End of Rehearsal Week One

It has been one long week for us with Cinderella. We blocked out the entire show by Sunday afternoon, and then had a couple full runs that were not without their own share of problems. On Monday, our director came in to watch the run, and then we started the process of breaking the show apart again to look at it moment by moment. He stressed that at every second of the show, we need to know exactly what the tension is and exactly where the focus should be. So our next week of rehearsals in late September will be taking the show beat by beat so we can tighten the focus and the tension in every scene.

We have also all realized just how much work this tour will be, since Monday was our first experience taking down the set we’ll be using. It’s a heavy thing, and it’s going to take some practice to get to the point where we know exactly what needs to happen technically. As company manager, it’s my goal to get the group to the point where we can raise and strike the set almost by ourselves, and we all have specific jobs and know exactly what needs to be done. Some of our performances are going to have very quick load-ins, so we need to get this process down to a science. Even though we’re not rehearsing for the next three weeks, I’m going to spend it planning out some of our trip and handling any logistical things that might come up.

And when we’re in western Massachusetts, we are going to try to take a detour to a cornfield maze in the shape of Julia Child. Some members of the company are far too excited about this plan… check it out at www.mikesmaze.com