Tech Week on Anything Goes

Teching Anything Goes this week. It's been an excellent week so far...

We've had our Lighting sessions. We've had our sound session. We've had our mic checks and last night we finished our spacing rehearsals. I decided to use one of our Q to Q sessions to continue spacing work because...

Our set has four levels on it and a lot of stairs, so we've used two tech sessions (7.5 hours) to move from the flat rehearsal room floor to our cast of 43 dashing up and down and dancing on all the levels. We're also changing many of the entrances and exits, now that we have the depth and width of the Main stage. It's a joy to get on stage! And the height means that I can create some super images and see the students- I can also do some fun 'ambient work', creating the world of the boat-

Our set is looking super. It still has echoes of my original idea and also is a good set for a comedy that often verges on farce. My original idea I'll save for another time- it was a more conceptual approach... and the Directorial Decision to take a Conceptual Approach to a Classic American Musical Theatre piece is probably a whole other conversation!

Today is our Q to Q. We start at one p.m. and will finish at 11:30 p.m. Normally, in this type of tech, it would be three sessions, but as I said, I devoted a session to spacing, above and beyond our 3.5 hours for spacing...I'm going to get into work early to pick up other tasks to make the Q to Q go as smoothly as possible- and to connect with other projects that I'm working on later this season.

This technical process is the biggest that I've directed in Canada and it's always interesting to notice the differences as I move from one country to another...

Technical rehearsals vary depending on the country and genre of theatre that's being produced. In the UK I'm used to getting the actors in costumes from the beginning of the technical rehearsals so that all elements are dealt with at once. I look at the actors in their costumes, under the lights that have been plotted and we go through all technical elements together. In Canada it's often a more layered process: for the Q to Q today, the actors are in their own clothes, wearing mics and show shoes and we have show lighting conditions. I see the actors in costume, under lights on Sat. at the dress rehearsal. And then our invited dress rehearsal is on Sunday. One of the impacts of this difference is that the actors have less time to get used to their costumes on stage...For 'period work' and for unusual costumes, this can be a challenge. In the US, they often structure technical rehearsals in a different way... What I notice everywhere is that people tend to be used to what they know- and that's fascinating to observe as I go from place to place. What I've learned is that as a director, I need to be flexible and knowledgeable about the various approaches because quite often, it's the genre and the company that choose the way the technical rehearsals progress, not the director. The scheduling is done months in advance and the director generally joins the process later.

There are a many factors that go into creating the Tech Schedule. For example, there are several unions that converge in a large performance space and this has an impact on scheduling. Creating a Tech Schedule that meets everyone's needs can be formidable challenge, so I've learned that I just need to be organized, manage my time well, communicate with all the teams and Technical Director/Production Manager all the time, exercise my imagination when looking at the emerging production, keep looking at what's coming up next and always stay solution-oriented.

I'm really looking forward to our Q to Q. I'm not very good at saying that "I'm excited!" I tend to get excited when I've got through the work and it's all worked out! But I'm really looking forward to it working through all of the elements and getting our production in front of an audience. It's fantastic to see all of the work of so many creative and technical people coming together on stage. And the student actors are doing extremely well- (growing in confidence and skill every day!) and the lighting and set are looking lovely, so I'm sure that I will get excited- after the Q to Q and the tech. dress and the two dress rehearsals!

more soon...

SummerWorks and beyond

The past three weeks have sped by.

SummerWorks ended very well. We had a super audiences for our three performances- and I was extremely pleased with how the play gelled over the run. It was an immense pleasure to work with the company on this beast of a play! We were listed in the Best Ensemble Category of Now Magazine's 'wrap up' of the festival- a testament to the company's work. Thank you again to all the peeps who worked on, helped, supported, encouraged and attended our production- it meant and means an huge amount! (The picture above is of the Smackheaded Company in full-flight, photo by Scott Gorman. And here's Bryan and Emily in an earlier scene from the play- I'll be posting more production photos very soon...)



The last couple of weeks have been a swift change of pace from our re-investigation into poor theatre....

It's been 'a systems go' with Anything Goes. The day after our last performance of The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter I began the the 19 hours that I had allotted myself to do the blocking (or staging) of the piece. This would just be the 'first pass', but the only week when I had priority (the two weeks prior to that were focusing on music, the two weeks after 'my week' gave priority to choreography and tap dancing). Well, we did it! Normally I allow myself about 15- 20 mins/page on a 'first pass' blocking rehearsal. To get the work done in my 19 hours I worked at 8.5 mins/ page... and had 43 peeps in the room, most of the time. It was a wee bit intense...and I'm not sure that I'll ever do that again... (Thankfully I've arranged lots of small, 'non-priority' rehearsals that run concurrently with choreography rehearsals, so I've had a more traditional 15- 20 mins a page since then!)

We also had one, 'full Equity week' with the teens. This was a six-day week of rehearsing 10-6. On our last afternoon that week we had two treats: a pizza party and a stagger-through of the musical. (The staggering was not caused by the pizza- it was just that we were putting it all together for the first time- that's generally called a stagger-through...)

Now we're on a five day break so that the cast/production students can focus on getting back to school. When we start back I begin to move into production mode on Anything Goes. I'm very excited about getting onto the Main stage at The Grand!

Today though it's R and R. Reading and relaxing... Reading The Native and Suicide Brunette (the two plays I'm directing at the Old Red Lion in the UK in Oct. by excellent Northern Irish writers Gary Mitchell and Christopher Hanvey) and relaxing...I'm immensely grateful for a wee break- it's been a busy and brilliant ten weeks.