November 12 2011

The 39 Steps opened Thursday night. It has been a tough show with lots of technical elements. There are well over 100 light cues and 100 sound cues, smoke machines, flash devices, still and video images and dozens of costume and sets pieces. We have been changing things right up to opening night. A great example was that the night before the final dress we eliminated all the scene change crew from coming onstage requiring the 4 actors to do all the scenery changes in front of the audience. After the final dress rehearsal we hung several of the furniture pieces like chairs, tables and stools from the walls to make the show more theatrical with actors getting their set pieces from all over the stage to create the next scene. The actors found out about this change when they walked in for opening night. After opening night I realized it took too long for the actors to hang their scenery pieces back up on the walls after the scene so we now have the pieces carried offstage where they are stored until intermission when they are put back up onstage.

The cast and crew have done a great job of adapting to these last minute changes. The creative process is extremely stressful when you have that deadline of opening night. Sometimes when you fix one problem you discover that two other problems were created. Tension builds and often I find myself getting more blunt the closer to opening we get- barking at the crew when the lights are late or the scene changes don't happen fast enough. Stopping a scene during the dress rehearsals and by yelling "No, No, No! Do it again!" I really do try not to yell and scream as a director or designer but there are times when I find myself doing just that.

As I read the paper today about the Tilghman HS game big win over their playoff rivals Owensboro. One of the players said "we aren't going to hear about the 56 points we scored, we're going to get yelled at because we let the other team score 17 points against us!"

That is what I feel like at times- focusing on the small things that go wrong and trying to make every joke funny, make every dramatic moment filled with a real human drama and easily go from one moment to the next. With very difficult shows like this my hat is off to the cast and crew who make magic happen with each performance and put up with my ranting and raving to make the show better. When we do it right, it looks effortless. Getting it to look that way is far from easy. Thanks again to a wonderful cast - Fowler, Landon, Roy and Heather. Thanks to a great crew- Assistant Director/Stage manager Denise Bristol, Light board operator Jim Roush, Sound operator Lisa Humphrey, stage crew, Jim Keeney, Betty Wise, and Tomas Lesnowinsk, and dressers Diane Byrd and Kris Shanks . If you don't come to see The 39 Steps you will have missed a great performance.