Tonight's the night!

Well, the two dress rehearsals are over! And we survived. Three small costume notes: a button popped off a jacket sleeve, a snap needs moving, and a great looking dress where I’d made a bad fabric choice, has merely underlined my suspicions about the fabric, and needs a tiny repair.
And I need to get more heelgrips, and hair clips, and pick up better hangers for hanging up all the pants….

They’re not all of the dump-it-on-the-floor school, but it does seem that their expertise in using hangers leaves a bit to be desired. So I figured those hangers with clips might help all the pants stay a bit less crumpled looking!

Part of the problem, too, is that although the Opera House is a lovely little theatre space, it has only the two dressing rooms, and a minimal backstage space, and no greenroom at all, so there’s nowhere for the kids not on stage to go. (Maybe the Mayor would surrender his office, which is directly below…..) But it does mean that there are more bodies than space. In the first dress run yesterday we lost a pair of shoes, and simply couldn’t even find the floor to look for them. (This is also a dressing room full of teenage girls and ALL the clutter which seems to be necessary to their existence!) We’ve got one girl storing her stuff in the shower, another treats the entrance to the shower cubicle as her personal space. (A bit handy since she also has some quick changes, and that seems to be the one clear traffic path!)

There are a number of costume changes during the show (even though, when this was first described to me it was kind of outlined as a one costume kind of show… That was, of course, before I learned it was totally double cast, which really meant a series of costumes for the speaking role nights, and a series for the non-speaking role nights, and then formal and informal for the Duke, and mourning, half-mourning, and out of mourning for the Countess’ household, and some disguises, and…. You get the picture!)
A couple of the changes are QUICK!. Which means finding and presetting all the bits, and helping the actresses. And patting down the ruffled nerves. None of the off-stage people really have the attention span to be dependable help. It’s hard enough to clear a path for exits from the stage, and room for the change!

For the actual performances, it appears we’re going to have a couple of parent volunteers. Which means MORE bodies, but may help with noise and traffic control. (At least I never really had to deal with volunteer help for sewing. I kept leaving little jobs just in case, easy things, but then finished those all up myself anyway.) But definitely having someone to snarl at the kids to be quiet might be handy, though Lord only knows where they’ll fit themselves! It’s already problematic that the non-speaking roles are only on the stage for a couple of instances, and have the rest of the play in which to be bored and underfoot.

Well, there. Did my “major” repair. Will move the snap and sew on the button down at the theatre. Imagine I’ll have to do some pressing and de-wrinkling, too!
Because it’s such a short run, two performances per cast, I won’t really be doing much laundry, but there are a couple of items that simply have to be shared. (It obviously bothers my sensibilities far more than the kids’, but still, it is a professional theatre, I figure they should get as good as I’ve given on any other show I’ve been involved in.) Admittedly, there are also a few costume items that seem to end up on the wrong bodies.
There was the second pair of pants for Antonio, because the slimmer actress suddenly declared that though they’d been fine in the fitting, they weren’t now.They were too tight! So I’d found another pair, dyed them, hemmed them, and now she seems to wear either pair. And the actress that was happy with the original pair seems to be ending up in the replacements… (Beats me!)
And one entire costume seems to be being shared for a non-speaking role, while the second costume hangs there completely unused! But since they’re fairly neutral costumes, it doesn’t make a visual impact, and I’m just biting my tongue and ignoring it.

I did manage to grab one actress just before rehearsal started, aghast, saying “you have nail polish on!” and thrusting cotton balls and nail polish remover at her. (It was BLACK polish!!!) But I’m playing a girl, she said. How about red? I was mean and adamant.

There, the white load is in…

Of course, the timing of all this does mean I’m hardly going to see my husband in the next couple of days, and then he’s off to CanIron in Nova Scotia for a week and a bit… And when he comes back, he’ll be eyebrow deep in the next project which happens seemingly minutes later. Oh well. This is a bit of back-to-back time for me too. Hope I’ve left myself a few brain cells for the next thing on the agenda…