Rehearsal #4: Photo Mania

Tuesday's rehearsal was consumed by the photo shoot for the program and the flyer. It's always hard to get much done at a "photo shoot" rehearsal, but invariably they are necessary because they're the only time you know you'll have a chunk of the cast together at the same time.

To try and keep this one from being a complete wash, I told people to bring musical instruments. Then, anyone who wasn't onstage being photographed was in the back of the house jamming and improvising songs. I want music and song to be a big part of this show, and since this show really is about us having a good time, playing instruments we enjoy playing fits in perfectly. We will have a keyboardist at every show as well, but self-played instruments add so much (in a Sweeny Todd Revival sort of way).



As I was busy helping out with and occasionally art directing the photo shoot, I really have no idea how the jamming sessions went. Although I did hear a good song about a repo man and Scott sing a wonderful blues number.
The photo shoot itself went quite well and was tons of fun, as they usually are. Hopefully it resulted in some good shots and the overall concept for the flyer will actually work. I’ll post images here once we have it.

After we finished taking pictures, we broke down the photography equipment and worked on transitions into songs, either through scenes or in-character introductions. One of the highlights of this section of the rehearsal was a strange sort of interpretive dance. I’d love it if something like that happened in a show.

What sort of instruments did people bring that you might see played in a show if you came? Guitar, ukulele, two different kinds of drum, a squeeze box, a flute, and a harmonica (which I brought but really need to learn better how to play before I break it out in a show; my technique is good but I don’t know what notes I’m playing). And that doesn’t even include the acoustic base and mandolin that might also make its way to the shows.

We capped the evening off by experimenting with Mandy’s crazy idea on how to improvise Barbershop Quartet singing, which worked amazingly well. Once we’ve ironed out the kinks and I have a better grasp of what exactly we did, I’ll write more about it.

Only 2 more rehearsals left before we open! Ticket are on sale now. If you use the coupon code “special” when buying your tickets on Vendini between now and Tuesday 2/24, you get 25% off!

Also, see why Joy missed rehearsal.

Slide Show of the photo shoot: