Things Not On or Behind the Stage

The past few days have brought a lot of activity for this show - and a lot of it involves things that are not of a staging or technical matter. However, these things are necessary even though they can be tedious and time consuming.

First, we had to finalize our logo. My goal was to create an original logo for the show. I had an idea in my head for this and presented it to a couple of people and in the end I feel like we have a good logo. It should be 'catch the eye'. Now that we have that, we can proceed with posters, playbills, and publicity - oh my! :)

Bob, Debbie, and I had to kind of sort of fight to get large posters for this show. There's been a recent trend at the Guild to go with smaller posters but I believe that we still need some of the larger ones. We worry about not being visible, and the posters are one of our most visible tools - if they are used correctly. In the end, we settled for 50 large posters as well as some smaller ones. We'll also have marketing tools in several local restaurants, on pizza boxes, and bookmarks in the libraries. We now have a poster that should be sent off to the printers and then we can start getting them distributed.

We're also going to have press releases in several local papers - hopefully! That should be sent out this week.

T-shirts are going to be ordered soon now that we have a final workup of the logo. Originally I was told that we wouldn't have shirts before the show opens, but that's something that I just don't think is acceptable. However, it looks like now we can get them within a couple of weeks. (Yes, I know that we were a little slower on the logo.)

So, these are just a few of the 'other' things that are going on that don't seem like they'd take long, but they do. All I have to say, is that I am essentially grateful to whoever invented email! I think I'd be lost without it when trying to deal with some of these things!

ACT 1 BLOCKED...almost!!

Tonight we nearly finished blocking the rest of ACT 1 in a 3 1/2 hour rehearsal! This group is a definitely a working group and their efforts are going to be greatly appreciated by many. At our next rehearsal, we're going to attempt to run all of ACT 1. What is so impressive about this cast, is that they really seem to be having fun.

We're about 5 weeks away from technical rehearsals and there's still a lot to do. So much is going on at the Guild on the stage with the updating of the lighting system and such that it might be throwing off our build schedule a little. At our work session on Saturday, we accomplished some things but there is still so much to do. As a director, I just fear having to restage things once we hit the stage with the set. We don't have a lot of time built into our schedule for this so we'll just keep our fingers crossed.

AD Bob Heflin blocked/choreographed the Poppies number tonight. We had shared some ideas and he took it and ran with tonight along with Morgan. I think it's a fantastic ending to ACT 1 and it's something I haven't seen on our stage before.

We've also added a performance! We're going to do a special benefit performance of the show for Habitat for Humanity and tie in with "There's No Place Like Home." I think this will be a very special evening.

More updates later.

Just a quick update

I haven't had a chance to jump on here and update the blog since before auditions...and tonight it's late so I'm going to make this brief and will update more later.

First - we made it through auditions and we have a fantastic cast! WOW!!
Second - rehearsals are progressing nicely. Tonight the ensemble rehearsed the Munchkin Musical Sequence and the Poppies and both sound really good. We finally had almost all of the ensemble at one rehearsal! It makes such a difference!

Third - Technically, we have a rough plan for the set. It's going to be a monster!!

Fourth - My staff is amazing! Each one is so full of enthusiasm and energy for this show. I only hope I can keep up with them!!

OK - definitely more later and I'll fill in the details.

RW