Since this is the first blog I’ve written here, I guess I should start by saying that I’m Geoff and theatre and performing has been my passion since I was a kid. I have been a media advertising and marketing professional for most of my career and that has bled over into trying to help community theatre groups in the communities around where I live in Cleveland market themselves in new and more effective ways. One of those ways has been “Call-Back” a video cable series that documents the process of producing plays and musicals. The latest Call-Back project is a show that I’m directing at the Huntington Playhouse in Bay Village, Ohio called “Some Enchanted Evening” – a musical revue of Rodgers and Hammerstein classics. And so another journey begins.
This is always sort of a lonely period in the production process. The time before auditions and rehearsals have started and most of the thoughts and work has been in my own head or in my own office. Right now the whole production is sort of just inside me and mine alone. With each step of the process, you invite more and more people into your little world and share more and more of your ideas until the final step – opening night – when you hand it all over to other people.
But I am so excited to start bringing other people into this world -the world of Some Enchanted Evening. And I guess that starts with finding this page and this blog. Another great journey begins!
I love challenges and musical revues are in some ways very challenging because the structure of them is often very loose..no hard and fast road maps like with “book” musicals. Very liberating and very challenging. This is also different for me because while I was raised doing Rodgers and Hammerstein shows (I’ve been in productions of The King and I, Oklahoma and Carousel myself) my personal taste lately has moved away from the classic musicals this music comes from and toward more contemporary musicals. But as I am studying this music again I am reminded of just how lush and beautiful it is and how timeless the themes are. Taken out of the context of the original shows they come from, the songs really do stand beautifully on their own and will make a great night of musical theatre.
So welcome to our production. I’m thrilled you found us!
2 responses so far ↓
Geoff // May 21, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Laura from Theatre Tribe Responded:
I have to say that although it can be exhausting, I prefer the multiple rehearsals each week, fewer week setup, even when coming into a rehearsal at the end of a day job. I feel like the longer you go in between rehearsals, the more is lost in the off-time, and then you have to invest a significant amount of time each rehearsal building back up to where you were before. With the short but intensive process, as long as the director, stage manager and actors are all willing to respect the schedule and focus in the short time they’re there, you can get a lot done and the commitment is over in a month.
I recently worked with a company that rehearsed only Sundays. Depending on the size of your role, an actor might be at the rehearsal space from noon until 9PM on Sunday, but most people were only called for a few hours within that timeframe. It was convenient in that it left us all free to have outside lives the rest of the week and even audition for other projects at the same time, but the director was always exhausted by these rehearsals and probably not able to give his fullest attention by the end of the day. Also, the actors that were there for long portions of the day started to lose focus, too. And it never felt like we were getting a lot of new things accomplished at rehearsals, because we spent so much time just getting back up to speed. This schedule may have worked if everyone had been more organized and focused, but they weren’t. Eventually, the actors started requesting additional rehearsals during the week so we could stay more on top of the show.
Just my two cents…
Geoff // May 21, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I agree with you that the longer you go between rehearsals, the longer you take catching up – maddening. I try to go with something like 3 times a week on a Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday type of rotation so that not too much time passes. Of course all of us try to expect that our casts will come prepared – knowing lines, songs, choreo, etc. – so that more can get accomplished…but of course that doesn’t always happen.
I can also see the challenges of the Sunday only model you mentioned. Seems like a month or two of tech Sundays! Grueling. Again that may work with a small cast and a smaller scale show. I just don’t feel like a large scale community production can be done like that.
In the interest of this Theatre Tribe and trying to do things in new ways, I think we need to continue to get creative about this increasingly challenging hurdle to get more people involved.