Saturday, August 8, 2009

Clippy's log - page 20

4/8 8:30pm. Now this is fairly unusual - having been in the show we now go out front to watch the rest of it! Cox & Box and The Zoo are on with Trial, each done by a different group.

11pm. Festival club. Midga and I get in free, as cast. We sing through chorus bits from Trial (the cast ham it up some, and gender bend at every opportunity) and then there's the usual call "Five minute break, charge your glasses" (which is invariably 20 minutes due to the queues at the bar). Midga decides to go home, he's feeling tired. I should think so too - rehearsals, DR and performance, all without the assistance of an SM's lolly jar! I know I keep going on about humans and food, but sometimes it's a sheer necessity. Midga is dangerously short of sugar, caffeine and lactose, and fairly badly dehydrated too, due to the puny capacity of the water bottles he was able to obtain. Alcohol and singing in a hot hall is the last thing he needs. I go home with him of course - but he walks so slowly I wonder if Rosuav is going to catch up with us after he decides to go home at midnight or so.

11:30pm. Half an hour for an eight minute walk, not bad. Midga has a cup of hot chocolate, washes the rest of the makeup off his face and heads for bed. Wise choice.

5/8 9:10am. There's a rehearsal today - what time? Where? No idea. We turn up at Trinity and a few other people are waiting there too. And we can't see anyone inside either. Eventually someone comes and tells us everyone's upstairs. It's intro speech time, and we get in just in time for Angie to introduce the boys as bookkeepers of the t-shirts. Of course that means I get to play a vital role - like I have done in so many shows back home. Love it.

10:30am. The t-shirt shop has been set up and I have the Little List. Let's ROCK!

1:05pm. Break time was flat out, everyone wants their t-shirts! Back to rehearsing, which means time off for the boys. Angie needs someone to go into town and buy a book of raffle tickets. A perfect opportunity for Midga and I to check out stationery shops. Copy paper costs over £4 a ream! It better be nice stuff...

3:45pm. Rehearsals are going strong. This director is amazing. His CPU speed is enough to rival the boys put together, which sits somewhere between unheard-of and unbelievable. He's easy to get along with because of his irrepressible humour, yet has very high standards. This is going to be a good show! He's very encouraging (he opened with standing and singing as a preparation for blocking, and made a very glowing compliment at the sound), and very clear and precise in his direction. Most of the cast are excellent, way above the standard of the chorus we're used to at home. And of course being all off book at the start of rehearsals makes a huge difference.

4:40pm. The whole opening number (until the chorus exit) has been fully set. Time to run it. Will they remember everything?

4:59pm. They did! A day's rehearsal to do what would take several weeks at home! This cast is great. As a reward they get to go home a minute early.

5:15pm. Home again. After a full day rehearsal the usual course is to hoof it to Flinders Street to get the 5:20 Glen Waverley (which, as everyone knows, connects with only a 16 minute waiting time to the 6:11 bus, getting us home three minutes before the family arrive back from Prayer & Praise), but here we're in walking distance of home.

10:30pm. Midga was going to get some sleep, but Rosuav decided to see what it's like to develop software for Android. Starting with Hello World, then an obvious progression to RosMud Mobile. Wow.

2am. Rehearsal is tomorrow. Midga goes to bed.

6/8 8am. It is writted on dis piece of paper ding ding cuckoo it is writted!

9:10am. Rehearsal starts with vocal warm-ups. They're more complicated than any I've heard at Kew or Camberwell - and with a huge cast they sound Rather Nice.

10:30am. Between selling t-shirts the boys and I can have a good time watching the show. They're doing just as well as they did yesterday - amazing.

2pm. We depart early because we want to see Elise's recital. Angie is very appreciative of our efforts, I guess we haven't made that sort of thing commonplace over here.

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