And the Music Keeps on Playing

Well, the show is up and running and the kinks have been ironed out. Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment:


Here we see Peggy, the prettiest, smartest girl in school and Curtis, your stereotypical dumb jock (throughout the play he keeps getting C's on his assignments and saying, "C is for Curtis!").


Here they are with Antonio, the new greaser student from Spain who doesn't speak much English (clever ploy for our ESL purposes, no?).


Here's our after-school diner hang-out, complete with rollerskating waitress...


and clumsy, dancing cook.


This, plus a doom-full sound effect are what happens every time Mrs. Thompson, the teacher mentions the "FINAL TEST!"


Here's Antonio checking to see that Mrs. Thompson is really frozen before he gets help with his test from the audience.


Above is Mrs. Thompson doing her crazy dance (she promised that there'd be a graduation dance if Antonio got 100% on the final test, even though dancing is not allowed in school).


And here's the almost-final pose after the finale and before curtain call.

I'm really proud of the show. The third time I watched it, once all the technical glitches had been taken care of, the actors played to an almost full house and at the end I almost started to get a little verklempt because the audience loved it so much.

I also can't say enough how proud I am of the actors. During our technical and dress rehearsals, there were plenty of problems and issues that came up. This happens for every show and is basically a function of the fact that we are not allowed to close the theatre and have so little time to get all of the technical aspects of the shows synced up. This has the potential to be a very frustrating and disappointing time for the actors because they've worked so hard on their roles and they are now being confronted with light and sound operators and a stage crew who've had no practice with the show or their cues. My cast, however, took everything in their stride, did their best to work with the mistakes, stayed positive and had fun. They were thoroughly pleasant to work with throughout the whole process and I am seriously grateful for their professionalism, optimism and dedication to the project.

Another pleasant surprise was how little stress I had to deal with through the whole process of directing. I think much of this had to do with the fact that I delegated as much work as I could to other people. Also, I had a very, very good script to work with. Still, I had many responsibilities, and while the process was definitely stressful at times, I really didn't expect it to be as easy or as natural as it was. Yay!

Apart from that, things continue to go well here. I've just been notified that another script I wrote has been chosen for production. I've written lyrics and will be co-writing songs as well, so it looks like another of my brain-children will be up on stage this summer. I'm actually really amazed that our administration went for it, seeing as it's based on a Korean folktale wherein the main character vanquishes his enemies through the wind-power and stench of his gastric emissions. But hey, everyone loves a fart joke. This means I'll have my hands full with revisions and song-writing until my trip home. No rest for the wicked-cool.

If I did everything correctly, then I think I've opened up this blog to comments from anyone, whether or not you have a Gmail account, so please, don't be shy, I love hearing from you! It makes me feel like this is at least something more than total self-indulgent drivel.