First Rehearsal

Our first rehearsal. This is the first time many of us got to meet each other. Monica and the office staff already knew the actors because they hired them. After a welcome pep talk from our Executive Director, Monica, we introduced ourselves and listened to our Tech Designer, John show us the set (scenery) designs. That's always an exciting time for actors. It's usually the beginning of all the "Magic" that is about to happen. Up until this point, the production staff (producer, director, Tour Mgr, costumer, set designer, etc) have just been talking and planning. Now it's showtime!
Kansans Kan will rehearse every morning from 9-noon. The actors are also rehearsing the other touring show, Goldilocks & the 3 Bears in the afternoons. They're in good hands with the director for that show, Kyle Vespestad. He's a VERY funny guy and one of my favorite actors to watch onstage in my shows.
AS far as the Kansas show goes, we had a read-thru of the rehearsal script. The actors were given a copy of the draft of the script last week. It had changed quite a bit even since then. That's common with new scripts. And the script will change everyday for the next week or so. The playwright (in this unusual case, that is ME) is listening to the dialogue very carefully. Up to now, I've only heard the lines delivered in my imagination-- but now I have real, talented actors saying the lines and I'm finding places where I made mistakes, or places where their deliveries spur my imagination to make some improvements to the script. It's a very exciting time for me-- I hope it's not too frustrating for them!
The read-thru lasted 55 minutes. That was without the songs. Our target performance time is 45-50 minutes. This means that I need to cut some of the material from the script. The problem is: what to cut. I had already made a "Sacrifice List"-- a list of what to cut if I had to. The first thing to go is one of the original songs I had written. It was an okay song-- but it really didn't have anything to do about KS history. Luckily for me, I hadn't done the orchestrations for it yet (that's a LOT of work). Next to go were some sections I called Timelines that were going to compare KS/US/WORLD events to put things into perspective. It was a great idea-- but not at the expense of cutting the other material. There were a couple speeches I also cut that were a bit redundant and I trimmed the opening bit a little bit more. The running time should be fine now. Also, the pace of the show is going to be "breakneck"-- very quick. That will help with the running time as well. No worries!
I am very impressed with our group of actors. They are very quick on their feet and good readers. You HAVE to be a good "out loud" reader to be a good actor! They can't stammer a lot, we don't have that much time for rehearsal. They are also very eager to find the most entertaining way to present the story of Kansas. Between the five of us, the audience will be treated to a VERY entertaining story about Kansas.
Tomorrow we will begin what's called "blocking." That is where the director tells the actors where to enter and exit, where to stand, what to do while they're onstage. AS a director, this is probably my least-favorite time of the rehearsal process. Very tedious and detailed. My main job is to make sure nobody runs into each other!
Well, I'm sure the actors have already begun learning their lines-- now I have to get busy writing down all that blocking. Exit stage left....