Soup to nuts

From Eric Hale:

Today we began the week when it all has to come together with our first real run: top to bottom, beginning to end, soup to nuts. This is a major milestone in any rehearsal period. It’s the first time when you can really say “We have a show.”

It would be wonderful to say everything went smoothly. It didn’t, of course. I’ve never been in a show where first run through went smoothly. However, I’ve been in shows that opened in worse shape than we were today.

I wish I could give you a coherent narrative, but I can’t. There was so much to think about that the time goes by in a blur. Here are some things I remember:

It was my first time trying to sing all the music from memory. I was better than I feared, not as good as I hoped. Oddly, my memory kicked out partway through the third act. I suspect that I was just tired by that point. Still, I’m feeling pretty confident about knowing the music.

The space we are working in is much smaller than the stage at Fletcher. As a result, there are times where there is no way to move without climbing on a table, jumping off the proscenium, elbowing other cast members off the stage, or levitation. It’s a little claustrophobic, but it’s also temporary. When we get to the real stage, we’ll have a lot more freedom.

The chorus is on stage a lot more in Carmen than in many other operas. We’re on stage for the first 50 pages of the score – and we keep coming back. The challenge is not to look like the chorus in a bad production of HMS Pinafore. I’ve written before about how we work on our characters, but today was the first time we encountered all the time we need to fill. Encountering these things scene by scene is different than running them all together, just as doing a series of 10 mile runs does not really prepare you for a marathon. However, we’ve proven we can do it now, and my experience is that shows seem to get shorter as we rehearse them.

That being said, we do have stretches where the principals are on stage. I spent most of those with my face in the score, reviewing my notes for the next act. So, I can’t give you a full report on their performances. I can say that the parts I did watch seemed like they were in great shape.

I had written in an earlier blog post about getting my hand caught in Escamillo’s cape. Steven showed me how to solve that problem, and we had no difficulty this time.

The rehearsal was booked for 4 hours. The run started a little late, about 2:15. Even with the places where we restarted and worked parts, we finished at 5:57. There was some discussion afterward. Then we headed home, tired and with more work to do.

Tomorrow’s rehearsal is a piano run. I need to go study now.