The Oliver Chronicles: Installment Four - Music and Run-Throughs and No-Shows. Oh My!

Okay, so I have several pieces of news/gossip about how the show is going that I need to keep the blogosphere updated on. First, Music Rehearsals.

We have been doing some music rehearsals between the blocking ones a few times a week, and so far I guess they have been going well. Mrs. Maestra is very good about scheduling specific songs for specific times (usually having the first half of the rehearsal be a call for the whole cast and then the second half of the rehearsal be for the smaller group/solo pieces.) So, having rehearsed both my duets with Dickon and the ensemble numbers that I'm in, and having heard most of the other numbers in the rehearsals, I think the people who have shown up to rehearsals have sounded great.

Note my word choice in that last sentence: "The people who have been showing up sound great." As for those who don't show up... well I don't know how they sound. But at all of the music rehearsals I have been to, the average attendence has been half of the cast or less. This is very very not good. Mme. Maestra n'est pas contente.

Okay, I was hoping to save the gossip for the end, but it seems necessary that I tell you now so you know what's going on...

We were all nervous when we found out who was cast as Fagin in our production (i.e. the biggest male lead in the show): A boy I am going to refer to as "Coach." Now, we were nervous because there have been several rumors going around regarding Coach's reputation with past high school shows (meaning his tendency to audition, be cast as a lead, and then quit.) Now, just for the record, these are rumors. However, I personally did witness this behavior in "Footloose" when I was in eighth grade. He was cast as Coach Dunbar (hence his name.) He showed up to the first few rehearsals, then he disappeared for several weeks. Then, about a month before opening night, he quit. HDT was then forced to ask one of the new transfer students in his class to take his place (a new student who happens to be extremely creepy and not a very good actor.) So, I only know for a fact that Coach has done this once, but that's enough to make people nervous, considering he has the biggest part IN THE WHOLE SHOW!!!

So, Coach missed the first four or five rehearsals, as predicted, but since then he has been showing up pretty regularly when he is called. (although he did miss a rehearsal today that we needed him for...) So, no cause for panic just yet. Well, not on his account anyways...

As for that half of the cast I told you about, we'll see what happens.

So, as you may recall from my last Oliver installment, the Run-Through of Act I went pretty badly. However, it is still very early in the rehearsal process, so no one has been beheaded yet. Then, last Friday, we did a Run-Through of Act II, and I must say, it went extremely well. We got almost all the way through, but not quite. And that was with HDT stopping to correct things and block songs and things like that. So, for Act II we are decently on track I think. We are scheduled to run in again at tomorrow's rehearsal, so hopefully it will go just as well.

Oh, but there was one slight hiccup in the run of Act II. Dickon was not there. And actually he has been one of those people who has been absent from rehearsals a lot (and several times it was on occasions that I knew he had been in school that day, so he wasn't sick.) I found out today from Mrs. Sowerberry that he has been missing rehearsals a lot recently because of his hectic work schedule, which (according to him) he did put on his conflict sheet when he auditioned. So, I don't know who is to blame here: Dickon, for not showing up, or HDT for scheduling Dickon's scenes on days he knew he wouldn't be there? Hmmm....

Well, this entire week (with the exception of today) is for big midterm exams, so we don't have regular school in session. We only have to show up on the days that we have exams. Of which I have none! Yay! But I still have to show up for rehearsals. Oh well. That, I can live with.

But this means that several people could still conveniently "forget" about the rehearsals and not show up... In which case, bad things will happen...