End of Week One

So, it is the end of our first full week and our day off – Day Off if you’re an institutional director is code for “answer emails from home” days – since Monday is a workday for everyone else in the office.

The first week was great – though David our Hedwig has a sore throat and Angela our Yitzak has a cold – so we’re a little nicked up going into week two. In fact, on Sunday we ended up canceling rehearsal since David was the only actor we had called in that day, and he woke up finding it painful to swallow. A big red-flag for a show that is essentially a one man (?) show with a band.

I’m a little beat after the week, as before and after rehearsals we’ve been having hours of auditions for Christmas Carol and our Santaland pre-show idea (more on that later). So, it was a few 12-14 hour days in there – but I’m hoping that was only the first week. More on casting later….

Something fun from the actual show
So, as you know the script basically says “this is what we did on one night – do whatever you want to make the show work for you”. So, one of the things we’re working with is how do we justify the shadow puppeteers in the show – also how do they appear on the title page (not so funny story about that: I actually think there are 6-7 people in the building, myself included who have spent at least one full day talking about the title page – sometimes regional theaters – not the most efficient model – or perhaps experts at cc’ing emails to ask other people’s opinions – dunno).

Anyway, back to the fun - so, we cast two apprentices to be our shadow puppeteers and are lucky to get two of the most charming and game kids you could ask for – Bing Putney and Jessica Howell. Oh, they make us all kick our feet in the air we love them so.

So, we originally were just going to give them names and send them on their way – but they were so much fun – that now there is a small section of the show dedicated to their back-story – which essentially has them being Romanian children who are on the road, and the band is feeding them for pennies a day – they’re literally feeding them pennies. I don’t know if anyone will notice this, but every time Hedwig tells the story – our drummer acts like he’s crying – as if he’s so deeply touched by their story. Their names: Nadia and Comaneci – and as Hedwig explains their sad story, our piano player – Spurney plays “Nadia’s Theme” on the piano – which is also the theme for Young and The Restless. Who knows if all these jokes will last two weeks, but for now, it makes all of us laugh till we cry every time it comes up.

The mugshots from our show - one of Hedvig, one of Tommy - shot by our esteemed lighting designer Brian J Lillienthal.