Angels

Oh no.

The show I'm working on currently, City of Angels, is about to open. We open Thursday, to be exact. We have a preview tomorrow night. Then we have an audience. Last night was the first dress rehearsal with the pit, and we have one more tonight. To any of you who are mathematically challenged, that adds up to a grand total of TWO dress rehearsals. Peculiar. I have two items to address. One is a list of issues that I'm having with this endeavor, and the second is an extraordinarily funny conversation I had with my director. I like to let you all know what you'll be in for. Consider that your trailer for my blog.

Issues:
1. The cast is genuinely very talented as a whole, and it's possible that this fact is going to carry us.
2. However...currently we have the entire cast doing every single set change, which leads to a giant clusterfuck on stage. Actors are not good at doing anything other than acting. Especially large groups of them. We have no stage crew.
3. I'm already super nervous about my song...and since last night was the first night with the pit, I ended up like 2 beats ahead of them for much of it. Oh dear.
4. We had two outside observers watch the show last night, which was actually awesome because they were able to give us fresh insight on a lot of things.
5. Some of that insight has led me to believe that things are going to be changing...one night before we have an audience.
6. I'm working 10 hour days at work right now...so I'm up at 5:45, at work by 7:00, heading straight to Lancaster for the show, and getting home around midnight. I know I must have done this kind of thing before, I just don't remember it being so hard. I was hallucinating from pure exhaustion on my drive home last night.

The conversation with my director (at intermission):
He: You kill me, every single time.
Me: Why, because my song sucked?
He: No, because you're SO FUNNY. You're always thinking...I love people who are witty and can come up with things on the fly, and you always do that.
Me: Oh! It's because I do a lot of improv theatre.
He: You're fucking brilliant. But I'd never want to date you.
Me: What?? Why??
He: Because you'd scare me shitless. You're too smart.

Ha! He also went on to tell me that my song DIDN'T suck, it sounded great, but I needed to calm down and not rush it. I believe him, because he's been very blunt with everyone so far about what they need to fix.

All of that said, I'm actually very excited about the show. I'm freaking out about it possibly not coming together, but I think it will. Like I said, it's a very talented group of people, and I like that.

I am just SO tired.