Back at School...Again

The past few days have been busy, queuing lights with Mr. Larochelle, distributing posters, and more. We have been getting the auditorium ready to use for our performance, but that always comes with a few challenges.

1. We have to be on campus. While it's kind of nice to spend a little more time in Hawken's hallowed halls, it can feel kind of confined spending the majority of our time working in the dressing room.
2. Sharing the space. The auditorium is prime real estate during intensives, so we have had to compete for time during the school day. There is a freshman Greek Theater intensive where several groups are constantly jockeying for stage time. Luckily, working with Mr. Larochelle has gotten us priority for our lighting time. We finished queuing lights this afternoon, and it felt like quite the accomplishment. I am looking forward to our first onstage rehearsal tonight.
3. Reserving the space: In order to use the auditorium after school hours we have to reserve the space through Cheryl. This has actually gone very well, but we have to be careful to clean up very well, because there is an event tomorrow morning.

Largely, these challenges have turned out fine, and we are making excellent headway on all of our goals.

A Stack of Posters and a Three Dollar Lunch

This morning began at school, after we had to postpone our meeting with Mr. Larochelle until tomorrow.chatting up teachers and students about our senior project and passing out posters. We must have started with over a hundred in different colors, but after putting them all over school and passing them out like free candy, we managed to shrink the pile significantly. We were everywhere, from the writing center to the college office to the Cottage.

By the time we were done at school, we found ourselves famished and headed to Costco in an attempt to scope out possible concessions for our show. We decided that buying candy and prepackaged foods was going to be too expensive, so instead purchased brownie mix and decided that our best bet was baking. We intend to sell brownies, cookies, and maybe even cupcakes at our show to help raise money for My First Musical.

After checking out at Costco with our one item and receiving a pretty strange look from the cashier we grabbed lunch before leaving. I had a slice of pizza the size on one of our posters and a drink, which was delicious. There was still more work to come.

We put posters up in a few stores, including Capezios and Sam Ash Music, and went to Hawken Middle School and talked to more teachers and put up even more posters. Overall, it was a very productive day, and I am looking forward to our meeting with Mr. Larochelle tomorrow about lighting.

A Sunday Rehearsal

Yesterday evening we met at our sponsor's house for a rehearsal. We managed to work through the theoretical blocking so that we can jump right in on Friday when we get to rehearse on upper school stage, where the actual performance will be taking place. We also got to work through a few songs with backing tracks which definitely helped the actors feel more confident. I am also looking forward to the meeting that we have scheduled with Brian Marshall, who is heavily involved in Mercury Summer Stock, tomorrow. We hope that he can expand our publicity further, and we also need to run our press release past him to confirm that we have accurately represented Mercury. Between rehearsal, poster circulation, meetings, and making connections, it looks like this week will be busy, but productive. We have also scheduled an extended rehearsal for next weekend, which will be exciting because it is going to include our bassist. During the actual show, the band will be on the stage, which is pretty different than in Hawken Players Society shows, but we think it will help balance the sound better because there are only four people singing.

Rehearsal Two, a site visit

Yesterday, we had our second rehearsal, and our site visit from Ms. Samet. It was an extremely productive session, in which we plowed through the two group numbers, two duets, and three solo songs. We have also had little guests in all of our rehearsals thus far. Kelly and Joe's sons sit in the back pew and play video games on Joe's phone, until the younger one (three years old) gets bored and starts rolling around on the stage (which is fairly adorable). It is nice to have kids around, but it means that we haven't gotten to rehearse "In Short", a popular number with a fair amount of profanity, and an entire section where Kelly sings "die die die die die die", for about twenty five seconds. Another song, "Pretty Sweet Day", includes the line "and Santa isn't real", which was a close call at rehearsal on Friday, but Joe managed to recover before it was too late. Ms. Samet dove right in at rehearsal, helping us out with possible publicity contacts, and humming along to the music. Over all, it was a pretty productive day and we are trying to finalize the poster. I have attached a draft.

Miscommunication and Missed Meals

Friday began productively, with another several hour meeting at Peet's. We went over everything that needed to get done that day, and then dispersed for a little while before rehearsal. Unused to such a self structured schedule (with both meetings and rehearsal during normal meal times), I kind of forgot to eat...

I had a super light breakfast before going to our meeting, which went through and past lunch time, and after our meeting I went to my grandparents' house to teach them how to use Facebook. Rehearsal was at six, and I forgot to grab dinner beforehand, so it was a bit of a challenge for me to get through, luckily, I was able to steal food from Rose.

The rehearsal itself went really well, and one of our cast members, (our sponsor Kelly), already knew everyone else's lyrics, which was really helpful. As Rose mentioned in her post, there was a bit of a debacle surrounding our use of the chapel. I spoke with Mrs. Libbey, head of the middle school several times, and she told me that we were good to go, and to call Mr. Newcomer. I did so, and he too said that we were all set for rehearsals at six pm on Mondays and Fridays. Needless to say, we were a bit surprised when one of the custodians walked in and had no idea that we were going to be there. Luckily, we were able to explain the situation, and now we are actually set to continue our rehearsals.

Day 1, learning the ropes

Senior project began with a jolt for me. Never before have I had the freedom or opportunity to manage my school time. It's very exciting to finally get started with this project, after months of planning. In just the few hours so far I learned just how much planning will have to go into each day. Sure, we already had a schedule, but when the time comes to organize people's schedules there are always last minute changes.  Bryce, Rose, and I all met to discuss our plan for the week. We went to look at the schedule, and realized that our current rehearsals would not work for all of our cast members. So we had to make some quick switches. I am discovering how important it is to be able to make changes and reschedule without losing time. We have also chosen a home base for planning and meeting every day.  Mostly day 1 was just exciting because it made us realize that the fun part is about to begin. Now we get to move forward with our project with a more detailed plan. We are also beginning work on the designs for our posters and programs, and we hope to work with some connections and friends in order to make the finished products look as professional as possible.