Our First Preview, or Putting It Together

On Wednesday we had our first run of the show, in which we had to hold once for a technical fix, and in which a song was missing because all of the props and set pieces simply hadn't arrived yet.  These arrived yesterday, on our first day with an audience.  So, we teched that number yesterday and threw it into the show last night in front of 500 people.  It's crazy the way things come together here- when the stage manager calls "hold" and you just sit there for a bit while seemingly nothing goes on, there are probably a dozen or more people working to better what just happened so that it can be perfect.  And let me tell you, these people are damn good at their jobs.

                                                    Here's my set-up, by the way.

Last night went pretty well.  There was one point in which an off-stage singer's mic went out for two bars and we had to catch up with her when it came back in.  There were a few slight glitches with NOTION that I still have to remedy, but my portion of the show went pretty smoothly.  After working tirelessly to edit the programming within the software (yesterday I worked 13 hours), it made it all worth the effort to hear the audience go nuts when Shrek entered for the first time, or when Princess Fiona took on beauty's true form at the end.

We should tour this show or something.

Speaking of- I learned something interesting.  Whereas many tours have one coach which takes the cast everywhere and on which they basically live for months, we're hiring a charter bus to take us from point A to point B each time we have to travel.  NETworks will sometimes even be flying the cast to a new destination when the distance outweighs the time.  This way, I don't think we'll ever have to spend the night on a bus.  How neat is that!?

So now we just have two more preview performances and then we travel to Portland on Sept. 11th (what a wonderful day to travel...). So, goodbye for now, and see you in Portland!