Sometimes with press it never rains but it pours. The Age and Herald Sun profiles both ran today – great articles, great pics, and great ticket sales across the day. The first four shows are completely sold out, with only a few tickets left for the final four. And Ed got the cover of the MCV – quite prestigious – with a big article inside.
So a jaunty way to start the day, but it was business as usual once I got into the theatre. Matt and I got there at 8am to paint the door white, it’s second coat. It’s fun doing really manual jobs, so little thought needs to be put into it, as opposed to plotting the show in four hours, which was my next job. Rob had been given a faulty dimmer, so about 25% of our lights couldn’t be seen for the first two hours of the plot. He had put up quite an impressive rig, in fact, probably the biggest seen in 45DS. Phillipa was certainly awed by it. And we used it. Rob worked very quickly – I’ve never plotted a long show in such a short time. It helped that Meg, our SM, is quick, amazing, and never needs anything explained twice.
We ran late, of course (we should have started at 8pm last night, in a perfect world), but when Ed turned up we stopped for a water feature trial. He looked somewhat bemused as he lined himself up in front of the tank, ready to be bashed by three invisible thugs in two inches of water. He fell in, squealed and quick at last 20 litres of water out. But it looked amazing!
Costumes were flying back and forth, Jess’ mum fitting Chrissy into the overalls shown a few blogs back. Sexy, satin, and very fine. Finally we began the tech rehearsal. I underestimated how complex it would be, and we had to slowly work through exact areas for lighting, when curtains would move (how curtains would move), the video art had just been patched in and was off centre and too big, but bit by bit we worked through the whole show and finished at 7pm. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that everyone in the room was exhausted and feeling some degree of despair.
After a quick walk home to fit the cast into some our clothes as we fill in the final costume blanks, we started the tech run proper. Devised a new overture a minute earlier, then ran. And suddenly the lighting was beautiful, the curtains behaved, the costumes were complete, the video art was straight, the characters weren’t and the show happened. It’s always a shock when it happens. You plunge down, all of you, and then fight to the surface and this calm settles over the room.
Ran the actors through notes, made tech plans for our first preview (Jeff Busby shoots us at dress rehearsal tmw) and came home, ready to start again at 7am tmw. First preview (sold out) in 18 hours. Prodigal is about to come home to Melbourne.
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