Scenes night

During January the Gilbert and Sullivan scenes night kept me busy.

My first task was to prepare the rehearsal schedule. This took a bit of shuffling since we were putting on a large number of shorter scenes, so I had to arrange scenes within rehearsals as well as rehearsals on days. Fortunately I was able to accomplish it without too many hiccups.

At the beginning of the month I attended the singthrough, which excited everyone because the show was so funny and covered such a nice range of Gilbert and Sullivan's works. I then had a week off, when I simply had to make sure rooms were unlocked for the music director.

We then had a week and a half of staging rehearsals. As stage manager, it was my job to record the blocking instructions given by the director. Erin has a different style from directors I have worked with before. They usually come with a complete plan for the scene, and instruct the actors before they execute what they've been told. Erin puts much more of the creative process onto the actors, inviting them to begin and keep going until she feels they need some direction. In most cases the end result was probably not all that different, but at least once (I'm particularly thinking of Davie and Kristen in their duet 'All is Prepared; Stay Frederic Stay' from The Pirates of Penzance) the actors just took it in a wonderful direction that wouldn't have seemed natural had the director tried to impose it.

Come Thursday of the penultimate week, rehearsals were in my hands as we began full runthroughs. I was very impressed that the quality of scenes had picked up noticeably from the staging rehearsals, despite the absence of any rehearsals in between. It left me confident going into the performances.

We only had one dress rehearsal, last Thursday, but it also went smoothly. Opening night came and we had a chance to see the audience's reaction.

Overall, I think the audiences really enjoyed the show. People were able to take on roles they wouldn't usually with our group (there were a few people in the cast who would never have lead roles in our regular shows), while maintaining a very high standard.

It was amusing to note the G&S fans by when people laughed. The most obvious occasion was when three nerds walked onto stage arguing, and then the music for 'Three Little Maids from School' from The Mikado began. Fans knew that we were doing something odd and funny, while the more casual observer might have been expecting simply a particular interpretation of a G&S song; perhaps they guessed that Gilbert didn't actually write about three little nerds "tooling around at MIT".

Run stage managing was simple and smooth, since there were no technical cues. Almost all the actors got themselves on stage on time without prodding from me.

Now that it's over, our attentions have turned to The Yeomen of the Guard. I auditioned on Tuesday, but haven't yet heard casting news. I will keep you posted!