(The Stage Manager, yours truly, and my sexy stage hands - no we are not always lucky to have sexy gals working backstage. This pix was taken on the eve of New Year of 2006. The red car is a Buick Skylark. One of our duties is to ensure that the car is in position, so during the show when it is pushed out no one or nothing gets run over.)
Post-Mortem.... Morbid it sounds!
Doing a post mortem on poor Cinderella - actually it's a post-production meeting that we are supposed to have on 10 Feb and i can't remember a thing!.
So thought I'd better write this - then something might jog my memory....
The rehearsal for cinderella started on Nov 7. (managed to have 1 week break - Deepavali / Hari Raya holidays; just after we bumped-out Pygmalion between 30 Oct till 31 Oct)
The bump-in for this show was on Dec 17 and opening night Dec 22. Which meant we had to get the cast (10) and chorus of (8) to act, sing and dance in 42 days! That is like going half way around the world! Oh and don't forget we have to get a band to play too.
Yes - I now remember the hassle of trying to piece the rehearsal schedule together. PJL had done the breakdown of scenes and we had a compilation of the days the cast could not make rehearsals. Now to marry the two. Somehow managed to compile the rehearsal schedule and an attachment of codes (just to ensure that they know when they are supposed to be present.)
I do believe that I'm jinked in the stage management side. Always I end up dealing with people making changes in their schedule even after telling them that, the last change would be the last change. But such is life. Another problem I face is that I never get to work with my full stage management team. There are constant changes in my stage assistants/hand.
And if only all concerned could come for rehearsals on time and do what they are supposed to do. (Assistant Stage Manager included!) Rehearsals normally start at 7:30pm and the cast are expected to start warming up for at least 30-45 mins for this production. (If you ask me, I'd say 1 hour of warm-up inclusive of 20 minutes of vocal warm-up). Things that are always stress during vocal - Projection!... Accent, articulation, Diction, pronunciation, Elocution, Enunciation ! (would always remind me of the song from Pygmalion..)
The first part of any rehearsal would be the reading of script. Very interesting this part. Lots of fooling around! Then comes the hard part going through the lines and putting the books down. Then the blocking comes in. And don't forget this is a musical - that means there is singing and dancing (movement) to do as well and remember them. Then when the whole thing is pieced together and doesn't look quite good - one needs to re-learn a whole new set of choreography or song part and remember that! (Now I know why I prefer stage management!)
Of course, rehearsing Cinderella was fun, it was meant to be a fun production. (But then again, every production has its own life - everyone in the production contribute to the fun during and after rehearsals.)
During the rehearsals we also sort out props needed, listing on my Master Script where the props are to be placed. We normally make do with make-shift props till nearer to production i.e. dress rehearsal to work with the actual props.
This time for Cinderella, I had also noted the enterance and exit of the actors during the show on to my Master Script. Nearer to the production the sound cues, music cues and also lighting cues were also added.
(My sexy stagehands with my Assistant Stage Manager - It was good to have Ving around as he helped in getting the sound effects sorted out.)
(The tech boys, fooling around just before the show. Notice the pix of Elvis on the background. Cinderella featured The King's songs. )
