembling a show, and that at least Act II is proven to be in good shape for where we are in the process.
Because of the pressure, I haven’t actually been enjoying tech as much as I usually do. Once we began the run, and it started to feel like a run, rather than just an especially long unbroken stretch of tech, I started to have fun. Act I is a lot more complicated, so once we get there tomorrow — with costumes, wigs and makeup, and an orchestra on the clock — I will be more nervous, but tonight really cheered me up.
Obligatory tech table photo:
Several fun things about this tech table: I have to give credit to Justin Scalese, who is a loyal reader of this blog, and although I can’t get him program credit, I can at least acknowledge here that he has been dubbed “Ms. Parlato’s Personal Technical Advisor.” The program will refer to him as “Sound Engineer,” but we know the truth. I’ve asked for a number of creature comforts this season. First of all, knowing how many fly cues there would be in this show, I said I really wanted a working cue light system. Reagle had one in the past, but it hasn’t been functional in the five years I’ve been around. Justin was able to get me one cue light on very short notice for this show, and by the next show, we should have at least two, and will steal an idea from a theatre I toured to in Texas, and use rope light along the length of the rail, rather than a few light bulbs. The other complexity I threw at him was that the controls for the lights had to be able to be used not only in the booth (where the wires already ran through the ceiling), but also to the tech table, or else there would be no point to the whole thing. He came through.
With just one light, I’m using it on most of the cues, but for the really complicated sequences, it’s a combination of verbal cues, by cue number, for the flypeople on headset, and the cue light for those who aren’t. I think there’s one section that requires six people on the rail.
A few days after Project Cue Light, I posed one more challenge to Justin, which I thought would be impossible, or at least impractical: to get the conductor video monitor at the tech table. The cues in this show are all very musical, and there are a lot of vamps and safeties, where the only way to know what’s coming is to see the conductor. Apparently there’s a large surplus of BNC cable, and that project was completed before I knew it. Both improvements made the tech much easier, and will contribute to the overall quality of the show when it’s seen by audiences, because it was able to be teched with more precision.
Day 5. The show is staged. The show was staged by lunch. Done.
Obviously there’s plenty of work still to come, but it’s really remarkable that such a complicated show can be taught, staged and choreographed in four-and-a-half days. This gives us lots of time and freedom to refine things and make the show really special.
Today the crew worked nearly 12 hours on stage while we were in the rehearsal studio, and over the course of the day, we were able to peek in and see the stage go from bare, to a tree-covered forest, to covered with the giant “book” platform which dominates the vast majority of the playing space. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be able to rehearse on stage, where we will start from the top, adjusting to having the actual platforms and levels that we have to work with. Everyone is very anxious to get a real sense of how the show will play with the very 3-dimensional space we have.
After tomorrow’s rehearsal we have our sole day off before opening, which I’m very much looking forward to, knowing that we’re ahead of schedule and in great shape to begin week 2.
Day three of rehearsal for Into the Woods, and already I’ve had my first inquiry of “when’s the next blog post?”
We’ve been moving very quickly. Tonight we almost finished blocking Act I. We started blocking last night at 5PM. We stopped in the middle of the Act I Finale (in this show the openings and finales of the acts are probably the majority of the running time). Then we went all the way back to “Once Upon a Time” and ran as far as we could before the end of the night, which was to the end of “It Takes Two.” It was really amazing to see how much of a coherent story we’ve already constructed. We also continue drilling music throughout the day, because, well, the score is evil. I continue to be amazed at how well the cast can absorb and retain it.
I am also becoming aware of the fact that calling the show is not going to be a cakewalk either, and that by tech I probably will need to know the score as well as the cast does to be successful. I’ve started marking my script where obvious cues should be, because there will probably have to be a whole lot of them as focus bounces all over the stage at a rapid pace. During our run tonight I actually started circling a couple places where those cues might best be called. I always feel good when I can get to that point, because it makes rehearsal relevant to my preparation for my part in the show, rather than just being a secretary and furniture mover for other people’s process.
I’m having a great time just enjoying the performances that are taking shape. We have a great group of character actors who also happen to be very strong singers. I found myself wondering why some of them aren’t Equity yet, and then remembered that they’re still in college! I’ve been here for six years and still can’t get over how much talent of all ages and experience levels can be found hiding out in the Boston suburbs.
Well our first day of rehearsal has just ended. Or my day has. It’s 11:46PM. My brain is very quickly shutting down, but I need to drink more water before bed, so you’ll get a post while I take some time to wind down.
Like most first days of summer stock season, it was crazy. We began with a production meeting at 12:30. I got in at 11:30 to make some copies, and had a chance to meet and talk with our director, Stacey Stephens, who is new to Reagle this year. We had the standard director/stage manager talk where he explained his style of directing and how he likes to run rehearsals and what he wants from me in that respect. It all sounds great, and I’m looking forward to working with him.
Then we went to the meeting, which was attended by pretty much everybody — a great turnout which makes it very easy to reach decisions and move forward on projects.
That led right into rehearsal where we had a very brief and informal meet & greet, and then dived into the music. With ten days of rehearsal before tech, no time can be wasted in teaching a Sondheim score! Our music department attacked their task ferociously, being very meticulous with every note, but the cast came prepared and rose to the challenge. We had a very ambitious schedule, and still finished it all with an hour and 10 minutes to spare, which we were able to use to work some solos that weren’t expected to be started until Sunday.
So it was definitely an encouraging day. I feel a little bit in over my head because my union is apparently of the opinion that I don’t need an assistant this year. No crises so far, but I’m not sure how long that can keep up. We’re hoping to get somebody to do it for next to nothing — anybody — but until then it’s just me and thankfully only 17 actors. But still, there are a million little things that come up many times a day that simply require another body to operate seamlessly. But I felt supported and appreciated by our creative team, so maybe they won’t hate me if something inefficient happens because I can’t be in two places at once.
Our cast seems very talented — those who I don’t know. The ones I’ve worked with before, I knew were talented already. Starting with Rachel York, who is going to be as amazing as the Witch as she was as Dolly. Which was not to be missed. So get your tickets!
Strangely, not having an assistant has given me the opportunity to get to do things only the ASM usually gets to do. Like keeping an eye on fittings, and people off in far-flung corners of the theatre. Since music rehearsals don’t require constant attention, I was able to move about a bit, sometimes even getting to spend a few minutes in the hall with actors who were not being used. I actually feel like I got to know something about the people I just met, and I had a decent amount of time to catch up with Rachel and some of the others I haven’t seen in a while. My experience of this part of the process in past seasons has usually been that Paul gets to actually talk to people on a personal level, and then as actors come up in conversation between us he tells me about them. I find it very frustrating sometimes that no matter how hard I try, I often can’t find any time to just talk to most people. I’ve done entire shows at Reagle with people I’ve been friends with for years, and despite being thrilled to hear they were cast so we could hang out again, I end up having hardly spoken to them in four weeks. So maybe having to be all things to all people will get me in on some of the socializing that only the ASM gets to enjoy.
But as I said, it was a very good day. I haven’t done a musical since last year at Reagle, so it’s very nice to check back in with that, and remind myself why I do this ridiculous job. I also realize that I’ve never actually done a Sondheim show, and there is much to be excited about. I’m glad I’ve had time to actually sit in music rehearsals and listen while the nuances of the score are explained. There’s a lot of musical symbolism that I wasn’t aware of, except in the sense that it leads you to exactly the feeling you’re supposed to feel. But having it pointed out why it has a certain effect is really cool. I love processes that provide an education in theatre itself in addition to just the teaching of music, choreography and blocking.
So my life might or might not be a living hell for the next two weeks, but I think if I can stay on top of everything I will have a great time. The production meeting set a very good tone, and despite not having an assistant, I feel like everyone has each other’s backs and I once again have a team I can turn to for support from their respective departments. Most importantly, there’s no doubt in my mind this will be a fantastic show that is one I would not have wanted to miss out on in my career.
Still doing paperwork. Now I’m working on the weekly schedule. One of the hardest things in the first week is learning people’s names. This is like 10 times harder in preproduction because you don’t even have faces and performances to associate with who is playing what role.
So I’m going through the schedule trying to fill in who is called for what scenes, and I’ve decided in this case it’s easiest to go with actors’ last names rather than characters. Only problem is, I get to the first one and I know it’s Little Red and the Wolf, but I’m drawing a total blank on both their names. So I took 15 minutes and decided to solve this problem once and for all by adding a feature to the database.
I could have given it a very professional name, such as “Name / Role Cheat Sheet” or something like that. But this is my database, and until such time as it becomes someone else’s database, this particular feature is going to be called “ZOMG HALP!!!” because that’s what I’m thinking when I need it. Yeah, I do think like a lolcat sometimes. What of it?
I have placed a big red ZOMG HALP!!! button on the main page, which pops up this screen in a little window, that can then be tucked off in a corner where it’s always visible. It can display all the contacts associated with the show, but I’ve added a button which narrows it down to just the cast, since that’s the most common use. Here it’s showing the cast in the order I added them to the DB, which is an approximate of order-of-importance list, which I decided to leave as-is because it might be handy. It can also be sorted alphabetically by any of the fields which would be more useful at other times.
Today is my last day of preproduction before beginning rehearsal for Into the Woods at The Reagle Players. I’ve settled into my apartment, and have parked with my laptop in my favorite spot on the couch next to the living room window, where I go when I want to pretend that I work in a job that lets me see windows, as I listen to the cast recording playing in the background.
I just finished entering everything into my event list, which is kind of a master table where the database tracks every rehearsal and performance. It’s from this that it knows that something is performance #6, for instance. It also allows it to fill in certain details automatically when I create a report, based on the current date. On tour it’s more interesting, because based on the date it knows the performance time(s), type of performance, what city we’re in, the name of the theatre and capacity.
Anyway, one side effect of this table is that it very concisely summarizes everything from first rehearsal to closing. And this is what it looks like for Into the Woods:
It looks so small and simple, but it feels so hard at the time. The only other show I’ve had this part of the DB for was R&J, and that had 111 records. This only has 23, so I’ve always thought of this table as something that has to be scrolled for many pages, and it’s strange to see it so short. I’m not sure if I’m depressed or encouraged by how quickly the next month of my life can be summarized, but I suspect I may be encouraged. I think it fits the attitude I always try to have towards it: you just have to give 200% for two straight weeks, and then it’s easy. There’s even a day off somewhere in there.
