Rehearsal Report--6/21

We had a great reheasal with the Garter Ensemble.  We blocked them not only into their scenes but did the big broad passes of the two "ballet" numbers.  We worked out some great business for most of them, and will develop things for the others to do.  I want each of these ladies to be featured at one point or another.  But the focus last night was to get the big broad brush strokes.  We'll do detail work in the next couple of weeks.

We also blocked all of the material in the Garter Inn with principals.  We were missing a few players do to conflicts, but we were successful in doing everything that I wanted to accomplish with the principals.  We were even able to run a few scenes twice.

One of the struggles that I am noticing amongst the principals are the long speeches in the play.  And they are legion.  The tendency with any actor is to take a deep breath and hit it head on, full steam.  They rush through the material and the speech suffers in pace--even though the speech physically less time to tell, it seems twice as long because there is no way for the audience to invest in it.  If the actor doesn't care enough to vary it, the audience won't.  In general the cast is accomplished enough that this isn't a problem.  But every scene in the play has at least one long sppech if not five.  Thre are some sequences in the Garter Inn where it is four pages of oolng speeches.  We'll need to work on playing the punctuation a little more as a group perhaps.

I've been working on the live music aspect of the production, and I think that what we have planned will really be effective.  I needed to know how exactly I was going to use the Garter Ensemble.  And we have our first reherasal with kids later this week and they have one of the big songs in the show, I really need to setttle in on it.  I have pretty much determined that the tune will be to Oh, Susannah.  I have to fudge the lyrics a little bit, but really only a word or two.  It's really uncanny how so much of this show ties into an American West setting.

Issues Raised:
--Working through long speeches
--individualized business for the different members of the Garter Ensemble
--Children principals need to be worked into the 1st German Duke scene and Simple scene at the Garter

Prep for next time:
--Determine approach on playing the punctuation
--Review plan for servants/Robin in the 2 buck basket scenes