Watch Your Head AND Photoshoot!

FIRST REHEARSAL

And so it begins!

We had our first rehearsal tonight and I was truly blown away by the talent in the room. The energy, the sound when they all sang (they looked JUST like the image to the right), being able to give them choreography and when I came back to it they remembered - it was so exciting!!! Haven't had that much adrenalin running through me for awhile!

I AM worried about our rehearsal space though. It is a very long, narrow room with an extremely low ceiling. When I am standing at the front (where the audience would be seated) I can't even get everyone in my eye view because they are so close to me! It felt like a bit of a ping pong match looking back and forth as they reviewed Summer Nights. In fact at one point I was trying to go quick enough to get a sense of what it will look like side by side - but I only proceeded to make myself a little nauseous.* 

Furthermore, the ceilings are insanely short! When my musical director, Tom Arntzen, walked in (all 6 foot 4 of him) I was seriously concerned that he might hit his head! At one point I wanted Sandy (Alex Gullason) to get up on a chair or table but she wouldn't have been able to because her head would have gone straight through the ceiling! LASTLY (and I promise I'll move on) the lighting in the room was only ceiling pot lights. Which are great for a groovy, relaxing space but as the evening got darker so did our room - I think it made us all a little sleepy! Needless to say - I'm HUNTING for a new rehearsal space (ANY suggestions - let me know!).

*It needs to be said that I am 100% responsible for this - I DID approve the space, thinking I would mainly do blocking in there. But due to crazy schedule conflicts and the sheer amount of material we have to cover I'm going to have to use Tues/Thurs for choreography also - almost an impossibility in this space

PRODUCTION TEAM

On an extremely POSITIVE note - we had our first production meeting and our team seems fantastic. A couple of 'newbies' - John Bussette - Set Design, Des Renard - Technical Director, Tami Sinosich - Props, Tom Arntzen - Musical Director. I handed out googly eyed pens to everyone to remind them that we have a huge tasks at hand - but we must always have fun doing it! (A photo of us, hard at work, ALL with our googly eyed pens - forthcoming!) Budgetary constraints this year are going to make things a little more difficult - but I always seem to get more creative when someone says 'No'!

PHOTO SHOOT & POSTER

LASTLY - we had our promo/poster photo shoot and can I just say - they looked amazing!!!! I really wanted to recreate some iconic moments from Grease that are so familiar to us now - but also some unique ones. I found an image of an original Grease movie poster that I fell in love with - it was quirky, so fifties, and not at ALL the image that we are used to seeing (Danny & Sandy all tarted up, in an embrace at the end of the movie). Our masterful photographer and great actors recreated that poster for me, but with our own twist. Looking forward to getting the layout of the poster ready and OUT THERE for all to see!