Secretly, it's awesome

So, I have a secret confession to make, which will probably lose me any points I had won as “cool director” (for the record, I think I’ve accumulated only 3 of those), but I am having an absolute blast directing Christmas Carol.

There is a tough part though - that I have the costumes and sets from 2 directors ago, and even then the designer wasn’t able to build all the costumes she designed, so it’s a strange beast to produce the show that will bring in the most money thru the door while attempting to spend as little as possible on it. Sometimes you feel like your supposed to direct it, and sometimes you feel like you’re just not supposed to fuck it up.

Since I’ve never directed Christmas Carol before, I just find myself directing it like it was new, being confused by old choices (I confuse rather easily), being interested in different things than the last directors were and generally trying to make it feel like this group of people is telling this story.

We’re changing things left and right – changing the tone of the direction, trying not to get sidetracked in production ideas but bringing everything back to the original story – all the kinds of things that you would do to any classic, or any large show, but since many decisions about my production were made during Bush’s first administration, it gets tricky every time you come up with a new idea. And by tricky I mean –

Though luckily I have rockstars designers who are attempting to make all my hair-brained schemes work, they just don’t have the resources at hand to let their design respond to my direction. In fact, it sometimes seems to be working the other way round.

Another blessing? I have a stage manager and lead actor who could not be more game than trying to make it seem relevant. And the vast majority of the cast has not done the show before….and on top of that, I’m really having the time of my life doing it. It’s a fun, giant show to do – cool or not, that’s the truth.