First week at the Fringe

Today is the final performance for this week of It Can't Happen Here at the Woodstock Fringe. It has been going remarkably well. Audience response has been good and the performances seem to grow with everyone finding new stuff all the time. To be honest, I was a little wary of how this would turn out. This time last week we had yet to move into the theater which of course means that NONE of the technical aspects of the play had been addressed. It could have been a real disaster. But thanks to the vision and patience of Wallace (director/author of the piece and Artistic Dir. of the Fringe) it all came together beautifully. Of course, it involved lonnnnnggggg rehearsals (3p-10p Mon-Wed) but it was worth it. I worked half days on top of that, so my days were really long (didn't want to chew up too much of my remaining vacation days at work). At any rate, the set is about 16 boxes which are moved around during transitions, so the first order of business was choreographing that, and there are major sound and light cues along with projections . . . and . . . oh yes, we did rehearse the play a bit too. The first time we ran it in a stumble through on Wed. night I didn't expect much but it went very very smoothly . . .amazing how these things pull together. A great group of people to work with as well. The cast is pretty special (not to mention getting to do my scenes with Bette - my wife for those of you who don't know - it is just an incredibly cool moment for us). My daughter came with her fella last night and she was a tad freaked, that she was watching her parents play the parents of someone else her age . . . but she liked the production over all and said nice things about her acting! At any rate, one more today for this week, then three next weekend with the last one followed by my reading of Letter of Resignation (I found a bow tie to wear yesterday, now I need to learn how to tie it!) and Bette's reading of Next. More on all that soon.