June 29-30

COSTUMES!!!

Yesterday marked the first sighting of our tremendous costumes!  My costumer managed to find three different rental companies to work with, all of which have some amazing work :)  One of which is a smaller theatrical group in town (affiliated with the private school) that offered us the use of their costumes for free if we advertised for them in the program.  From them we were able to procure children's "villager" costumes, which worked out really well!  Although we didn't have quite enough for everyone to go around, for the rest (which thankfully were all boys) we simply asked them to bring a white dress shirt and brown/black pants from home with brown/black shoes.

Several of the larger "object" pieces came as well today, including the wardrobe, Mrs. Potts, Lumiere and Babette.  I've asked each of them to begin practicing in costume for the rest of rehearsals, as these costumes are much more difficult to manage than your average costume!  The students have done well, but I think the extra repititions will really help make the acting a lot smoother.

The other costumes are set to arrive (hopefully!) tomorrow afternoon, so that we will have the whole tech week to work with them.

We also worked with many of the chorus "Be Our Guest" pieces, including the spoons/knives/plates/etc.  I would have preferred to have them sooner, but having them for at least two days before tech week is wonderful.  The students are definitely not used to them, but just as with the other object pieces, the repetition will really help things along I think.

I plan on sending out a note tomorrow that asks parents to send black shirts/black pants and brown/black shoes with their child to rehearsal.  I sent a note out today reminding families of the practices on the 4th and 7th, as well as a reminder about the strike on the 10th and the Cast Party provided by the park.

I think I need to start pulling away from the students now-perhaps tomorrow I will talk to them (at least the older high schoolers) about giving out notes.  I think that I may be stepping to much into their scenes now, and I needto start pulling myself away and giving them the show.

The lights are coming along quite nicely.  The rest of the tech team is also stepping into a run crew role, and starting to do the scene changes on their own (although, with a prompt from me as they have no scripts) which is helping the younger ones get into a rhythm as well.  My stage manager (the one that will be calling the show as opposed to the other stage manager who will be supervising back stage) will be here for the rest of rehearsals/show runs, which will be a comfort to have.

The reality of tech week is slowly encroaching on me...although I am quite proud of my students and think that they have created a spectacular show, I am a little nervous...perhaps it is about letting go of the control of the show, perhaps a little nervous that I may have missed something...I am not sure.  I have been reassured that I have a good show, but its all a little nerve racking nonetheless.

The students are starting to get a little over zealous now.  For the Mob Song, I have pulled roughly 15 different false weapons that I have designated first to the male students, and then to a few select mature girls.  Before they were even within eye-sight I explained, VERY clearly, that I had a no tolerance policy for false-play or joking around with the fake weapons.  Unfortunately, I had a student who did not pay attention to my warnings, and I removed his prop after today's rehearsal.  I think the fact that I actually did take the toy axe away from the student made the other students realize as well the severity of what I had said, and I don't think anyone will be fooling around with them again.

I am hoping to finalize one scene tomorrow, and then I would like to continue with my run-throughs of the show.  I have been doing several mini-run throughs, planning on running right through as much as I can and stopping when I hit a trouble spot to work it for a while.  However, tomorrow I think I will begin my pull-back, and other than working the Battle scene with the younger boys, I think I will run all the way through and try my best to sit put in my chair and see how they do without me.

More later!