Okey Dokey then…3rd preview went very well. Best performance yet, I was very pleased. We have stuff to work, and I love to polish stuff up, but the show looks good. Talkback audience was very responsive (even though the house tonight was small), with much positive feedback and a couple topics of mildly hot debate, which is always a good sign that people were into it.

An entertaining thing happened at the top of the Act II, however. Something that rarely happens in professional theatre, but sometimes accidents happen, especially in early previews when everyone is still learning their routines; at the top of the act, one of the actors had missed the places call. Rare. Even rarer, there was a mix up in the stage manager’s confirmation that the actors were in place before starting the act! SO, it’s supposed to be: the whole cast goes onstage in the music – they all enter together, and take their places onstage, music, the scene is announced by one of the actors, and act II begins. Well, one of the two actors in the first scene is the one who was out back, working on lines or something. Tom, who’s playing the guitar onstage waiting to announce the character in the scene sees that the character he’s supposed to be introducing isn’t there, just decides to keep on playing (a good choice, actually.) and wait for the actor to show up. He gets into his guitar playing, some of the other actors start to vocalize to the music, audiences start to clap, it becomes a 2 minute guitar music interlude!! (Meanwhile, everyone on the crew is scrambling to find the actor!) Once located, the actor walked on as if nothing wrong had taken place, and sat down in his place. Tom, seeing him enter, turned to the audience, announced the scene and went away. The act began and ran very well. I was so impressed with the cover by the cast! (Yes, I was annoyed that it happened, but it was one of those things that happens now and then in Live Theatre – that’s what makes it fun! So, especially since it’s the first time anyone involved has made this kind of mistake, it was easy to laugh it off and say “well now we know not to do that!”. Funny, funny, funny.

Off to bed now. Must sleep. Getting up early tomorrow to spend some a.m. time with Jeanne and the kids. My schedule’s been so crazy I’ve not seen them as much as any of us want. OH, quick Max story; the other day we’re driving and I complained that I had a messy car. He says to me with this little twinkle of the devil in his voice, “You know Dad, they have these new places! They’re called car washes! You should try takin’ your car to one of those to get it cleaned!” Totally working the ‘let’s tease Dad’ angle!! He had this big grin and was so proud of himself for “gettin’ me” the way I’m always teasing them! I loved it.

zzzzzz……