I’m writing this from tech rehearsal in Palo Alto, which feels like an odd collision of past and present because we are in the very same room where we did STRIKING 12 four years ago (the Lucie Stern Theatre)…but this time I’m watching from the audience, with two sweaters on because it’s much colder without dozens of lights shining upon me. Interestingly, Brendan is all miked up and singing, because our poor lead actor Ben has a nasty throat infection. (He just returned from the hospital where they loaded him up with prednisone and azithromycin, and ordered him neither to speak nor sing for two days. So, Ben is acting silently and mouthing all the words, while Brendan voices for him. It looks a little like a Bruce Lee movie with bad overdubbing. Fingers crossed that Ben improves by our invited dress rehearsal two days from now.)
We’ve made some changes from the Pittsburgh show; for instance, we’ve reinstated a song that was cut during previews at City Theatre, called “One Hundredth.” We’re very excited about that song, which comes in the middle section of the show – the section for which we’ve done the most rewrites and which has caused us the most grief.
We’ve also done some cutting in the early pages of the piece, where the characters are in their twenties. (It was very eye-opening to meet David Schulner last month in Pittsburgh for the first time. He admitted that since he wrote the play while he was in his twenties, he had placed a lot of emphasis on that time period in their lives and that maybe in the musical version we should adjust that imbalance…”Cut more of my stuff!” he said – and so we did.)
Most helpfully, I think, we’ve added several musical moments where we hear internal thoughts from Hope and Charles (for example, an interlude for Hope during “Fragile as Love,” and sections for both characters in a brand new short song called “Hope Moves On”) – these allow the audience to get to know our heroes a bit better, since they are singing privately to themselves rather than to the other person in the room.
I’m very curious to see what others think of these changes!
Physically, the show also feels a bit different because the Lucie Stern is narrower and deeper, with the seats more intimately/densely packed than in our Pittsburgh space. The musicians are now down in front, since there is no room for them on the sides; and with different mics and bigger sound system, the whole show feels louder and more rockin’. I think it will be a good match for the high-spirited TheatreWorks audiences we know and love.
Yesterday we got to tour the TheatreWorks costume and prop warehouse for the first time, and it is a truly amazing place. Now in its 39th season, the company has kept every costume piece, accessory and prop item ever used…so the warehouse goes on and on for acres. Everything is meticulously organized; so if you want to find, for example, headgear with green foliage sticking out of it, just search for the wall of hatboxes, and look within it until you find the one clearly marked “Hats With Fauna.” It even has a helpful picture.
TheatreWorks costume warehouse
Find Val in this photo
Wall of hatboxes
Hats with fauna
I have to say I adore being in California. Mose gets to play outside, race around on the pier, feed ducks and put his toes in the sand…and this afternoon I went for a run in my tank top through the sun-drenched, palm-tree-lined Stanford campus. I do have an admitted preference for LA over the Bay Area (mostly since I get cold very easily), but while Brooklyn is 34 degrees and rainy, I’ll take any left coast action I can get.
Mosey in the California sun
Back in tech: the narrower deeper backstage area is causing some interesting problems with props and costume changes. Ben and Pearl have to travel farther for each exit and entrance, and the extra time is throwing off the music cues. During “One Hundredth,” a song depicting the routine of daily married life with a toddler, Ben has to get out of bed after each verse and exit in various states of undress, and then return almost immediately, dressed for a day at the office. Just now, he skidded onstage several measures late, trying unsuccessfully to zip his pants while hopping up and down and trying to finish putting them on.
We’ll add a little music to cover the costume change. 3 1/2 hours of tech left. I’ll report back soon…