Okay, Tech on Saturday went well. Some issues with the lights, but it’s a big lighting show and they’re still solving a few things.

Very excited about today’s rehearsal, and the next few days. Can’t wait to get an audience in, let the cast relax into the show a little bit.

Still have some stuff to work, of course, and we’ll use every second we’ve got, but now it’s about tweaking scenework.

If you’re interested in reading more about the show, and what we’re doing with it and what makes our production a little different, click this:

Summer and Smoke is normally a big cast show, it calls for 16 characters. It’s a “Classic”, with a total of 13 scenes over two acts. Each scene is normally separated by a big blackout,a little music, and then lights up into the next scene. Some of the 16 characters are only seen once or twice, for a couple of pages or lines. It’s very linear, with most scenes only having a couple of people in them.

To me, the show is about the two leads, John and Alma, trying to Find Their Place In The World. Looking For Someone To Connect With. They almost make that connection with each other, but both of their weaknesses and failings, and their innate differences, prevent it from happening. They do, at the end, find a way to join the rest of the world – it’s just not in a way that either of them would have liked it to happen.

SO, because the show is so much about these two, in particular Alma, trying to find a place in the world, I wanted to put the world onstage. I also wanted the show to be very theatrical, not simply lights up/lights down. So, we have 7 actors playing not just a couple of roles each, but also portraying the rest of the world – they’re onstage the whole show, watching the action. Characters step out of the world and join John or Alma for a scene, then return to the world, leaving John and Alma behind. (At the end of the play, both John and Alma wind up joining the world, and the other actors, but not with each other.) SO, that’s probably the biggest difference in the way we’ve staged this production – everyone’s onstage the whole show, representing the world John and Alma want to fit into.

Also, there were a couple of different versions of the script: a published version, a second trimmed down acting-edition version that Tennessee Williams did because he was unhappy with the original, and then a very different script with the same leads called “Eccentricities of a Nightingale” that was darker, less characters, meaner people.

The first version had a prologue, which featured John and Alma as kids. We wanted to produce the tighter ‘acting edition’, but keep some pieces of the prologue. We got permission from Tennessee Williams’ estate to include some of it as a “Flashback”, where in the first scene we see John and Alma flashback to their first real conversation as young adolescents. It’s here where we learn a good bit about both of them. It’s an interesting scene, I like the way it informs the rest of the play. Having it as a flashback is another fun theatrical event in the play that I enjoy, as well.

So, that’s the story with our SUMMER AND SMOKE. I wanted to keep the story clean and simple, the storytelling interesting, and keep the audience entertained.

If you see it, let me know how well you think we hit our goals.

So, 3 more rehearsals before we start previews. Things are good.

OH, and as I finish this, my Tigers are up 5-1! That’s a good omen for today’s rehearsal, right?

Later.