Just completed another Pippin-filled weekend (including our final Sunday matinee). Just two more weeks to go. (boo-hoo).
Friday, everyone seemed to have low energy. Somehow the band got off track in the middle of a song, which really threw Shayna and the dancers off, but they did their best and eventually recovered. I can’t put my finger on it, but the dynamics were just not right all night. Still, got positive comments from the audience.
Saturday was, in my opinion, one of our best shows ever. I felt such energy from it, that it carried over into our Sunday show…
Sunday. Hmmm. Well, on the plus side – good energy, things were going well, my mom and sister showed, as well as my wife (pleasant surprise, since she had already seen it once). Then, at the beginning of the second act, the power went out. We assumed it was a circuit breaker, and went crazy flipping switches, but it turned out to be the entire block. It stayed out the WHOLE second act. But the cast and the band, much to their credit and reflecting INCREDIBLE professionalism, carried on and performed wonderfully. It even gave us some opportunity to snicker at ourselves as we heard ourselves say our normal lines like “Could you hold the light please?” or in reference to taking away all the “magic” of the theatre from Pippin himself, Shayna says to kill the lights. It was fabulous. Like in inside joke that everyone knew. Really great show, in spite of the problems. And – God not being without a sense of humor – the lights came back on just after the theatre cleared.
And I did take the part of the Constable in Fiddler on the Roof with PTC. Rehearsals sart June 1, and I’m getting excited. It will be fun working with them again. I’ll keep you up to date on that as well.
I am now starting to plan a very small musical to direct as a joint Arnold Christian Academy/New Covenant Church production (like I did with last year’s A Tree as high as the Ceiling). Andrea Nebbia (my co-conspirator and producer of ATAHATC) made a great suggestion of a mini-review – recognized snippets from various shows. I’ll be exploring how to make that happen. We’ll probably start auditioning immediately at the beginning of next school year, and plan for a December/January production.
Also, as the director of the CWA Players, a new production company from Christian Walk Alive, the organization that produces A Work in Progress, I am starting to explore what to choose as our inaugural production. I am somewhat set on doing a musical; and am smitten with the idea of a stage adaptation of “Prince of Egypt.” So I need to figure out if and how that can happen.
