The Final Stretch

Well, we've reached the final stretch for Honeymoon At Graveside Manor. This is the last week of rehearsals/runthroughs, and we open Friday. I have to admit that even though I know my lines and I don't have a very large role, I'm still beginning to get nervous.

But last night we got to see the nearly completed set for the first time. When we started rehearsal, all we had of the set was a front door and a large empty frame where the window was supposed to be. The stairs and closet door were taped on the floor. Then last week, we actually got our stairs and our closet door, but last night was cool. The walls are all painted with yucky mustard and olive green stripes on the upper half, brown on the bottom half, with dusty black outlines where pictures used to hang on the walls. And the curtains over the window are dark purple with a simple black plaid pattern. The closet door actually has a handle now! There's a cheap looking Tiffany-type lamp hanging over the 3-ft round table down stage right, and a picture of a creepy-looking white bearded man hanging crooked next to the front door, supposed to be Cyrus Thorncraft, the original owner of Graveside Manor. And there are tree branches hanging low just outside the front door, (which stays open half of the play). The whole thing is really cool...

And last night during the run through, we had lights and music for the first time, which definitely adds a lot to the production. I sat in the house and watched when I wasn't performing. Everything seems to be coming together nicely.

I'm really looking forward to my family coming to see it, especially since my last experience in a play was completely unprofessional and f--ed up. That was 8 years ago, it was a small community theater production of Bathroom Humor. We didn't even have a theater, we were rehearsing in a house, and the play would be performed in a Jr. Highschool auditorium. I was assistant director originally, even though I had auditioned for a role. But the director spent most of the rehearsal time cracking jokes, drawing attention to himself, being jealous that the pretty girl in the cast was paying more attention to the handsome leading man than to him. So rehearsals were not getting much accomplished, and then our leading man quit a week before opening and took half the cast with him, saying that as a professional actor he could not allow himself to be in such an unprofessional production. (IMO, it was unprofessional of him to quit a week before opening.) So the director and I took over two of the roles, some one else in the cast called in a few favors to fill the rest of the roles, and opening night got pushed out another week. We only had 4 performances total, and thelast night of performance, my family was the audience. There was no one else there. And the cast decided, "Oh, we always mess around with the script on closing night and play practical jokes on each other." So during the performance they pretty much threw out the script. My family was furious that they had wasted their time and money to see that crap, and I was completely embarrassed.

When I told my family I had been cast in Honeymoon..., the first thing they said was, "I hope this is a more professional production than the last play." And I've been assuring them that this is a much more professional production, the theater was established in 1974, and everyone associated with the production is professional. And even though there were difficulties in the beginning getting a full cast and getting everyone to rehearsals, it's all coming together very nicely now. I think all the actors are doing a wonderful job with their roles, and it's going to be a fun performance!