Circle of Love

Today was the Final rehearsal. The run of the show tonight could not have gone better. I know that normally the superstition goes that your final dress is supposed to go horribly if you want to have a good run, but these girls needed a good night to give them the confidence they would need to get through this weekend. They killed it. I barely had any notes except for a few housekeeping things. They were all able to stay consistent in their drunkenness and with their accents. The arguments between Trisha and Frances seemed much more natural now that Trisha has been getting annoyed slowly throughout the entire play by the little comments that Frances makes, which then leads to her exploding on her, so this is not just an isolated incident. The chemistry between Tripp and Trisha was there tonight as well. And on top of that, they were able to keep the tension up during their fight the entire time without dropping it, and they had the moment after the kiss and did not rush it. I was so proud of all of them. The set is 95% completed and will be completely done by the end of the night. All that is left is putting the trim up on the top of the walls and putting a little bit more set dressing up. So, because of this, I took the cast into the atrium for notes so we could get out of our set crew’s way. The stage crew finished up their tasks and joined us. On the last rehearsal for a show that I am leading, I like to do a little tradition that my high school director passed on to me. I sat everyone in a circle in the atrium and pulled out a ball of yarn. It happened to be dark green. That was the yarn that I had at home from knitting my Oregon Duck’s scarf, but I also thought that it would be funny to commemorate the old dresses that were not used. I wanted them to do what is called a circle of love. I started and I passed the ball to Rachel and I told her how proud I was of everything that she was able to accomplish during the rehearsal process. I knew that it was a pretty daunting task being cast in this show and with as big of a part as she had being new to this. But she took it and handles it well and flourished and has been doing amazing. She then took some yarn, and passed the ball to someone else and told them awesome things about them, and so on and so forth. Until at the end, we had this big web of yarn in the middle of the circle. The purpose of this exercise is to make sure that the entire cast and crew know that they are loved and appreciated by every other member in the circle. We all cut off sections of the yarn and kept them with us so we would be reminded of that bond that we now share because of this production. I am so excited for opening night, even though I am also really nervous. I am so happy with the way that everything turned out. So now the show is out of my hands. I brought it to the brink and now they have to take it over the edge. My little birds have to fly without me. But I know they will be fantastic and I know that people will love them as much as I do.