Submitted by Anonymous on
As I write this, I am excited to think that the cast and crew is getting ready for the first preview showing. That must be so exciting. Are they ready?
Well, I dropped in yesterday afternoon as they finished off the tech. I had stopped in the first day of tech which was quite interesting and this time was about the same. The surprise to me is that when they finished, they had a dress rehearsal that night and the first preview tonight. I’m amazed at how short the time is from when the cast arrives to having everything worked out and then really one full dress rehearsal of the whole thing before the first audience.
The first time I was there for tech I watched the stage and what was going on for the cast and what the audience saw. There were tables behind me where lights, sound, and effects were worked but I didn’t really check it out. As I wrote I was impressed at how fast effects could be dropped in. One problem that day was that the projector for the presidents wasn’t bright enough, so it was hard to see effects on there. This time, problem solved and it looked great.
One cool effect is seeing Terrell as George Washington behind the screen. He said he had room enough for 1 step, but he made it look like a real walk and created quite the effect of his silhouette on the screen.
This time I walked up the balcony to check out the tech folks. I expected boards with dimmers and buttons and such. They still do that at concerts after all. But there wasn’t a knob or slider to be seen. Laptops. All laptops. Tech is now high tech. Cool and sad at the same time. It did make sense though as to how they could be down in the seats working out cues and such.
And back to the question – are they ready? Well, many things were being worked out in doing the tech, so I doubted they could be ready. Well, tech finished, they took 10.
After the break, they started the play from the beginning. A couple of things to change in the initial trivia.
Ready? Well, then they started and did several presidents. Smooth as silk. Yeah, they’re ready…
Oh wait – can they double dutch? We’ll see…
-Geoff Bryant, Cohort
