Running, man!

We had our first run through last night. Oh, man! It was great! It was dirty, sloppy, unfocused, and confused...everything you'd expect at the first run through. And the best part is, despite all of the craziness, it's still only 86 minutes long! That's right around where the show will be I'm thinking. The pace will quicken, pauses will tighten up, and all the usual refining that takes place through multiple runs before opening will take some time off. But we'll negate that time saving with scene changes, taking our time with the words when we can, and exploratory work. But this is good because this is where we want the time to go. Reflecting on the run last night, I really am quite happy with where we are.

It was interesting to see how everything fit together last night. We had it blocked last Thursday and did table work all last week and this week. Throw it all together and now we have a passable show! What's really going to help is that we're already dealing with the big TECH elements. Peter is starting to explore using makeup and gauze to create his wounds. Our set pieces, which are pretty much six 2'x2'x18" and a trash can, are being manipulated in the space. We have some points where we use chalk in the show and exploring what that means to us. And this weekend we'll start finding costume pieces and the props we don't have.


All of us had a big scare earlier this week when we sat down and looked at the printed calendar. There just weren't enough boxes before we opened! That July 27th box was too close! However, after this run, and realizing that we're still about three weeks out, I couldn't be happier with where we are. Again, a wonderfully productive rehearsal last night.