Thursday, September 20, 2007

It opened. It didn't suck.

After months of work (and blood and sweat and tears and booze), "Dinner & Drinks" opened last night to a not-exactly-crowded theatre. Which is to say, we had about 15 people in the audience, which isn't quite as many as I would have liked.

But of the 15 who were their, they seemed to enjoy it. They laughed in the right places, and in some spots the laughter was huge. Finding out that there were a couple of servers in the audience, who could relate with the idea of stumbling into private conversations they probably shouldn't be stumbling into, was also entertaining, because it illustrated that, even though it was only a very tiny consideration, I got *that* part of the play accurate. And having never been a server, I'll admit that I pretty much made that part up.

Sound was a little weak. Apparently we were missing an amp, which we should be snagging tonight to improve that. Lights were a little glitchy too -- there were some dark spots that could stand to use a bit more illumination, so I might try to see if I can rearrange where the light is falling (though we're pretty limited, only working with four lights, hanging about ten feet off the ground).

The houses are looking to improve in the next few nights. With sales and comps, we should be sitting close to 40 or 50 for tonight, and Saturday is already sitting around 50. Friday might be light, but I'll be content to break the 100 ticket mark for all four days, making the show perhaps not a raging success, but hardly a failure either.

The only thing that seems a little bit disappointing at this point is the four-day run. After the amount of work that everyone put into this, it seems like we're cutting it off just when things should be starting to really rock. On the other hand, I'm still incredibly exhausted, and am eager to start my richly-deserved vacation from the land of the thespians, so maybe only running for one week was the right thing to do after all.

Monday, September 17, 2007

So, uh, yeah, it's been awhile...

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've been around these parts. Almost two months from the look of it.

Looking back, it seems my posting came to a close right around the time I was A) dealing with the cancellation of column, and B) dealing with an overwhelming series of problems on "Dinner & Drinks" -- the play I was, and am still, working on.

Which actually makes perfect sense.

The cancellation of the column was a pretty major blow, and losing that one avenue of self-expression left me feeling far less inclined to express than usual. And when the show hit a roadblock that required not only postponing the performance dates, but also recasting one of the characters, I found myself very, very quickly drowning in an almost unbearable level of stress.

Most of that is over now. The show opens in a couple of days, so most of my work is done (though I still need to finish the program work tonight, do some painting tonight, finish an article for the paper, and print the program tomorrow, after our final rehearsal), and in a little less than a week, it'll be all done, save for the trip to Kelowna for festival (and the possibility of working with someone to work the script into something more appropriate for film). At which point...I'm taking a very long break.

I've toyed with the idea of taking the next season off from the Studio Theatre, and as each do goes by, I'm more and more certain I want to. For one, I really do need a vacation, after working on a show almost constantly since last October. For another, I have two novels in varying states of completion that I'd like very much to get focused on again. Unfinished novels collecting dust aren't likely to accomplish much artistically.

Of course my mood for these last two months hasn't been fantastic either, but I doubt that would come as a surprise to anyone anymore. Sometimes I get the feeling that I've been in the gutter for so long that I'm starting to get used to the decor. Which, by the way, is a pretty sucky mindset to have.

More to come sometime after the opening of the show, when I can rant or rave, depending on how it went.