Happy Halloween

Well, this rehearsal was not as fun as I wanted it to be, since it is Halloween. However, my roommate got me sick (again), therefore, I really was not in that great of a mood. It is Francesca’s birthday though, so I bought some cupcakes for everybody and we were able to help her celebrate a little bit before cracking down on blocking. I wanted to block the next set of pages quickly with little down time so I could get done with rehearsal early. I wasn’t feeling well, and it was Halloween after all. So instead of my normal – running a few pages and letting them wing it before going back and helping specify – I mapped out blocking roughly beforehand, let them run it, gave a few notes, and then went on. I knew that we would have plenty of time to fix things and play with things in the future. I was pretty proud of how productive we were able to be with how distracted we all kind of were. This was also the first rehearsal that Tyler was called for so it was nice having all six of my cast members there. It is so much fun watching them interact with each other both during scenes and during breaks. They are becoming a small family, and it is really good to see Rachel becoming more comfortable with the blocking process as well as the rest of the cast. Since she is a minor, she does have less exposure to the rest of them and I am glad that she is being included and having fun with the other girls. Amanda was back at this rehearsal, feeling better, but not completely well. So that makes for two of us being sick. It was slightly confusing to start off blocking in the middle of things and trying to remember where everyone was sitting and the stage business that they were doing, especially when we had a cast member missing from the last rehearsal. But my stage manager is fantastic and if very detailed in his blocking notes, so we were able to pick up with just a few seconds delay while everyone got situated. At around 7:30, I had finished blocking that section, and instead of running it full out again, we opted to let out early, especially since Wednesday’s rehearsal is just for running things. Amanda stayed a few minutes later to get her blocking notes from Friday’s rehearsal to write into her script. This way she will be a little bit more prepared for Wednesday’s rehearsal when we put her into the first half of Act II. Seeing all of my cast working together on a set for the first time, not just the read through, was magical for me. I am loving this so much. The process is actually turning out to be a lot less stressful than I thought it would be. I still cannot wait for people to see the finished product.