[vampires]

Hola tossers-

We have returned from our Christmas hiatus and back to blocking the show.We are only a few scenes away from having the entire show blocked and choreographed (Of course half of that will probably be changed between now and opening night, but it is there!). It has been a blast watching these actors find the essence of their characters that already exist, while imposing so much of their own personalities into them.

Last night we blocked the song "Die Vampire Die." In it Susan tries to comfort Jeff and Hunter and get them past the "vampires" in their head getting in the way of their artistic vision. Director Paul Daigneault shared his own personal "vampire".

Paul started SpeakEasy Stage in 1992 and has directed countless shows for the company since then. He said that his vampire involves people's reactions to his shows. No matter how many people might love a show, all it takes is one negative comment to get in his head. Every single reviewer might say "Run now to see this show! Must see! Best show I've ever seen!" but have one minor criticism at the end that is so insignificant compared to the rest of the glowing review. Or he might get 200 emails from people saying how much they loved it, but have one email with something nitpicky in it. Those insignificant minor criticisms morph into a vampire in Paul's head and haunt him night and day. Susan's reaction to this problem? "Die vampire die!"

What are some of your own personal "vampires" that get in the way or your life?

[hiatus]

Greetings [tos]sers-

We have completed one full week of rehearsals and are now on a week long hiatus for Christmas. Rehearsals start up again on Monday, but this break is a wonderful opportunity for everyone to let things settle in and really start thinking about the show. The actors now have a week to sit down and start memorizing their music and lines which is something that rarely happens in a production. Usually the actors are expected to come to rehearsal all day, then spend more time at home learning everything, just to come back the next day and do it all over again. This will make everything less stressful and easy (hopefully).

As of right now, we have blocked a good chunk of the beginning of the show. It is really fun to see this show start to come together. I keep hearing people saying that [title of show] should not be done without Hunter, Jeff, et al, playing themselves as they did in NY. However I do not agree with that at all. The show, while about them, does not require them to play themselves. It is a concrete book musical, where as long as the actors are talented (and trust me, these 4 are not going to let anyone down), it doesn't matter who originally played the part.

I like to equate it to A Chorus Line. The characters, dialogue, and song lyrics in A Chorus Line were taken almost verbatim from the dancers who participated in that initial workshop organized by Michael Bennett. Even though the role of Cassie, for example, was a combination of a few different dancers/actors in the workshop, a good chunk of her story was from Donna McKechnie (who originated the role). The words of Cassie, were the words of Donna. I don't think anyone can argue with the success of A Chorus Line (It became the longest running show on Broadway for an number of years) and during the 6137 performances over 15 years, a number of women played Cassie besides Donna McKechnie to great success.

[photo shoot]

Hello again Boston [tossers]-

The other night the cast of [title of show] took a break out of their music rehearsal to pose for publicity photos. Also known as pre-production (or pre-pro) shots, these photos are used for any publicity purposes before the show opens and we have real production photos. While these photos are not shot on the actual set of the show, or use costumes that probably will not be worn in the real show, these are the first images of the cast together in character. I hope you enjoy the following photos shot by Mark L. Saperstein...

Jordan Ahnquist and Joe Lanza star as
"Two Nobodies in New York"



Susan (Val Sullivan), Hunter (Joe Lanza),
Jeff (Jordan Ahnquist), and Heidi (Amy Barker)
"Filling Out the Form" to enter the festival



Heidi (Amy Barker) tries to find
"A Way Back to Then"



Jeff (Jordan Ahnquist) and Hunter (Joe Lanza)
hope to become "Part of It All"



Susan (Val Sullivan) and Heidi (Amy Barker) wonder
"What Kind of Girl is She?"



Jeff (Jordan Ahnquist) and Hunter (Joe Lanza)
write "An Original Musical"

[first rehearsal]

1 rehearsal down, many more to go. Like I said earlier today in my post, tonight was the first rehearsal/Meet & Greet. Following an Actors Equity meeting at 6 (Before every show starts rehearsals, all of the union actors/stage managers have a meeting with only themselves to go over some business activities, pick a deputy, etc), we all gathered together at 6:30. Our director (SpeakEasy's own Artistic Director, Paul Daigneault), gave a passionate speech about the reasons he wanted to do the show and his ideas about how to play characters based on the actors who originated the roles. Our designers then got up and spoke about their ideas and we all got to look at a model of the set. Like everything in this show, simplicity goes a long way, but it is going to look great.

Following the Meet & Greet, the cast started learning music with musical director Will McGarrahan (also in the show as Larry, the musical director). The cast will learn all the music over the next couple of days and put it all together for a first read through on Friday evening. There is nothing more exciting, in my opinion, than the start of rehearsals.

Now presenting the cast of the Boston Premiere of [title of show]...
(From left to right) Joe Lanza (Hunter), Amy Barker (Heidi), Jordan Ahnquist (Jeff), and Val Sullivan (Susan).

[meet&greet] slash [history]

Hi y'all!

Today is the day! Day 1 of rehearsals. Tonight is our "meet & greet" where everyone in the cast and production team gets together to meet each other. The Meet & Greet usually also includes a talk by the director (Paul Daigneault) about his ideas for the show and plans he has, as well as design presentations by all the designers. I personally am most excited to see what our fabulous team of designers (Costumes by Chip Schoonmaker, sets by Eric Levenson, lights by Jeff Adelberg, sound by Aaron Mack and video by Seaghan McKay) comes up with! I will report back to everyone later with more details of how everything went.

Today I would like to give you all a little backstory on the NYMF Festival where [title of show] premiered.

The show (as well as the show within the show, as well as the show within that show, as well as...oh this could go on for a while...) was written for the New York Musical Theatre Festival aka NYMF. According to the NYMF website, the purpose of the festival is "to revitalize one of America’s greatest art forms by introducing a diverse audience to the vibrancy of contemporary musical theater, and by discovering, supporting and promoting new musical theater artists, producers, and projects." NYMF is a fringe like festival that runs for about 4 weeks in September/October each year with about 25 new musicals running. The festival started in 2004 and featured [title of show] in its premiere season. [title of show] is the first of two SpeakEasy shows this season to come out of NYMF's inagural season. The second is The Great American Trailer Park Musical (Running April 20-May 29). Other famous alumni of the festival include Altar Boyz (also in 2004) and Next to Normal (then called Feeling Electric in 2005).

The festival was the catalyst for the entire show. The original plot revolves around Hunter and Jeff trying to write the show in 2 weeks to make the deadline for submission. Since 2004, the show has changed to include every step along the way past NYMF, however it is still featured prominently in the final version of the show.

*********************

32 days until opening night!

"What is [title of show]

While searching youtube tonight, I found a few videos that might answer your question, "What Is [title of show]?"

The first is a video made by the creators/original cast entitled, you guessed it, "What is Title of Show?" I will leave it at that and let the video speak for itself...


Next I wanted to give you a little taste of the music in the show. This is a clip of Heidi Blickenstaff singing "A Way Back to Then".


If you want to hear more of the music, you can listen to previews of all the songs on amazon.com by clicking here. (If you really like the music, you can also buy individual songs, or the whole album there as well).

Lastly, I would love to hear comments from everyone reading this! Tell me what you like, what you don't like. If you have anything you are curious about pertaining to either [title of show] itself, the rehearsal/production process, SpeakEasy Stage in general, I am glad to answer any questions you may have.

[title of blog]

Hello everybody and welcome to what I am calling [title of blog]. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Scott Sinclair and I will be the Assistant Director on [title of show] at SpeakEasy Stage. I will be blogging throughout the rehearsal process to give readers an inside look at what goes into a production.

Rehearsals start in less than a week and everyone cannot wait to start this truly original musical. If you are unfamiliar with the show, please visit the [title of show] page on SpeakEasy's website by clicking here or visit the official website of [title of show] here. To give a brief summary, [title of show] is a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.

Are you confused yet?

Don't worry. [title of show] is an autobiographical musical written by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen (Who also starred in the NY productions) that follows their process in writing the show which you are watching on stage. Described accurately by original cast member Susan Blackwell as an ouroboros (a snake eating it's own tail, pictured to the right), [tos] is filled with self references blurring the line between real life and the show being performed on stage.

Over the next month (maybe even longer if you are lucky), I will be reporting back here to give everyone updates on the rehearsal process, share fun stories, provide interviews with the cast and crew, and hopefully give you a backstage glance at the first of three musicals in the second half of SpeakEasy's 19th Season!