Tired...So Tired...

"Jacques Brel..." opens Thursday. Home stretch.

As my first show at a new theatre, I'm not sure what to expect from an opening night there. For one thing, the house is much smaller than the larger space at the Oak Ridge Playhouse I'm used to. This means a difference in how actors project their sound, change their focus and relate to the audience. Second, similar to the first, it's a lot more intimate - the people are right there next to you on the stage or nearby. You can see their faces quite well, I would imagine. Finally, there's nowhere to escape, really - the actors have a small green room off the lobby, but there is no big green room or dressing rooms for the band to escape to before the show or during intermission. So we're more or less "on stage" most of the show.

Last night was pretty grueling - in a sit-on-your-butt-behind-the-keyboard-all-day kind of way (which, in actuality, is not that much different than my dayjob. Just less music). We started rehearsal at 1pm, so after church and a quick lunch with the fam it had begun. Four repetitive cue-to-cue hours later (cue-to-cue means practicing with all the lights, etc) we broke for dinner. After dinner, it was four more hours of finishing the cue-to-cue, notes, spot checks and a full run through.

Oh, did I mention my pianist wasn't able to make it, so it was just me the whole night - trying to remember what I'd done from past rehearsals so this one would go smoothly?

So, at ten we were done. Nine hours overall. When I got home I was too tired to sleep, so I plopped in the chair and started reading my son's copy of "A Wrinkle in Time," which I hadn't read in years. I got about half-way through, and it eventually drooped down on my chest until about 1am.

*Yawn* "Time to get up already??"

That's ok - tonight is another day ;)