Opening night went well. Our first review is out already. Very positive, yay. Hopefully tix, which are already selling well, will continue to sell at a good pace!

I’ve been examining the project in my head looking for lessons, things learned.
For those interested, here are a handful of my own personal lessons, with more to come later as I get a little more distance from the work.

-Again, keep it simple.

-Also “Again”, simplicity is one of the hardest things to do. Making it look and move simply can take a lot of work.

-On a cyc with a cityscape, it’s not just the clustering of the buildings, but more specifically the amount and clustering of the windows in the buildings that gives you your sense of population and crowding.

-Think hard before agreeing again to do a show where you will lose your lead actor for several shows the day after opening and must have an understudy ready to go on. While not impossible, it certainly adds an amazing amount of stress to everyone involved, AND pulls time from creating the piece because you’ve got to stop polishing the product and instead spend time rehearsing the understudy, which is normally the Stage Managers job after the play is open. It all turned out fine this time, and was absolutely worth it, but I could see other projects being devastated by it.

-Trust your instincts. If the musical underscoring of a scene feels like it might be too much, or too on-the-nose, then it probably is. Listen to your gut and cut it.

-Again, preshow music and intermission music MUST be about what you want the audience to be feeling. What kind of mood are you hoping to evoke before the show, and between acts.

-As discussed in detail with the Set Designer, theory is great, and a great starting point, but if you put that theory into practice and it sucks from a practical, visceral point of view, lose it. This saved Dan and I several hassles, and made several things in the play better.

-There’s a new Krylon spray paint for crafts that is amazing. If you need to cover an entire armchair and ottoman, you can, and it works on the fabric!

-Sometime’s the simplest directions to an actor are the best. A simple reminder to “talk with him in the scene, not at him” can make all the difference in the world to an entire performance.

-Letting, in fact encouraging, the audience to use their imaginations works, and works well. On the flip side of that, of course, is the fact that there will always be a small percentage who want everything spelled out for them. You can’t please everyone all the time, and if you try your play will suck. Play the odds, and trust your instincts; You’re the interpretive artist on this project, do it and don’t shy away from it.

-A quote that I read in Fast Company magazine (which is a magazine I love) helped me with this show:
“It’s not that Less is More, it’s that Just Enough is More.”