May You Live in Interesting Times

To start where the last post left off- the furniture got moved again and we refocused stuff a third time. :P

That was a weird weird tech. The plan was to focus Friday morning, dry tech in the afternoon, tech Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, then open Saturday night. Friday evening's rehearsal was supposed to start at 7:30, and actually started around 9:30. It ended at midnight, and we hadn't gotten trough Act 1. The next day we picked up where we left off, finished the show, and even had enough time to run part of Act 1 before the 8:00 show. Which was opening night. It went surprisingly well, considering it was our first run through!

The director left Sunday morning, but the LD was still there for the matinée. We did a batch of cue notes after the show, then he got on his plane and went home. Things got interesting during the evening show. Let me first say this show is more like a concert than a play. They mostly play songs, and just talk a little. During the evening show, the guitar player skipped a song. Up in the booth, the SM frantically located the right cue, and we jumped forward. Then we had a quick headset discussion about whether he would go back, or keep going. He went back. We jumped back, then got ready to jump forward again. At other points, singers forgot lyrics, forgot to come on, and generally just faked it. The audience loved it. At the end of the show they were on their feet, demanding an encore. Naturally, we hadn't rehearsed that. So the SM frantically found a bright cue and we jumped back again, while leaving the houselights up. After the encore they were satisfied and went home. Whew! I've never used the "Go to Cue" button so many times during a performance before. :P