Our First Audience - the Governor!

Opening Day! We performed the show at the "Governor's Book Festival" in Wichita this morning. It went well! I'm sure the cast sighed a BIG sigh of relief. They were wonderful! You'll notice in the photos below that they set up on a stage in the infield of the Wichita Wranglers baseball stadium. It was so windy that we had to get some volunteers to stand behind the set for the whole show to make sure the sets didn't roll off the stage or fall over!

(Above, the cast during the Finale)

(Below, backstage view. Notice the stagehands holding the sets. It was windy!)

You can't see the audience-- they're in chairs in front of the stage. Above, Vic and John are doing their scene, Alexis and Shannon (as Carry A Nation) wait behind the set to make their entrance. What a day!

Trial by Fire

(above, the cast is setting up the stage for the Kansans Kan!

mini-performance in Garden City, KS)

All I can say is "wow."

We performed the first 20 minutes of the show for the Kansas Council for History Education conference yesterday. Talk about nervous-- I was a wreck! Imagine writing a show and presenting it before an audience that knows 10 times more about the subject than I do! They were very gracious and seemed to really enjoy it. The actors did a WONDERFUL job. The first performance is always an eye-opener for a new show. We get to see if the parts we THINK are funny, really ARE funny. They were! The audience laughed in all the right places.

We just have to finish rehearsing the rest of the show this week. We present the whole show this coming Saturday at the Governor's Book Fair in Wichita. We'll be busy!

Whew!

Boy, what a good rehearsal we had today! I gave the actors the line cuts (actors LOVE to find out that they don't have to memorize as many lines as they thought!) and we worked just the first 15-20 minutes of the show. That's the section we're doing on Sunday. Monica, our Producer, and Sharla, our Tour Director (she's the one that arranges the booking of the performances at all the various towns), sat in and watched. They were VERY pleased at what they saw. You have to remember that this is what they do for a living-- if they didn't like anything, they would have said so! They were as impressed with the actors work as I am.

We worked about an hour just on choreography and music. That helped a lot. They just about "have it" now. We'll be doing music with each rehearsal from now on-- they'll get it in no time.

We found out that we'll be taking our full scenery to Garden City and as many costumes as we have ready. Remember that this special performance was a last-minute arrangement-- we weren't supposed to have sets and costumes ready for another week. Our designers are GREAT!

Tomorrow, we'll be running the beginning section again. If they continue their improvement with this section, we'll start the next section, too. Either way, we're in good shape!

Snip! Snip!

We had a run through of sorts today. It ran 52 minutes-- without music. That puts the total running time about 57 minutes. That just a little too long. We'll be performing in a lot of schools and need to keep it within a school hour period. 45 minutes would be ideal-- but that isn't attainable. Too much stuff in the show.

As far as the actors go, I am amazed by their work. If you get a chance to see this show, you'll understand just how much they have to learn! And I know they are a bit over-whelmed now-- but by the time November rolls around, they will have a great grasp of Kansas history! Ha!

I had to cut about a page from the show. Luckily, I could cut whole speeches-- not just a little here and a little there. This will be welcome news to the cast. Less for them to memorize....

Tomorrow, we'll be spending a lot of time on the first 15 minutes of the show. We're going to be performing a short segment of the show for the Kansas history teachers convention in Garden City on Sunday. Also, I'll be seeing all the songs with the choreography for the first time. I know I'll love it! Barb Schoenhofer, our choreographer, is GREAT.

First Week Wrap-up

I bought a new camera today. I'm going to be traveling around the state (in some instances, following the touring company as they travel from Kansas town to Kansas town) taking pictures of the things that are mentioned in the show. We won't be able to do it for this season, but the next time we do this show, we'll have big screens on either side of the stage with pictures and video clips of the people/events that are being covered. It will be an unbelievable addition to the show. If it wasn't for the fact that I lived in Iowa, 8 hours away, until just a couple months ago, we'd have that in THIS production now. Better late than never I guess. This will be a very expensive addition to the show-- the projectors, screens, computer, software, etc)-- probably costing about $15,000-- I'll start saving up now... Hellooo macaroni and cheese! HA.

My copy of the script is in color: important names and events are in RED and important mentions of towns are in BLUE. This helps me make sure these things are given weight during the show. An actors natural tendency is to deliver lines-- particularly names and terms that are familiar to the character but perhaps foreign to the audience-- as conversational as possible, not stressing names and events. But we need to do a bit of that so the students will recognize the names and events they've heard in class. Anyway, today I began making sure the important things were being stressed as they were working their way through the script.

I've had emails from a couple teachers asking about getting tickets to see the show. I guess they don't understand that this is a TOURING production. They can't see it unless they contact Wichita Children's Theatre (http://www.wctdc.com/contact.htm) and book the show to come to their school. We're working on the possibility of adding a couple local (Wichita) performances of the show-- but that's still in the works. This is such a popular show, almost all the available dates are taken already. We may be able to add some additional dates in March.

It will be unfortunate some schools won't get to see this show-- particularly since I spent so much time contacting Kansas history teachers last year asking for suggestions during my preparation in writing the script. Well, if the response is great enough, I'm sure WCT will be offering this show again very soon.

The fun begins!

This is now beginning to be fun! Before now, it was mostly tedious work-- "you stand there, she moves over here on this line, give more stress to this phrase..." Now, they're beginning to ACT!

We worked on the first half of the show. Mostly what I did was fixed the blocking of some sections to make it more "organic"-- natural and flowing. Sometimes I give actors blocking without explaining WHY they move that way. This usually results in forced, illogical movement. After we talk about it some more, they help make sense out of what I told them to do. Good actors can really make a mediocre director look REALLY good.

We also worked on putting more humor into the show. I'm not talking about jokes or funny slapstick bits (kicks in the pants or pratfalls), but mostly just attitudinal things: perhaps a sly look to the audience to show the silliness of a character, or a silly voice to "mix it up" a bit. The more versatile an actor can be, the more valuable s/he will be to a director-- and that means more jobs.

There is SO MUCH history in this show: terms, names, places... we HAVE to find a way to make it fun and interesting for the kids in the audience. That is exactly the same challenge classroom teachers face everyday.

The actors began working without their scripts! When they came to a section they didn't have memorized, they pulled their scripts out-- but I could see that they have been diligent in doing their "homework," learning their lines and blocking.

On a technical note: we're working a lot on FOCUS. That is a term actors use to indicate where we want the audience to be looking during a show. A good actor knows how to help guide the audience's attention to the actor or part of the stage that has the important thing going on. This is such a fast-paced show, the actors coming and going at breakneck speed, we need to make sure the audience's focus is exactly where it needs to be at all times. You've probably seen a play or something where a character is talking, but your eyes are drawn to another actors who is making a funny face or picking their nose. That's called "pulling focus" and that is NOT what we want. Ha.

The weekend is coming up. That means no rehearsal for a couple days. The actors will relax a bit-- but they'll keep working on their lines and blocking. Our plan is for them to be "off book" (have their lines learned so they don't need to carry their scripts, allowing them to start "acting" more-- using props, gestures, etc) by next Thursday. Let's all wish them luck!

When we come back on Monday, we'll work the same way on the last half of the show. We will be performing a short cutting of the show for the Kansas Council for History Education (state history teachers organization) next week in Garden City. That should be exciting! We'll be performing the first 15 minutes of the show. So, we'll be rehearsing that section a lot this next week.

Blocking Check-up

Today, we plowed through the whole show. The objective was to let the actors get through the whole thing to re-check their blocking. It was mostly THEIR rehearsal. We actually got through it twice. As I've said before, this is a good group!

They are retaining everything very well-- and they are actually beginning to show that some lines are memorized. That is a VERY comforting thing for a director to see this early in the process!

I am getting to know the actors personally now, too, We (my family) are having them all over to our home next week for a get-together. Actors love an excuse to have a party-- lots of food and laughing, and we'll have videos and our Nintendo going the whole time. It'll be a great time for everybody to let their hair down and visit. We'll forget about the shows for a while and just tell stories (actors have some very funny stories!) and relax.

By the way, after each performance of the shows, the actors (providing there is time) come out and have a question and answer session with the kids in the audience. If they come to your school, you should ask them what the funniest thing was that has happened to them on this tour. I guarantee they will each have a story to tell!

Anyway, back to rehearsal.... Again, we found a couple places where we needed to adjust blocking. We changed a couple lines, too. Usually there are lots of line changes when you're working with a new script-- but there really have been very little of that. My hat is off to our playwright! (that's a joke because I am the playwright! HA) What this actually means is that our actors are very good at what they do. I have put some vaudeville bits into the show, some off-the-wall humor bits, not to mention all the history terminology that has to be explained-- the actors are making it all work very nicely.

I don't mean to gush about the actors. During rehearsal, I tease them that I hate actors and tell them that they are "the lowest of the low" in the cycle of life. They know I'm kidding because I used to be one of them. I spent 10 years of my early adulthood as an actor just like them, going from job to job, town to town, performing in plays all over the Midwest.

Tomorrow, we'll be starting and stopping a lot. This will be our first "work-thru" rehearsal. We'll run a section, then go back and fine tune it, and run it some more. This will help them find the important parts of their lines, reinforce their blocking, and also be a big help in their learning their lines. repetition, repetition, repetition....

Blocking Complete!

We finished blocking the rest of the script this morning. Whew! That was a LOT of stuff to do. I showed the actors a picture of a Maxell advertisement where a guy is sitting in a chair in front of a speaker and the force of the sound is blowing back his hair and his tie-- he's hanging onto the arms of the chair for dear life! THAT's how this show needs to be to our audiences. They are along for a ride!

We have added a couple neat sections to the show where we plan to personalize each performance based on the performance location. Each local community has unique historical significance and we hope to point some of those out at each performance.

Below is a photo of the actors going through their blocking. Looks boring-- but they're really working hard to make sure all the movements are exact and precise. The first one shows Shannon going through one of her many speeches. Alexis, Vic and John are in the background listening intently so they know when to make their next entrances. (FYI this is her "Katie Riggs" speech about a woman surviving Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence)

Notice there are no costumes, no props or scenery? This is our rehearsal room. The sets are still being built in another room. They will be ready for us to rehearse on in about another week. That's okay because we have an awful lot of work to do in the meantime.

Below is another shot from today's blocking rehearsal. It shows John ( think he's still listening to Shannon's speech) with Alexis and Vic in the background. They will be holding their scripts for about another week or so. After that, they'll have all their lines learned and then the real fun begins! My favorite part of the whole process is the spark of imagination that happens after the actors are "off book" and can really concentrate on character development. Very cool stuff!

Tomorrow, we'll be reviewing the blocking for the whole show. Repetition, repetition, repetition....

Blocking #1

This morning we began blocking. Different directors do this different ways. I have the actors just sit down and I go line-by-line where they enter, exit, and stand. Very tedious work, but I've found that to be the best way for me to do it. After that, we "get it up on it's feet"-- we have the actors do the blocking on the stage. This lets us know that they wrote it down correctly to begin with (so they can learn their blocking along with their lines)-- but it also lets me see if I made any mistakes in what I told them to do. Perhaps I have someone exiting the stage in the same place someone else is entering. That would be what we call a "traffic jam." That's the kind of thing we fix during blocking rehearsals.
I also found a couple places where I needed to change who delivers a particular line. It's not because the actor wasn't good at it-- it's usually because I have them already doing something else and they can't make it around backstage in time to make the entrance for the next line.
We went through only the first half of the show. No need to overwhelm them. Our actors are professionals and know how to prepare their roles for performance. They not only have to learn their lines, they need to learn their blocking, choreography (dance steps) and songs. And on top of all that, they're having to develop different voices for different parts of the show. They may be a French trader in one part and an American Indian in another-- or a carnival barker. There's an awful lot for an actor to do to prepare a show for an audience!
We'll be blocking the last half of the show tomorrow.

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....

Meet the Actors!

(L-R: Vic May, Shannon Knipp, John Sommerhauser, and Alexis D. Morrison)

Alexis - She plays lots of different characters in this play-- as do all the actors. Some of the more famous characters she'll be playing are Sacajawea and Amelia Earhart. She'll also be playing Goldilocks in "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears."

John - He plays Coronado, a soldier, and a basketball player among a lot of others. He also has a funny part that I can't tell you about because it would spoil the surprise. You'll know it when you see it! He'll also be playing Baby Bear in "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears."

Shannon - She plays Carry A Nation and Kate Riggs. This is Shannon's second season with the touring company. She'll also be playing Mama Bear in "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears."

Vic - He plays William Allen White and Abraham Lincoln. He's also the Tour Manager. The Tour Manager is the person who tells the other actors what time to arrive for the show, makes the on-the-spot decisions about setting up the scenery at each different location and coordinates with the sponsors of each location. This is a touring production, so sometimes they're do the show in a regular theatre and sometimes they're do it on a gym floor. The Tour Manager makes sure that the audience has a great time no matter where the show is. He also is responsible for making sure the quality of the show is exactly as the Director last approved of it. Vic is from Iowa and this is his second season with the tour. He'll also be playing Papa Bear in "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears."

This is only the very basic information. I'll have them contribute more information for this page so you can REALLY get to know them.

2 more days....

Rehearsals begin in two days-- Monday September 11 at 9 am. Above is a photo of our recent production meeting where everyone involved in the production helps in the planning stages. The empty chair is mine-- I took the picture. From left is Victor May, the Tour Manager, Deb Campell, the Costume Designer, John Hammer, the Scenic Designer, Kyle Vespestad, the director of Goldilocks, and Monica Flynn, the Executive Director of WCT.
Our recent move back to Kansas took a huge toll on my recording studio (the computer got shaken up pretty good) and put me about a week behind schedule. I just finished the music for WCT's other touring production (for younger audiences), Goldilocks & thh Three Bears. It wasn't a whole new show-- just adding 3 songs to the show I wrote about 10 years ago. It was too short for the touring program. Anyway, I'm busting my butt to finish the music for the Kansas show in time for rehearsals Monday morning. Wish me luck. The good news is that there are only two new songs, the rest are public domain popular songs (Home on the Range, The Old Chisholm Trail, etc).
I was explaining to my wife, Janelle, that usually I have a resting period after I finish writing a show. After taking over a year to create a show (all the research, the planning, the blank pages, the pounding of my head on the keyboard, etc.) I usually take a good week of complete "vegging-out" to recuperate. I completely forget about the show. But I'm not getting that with this. I'm going directly into rehearsals. In my acting days, I used to relish going from one job to the next.... but I'm getting too old for this.... Ha.
The thing that keeps me going (other than knowing the show is good and will be received well by the kids) is knowing that my family is going on vacation in a month. And after that, I'm taking a year sabbatical from writing kids shows. I've put out over 60 shows in the last 15 years and am starting to feel the slowing down of creativity. That could be my getting older-- or I need to re-tool my imagination to start writing older shows or a different genre altogether. We'll see.... I still would like to write a show about First Ladies.... and Teddy Roosevelt.... and Caligula.... heh-heh-heh....

Possible Preview Performance

We're talking with the planners of the Kansas Council for History Education about the possibility of presenting a short (15 min?) sample of Kansans Kan at their convention in Garden City September 24-25. The actors will still be in rehearsal then, but I think we can talk them into making the trip to Garden City. We only have a small handful of available performance dates left, but Sharla, the Tour Director, said we can offer dates up to two weeks after the present end of the season for any attending the convention. I can't imagine why any teacher wouldn't take advantage of this teaching tool-- other than the cost. It's around $500- $1000 to bring the show to a school.