Today we covered music and a dance. We worked on three of the nine songs that the guys will be performing during the pre-show (the half hour before the show starts) and the dance for the party scene in Act 1, Scene 4.
AJ, Bobby, Zach, and I worked on the dance. AJ (Juliet) and Bobby (Paris) are the only two dancing, with the scene happening around them. Zach will be playing guitar and Mike (henceforth known as Hollinger) will be oo-ing the melody to "Something" by George Harrison. The dance AJ and Bobby will be doing is a Pavan, a basic step in four. It's a little like walking to music. The boys picked up the steps very quickly and Zach was able to play the music enough for them to dance to within fifteen minutes. I had blocked out an hour for them to get this dance down, but they had it down after thirty minutes.
This meant that we were able to devote that extra half an hour to start sorting out our first round of costumes. I am so pleased with the way the costumes are coming together. Everyone is starting to look great... especially the gentlemen who are playing ladies. And I must say, Jeff (Lady Capulet) looks like his dress was made for him. He looks so at home in the dress I can hardly believe it! Carmel (my costume designer) is a clothing genius.
The last couple of hours of rehearsal were spent on three songs: "Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong" by Michael Franti, "Stars" by Switchfoot, and "Fight Your Kids" by The Chalets. The first song we rehearsed is the only full company number. I like to think of "Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong" as our theme song, which is why I wanted the full company involved. For a first rehearsal, everyone did surprisingly well. They were comfy enough to sing the song on their own without the recording playing with them. For a first rehearsal, the song is coming together very well. Now that folks have an idea of where they come in and how the song goes, I'm looking forward to the next go round with this song.
We spent about half the time on "Stars" that I had budgeted. After one run thru with the cd, they (AJ and Johnny) were ready to sing it on their own. With Zach playing guitar and these two guys singing, the song is sounding great. Zach is finally feeling comfortable with the dropped D tuning and using it to add some real flair. I was worried about the song being overly challenging, but AJ and Johnny are sailing through this song like they were meant to sing it.
Lastly, we took our first stab at "Fight Your Kids." This is, by far, the most challenging song the guys are performing. Zach is on guitar with AJ and Michael (henceforth Wagoner) on vocals. After tonight's rehearsal, we're also going to be adding in Bobby to do rhythm. This song is complicated because of its weird rhythms. The guys came up with a great idea to do the crazy counter rhythm as a patty cake type hand slappy thing. If they can pull that off and sing, this song is going to be brilliant. And, by the time we wrapped up this evening, they were already starting to master it. It was a lovely surprise that came out of AJ suggesting that the rhythm should be snaps and claps rather than just claps. That suggestion morphed into one of the coolest ideas we've had so far. It sounds great and looks even better.
I have to say that even though this was just the first day of rehearsal, everyone is doing brilliantly and I couldn't be more pleased with how things are going. I caught myself smiling when I looked at my stage manager once this evening and she just said, "It's ok. You're allowed to be happy." It feels so good to hear these guys actually singing the songs that have been in my head for over a year. I couldn't be happier. Let's hope I feel this good tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment