Leo days 9-12, November 9-15

Tempus Fudge It

How did we get here? The further we go, the longer the days seem to get. Seem? Heck, we are now into extended days of 12-14 hours, though mercifully most individuals are spared the full brunt of the long days. Then again, so much happens in so many different places that it's hard to keep track of who's doing what when.

Last Thursday we ran the complete show for the first time for the designers and a couple other GCTC types to see. Design meeting squeezed into lunch break. Then into revisiting the show scene by scene and "act" by "act"--Micheline has divided the 90 minutes of uninterrupted performance into five sections so that we can run segments and feel some continuity while still maintaining focus on a clearly delimited portion of text. Meanwhile, Friday we squeeze in another lunchtime production meeting. Costume and prop elements start coming in piece by piece. Things are simultaneously getting clearer and messier.

Then, after a break (air!), the actors move into the theatre for the first time on Tuesday. It's their first glimpse of the actual theatre space and the actual set they'll be performing on. Here's where the days become marathons for director and stage management, as we mix rehearsals with actors in the space with technical work building lighting and sound cues. Both actors and designers have the challenge of shooting a moving target: the space changes the actors' performances, and the lighting looks are set based on best guesses of what the performances are likely to be, though already we've made unanticipated changes that will require adjustments to lighting. Meanwhile, a change in what lights are turned on during rehearsals (not even actual theatrical lighting yet!) works further changes on the actors, as do their costumes--worn briefly for a scene presented to the media. It's easy to imagine the ping-ponging of performances responding to tech elements and vice versa over the remainder of tech week. If only there was more time to allow this back-and-forth resonance to evolve!

By the end of Wednesday, I can start to see the daylight beginning to break over the dark mid-rehearsal slog. We still find plenty of "we haven't found this" moments and we're not yet at the point of saying "yes, this is it!" But I can now just make out the outlines of what the final "yes!" will look like, and it looks good.

As we go home bleary eyed after long days, and come back still bleary eyed the next morning to run the next marathon, it's nice to feel that the show, not yet there, will be there.

There is enough time.