Well, my birthday is over, and I made it through another one! Thanks to everyone who emailed, posted or called and wished me Happy Birthday! Now I’m on the countdown…only 364 days to the big 4-Oh! 🙂

For my birthday, I got to A) Get pounced on by my wife and kids at 7:00 in the morning before they went off to school, and given lots of hugs and kisses. Then B), I got to be at work all day, as it was First Preview for Art! (If I couldn’t be with my family, making a play is a pretty good way to spend my birthday!) Then, after first preview, my co-workers all took me to the bar for drinks and snacks. Yay snacks! 🙂

First Preview went well! Very good responses from the audience during the show, and some very useful feedback during the talkback afterwards. I can’t remember if I’ve ever journalled about the talkbacks – the first week of performances on most of our shows are “previews”. They’re full performances, everything is ready and complete, but we use them to fine tune the show. (This is done a lot in theatres all over!) I love them because we get to do talkbacks with the audience after the show, where I will go out (along with the director, if it’s not me) and have a seat onstage immediately after the curtain call. I’ll get feedback from the audience, asking some questions (did you get bored ever? Did you get confused and never recover? What pulled you OUT of the world of the play? Could you HEAR everything okay?) And I’ll also open it up for general comments about what worked and what didn’t. It’s a GREAT process, and we get to fine tune the show with a handful of hours of rehearsal during this week and early next week, leading up to the Official Opening Night. Polishing and tweaking the production, sometimes working/changing large moments and sometimes spending 30 minutes of rehearsal to make a 3 second bit work, is one of my favorite parts of the rehearsal process.

So, last night we started that process with Art, and had a great time doing it! We’ll do it again tonight, and I’m looking forward to it. Also looking forward to Saturday morning, when I get several hours of quality family time (and I’ve been promised a performance of a play that my kids have been working on just for my birthday. These are usually incredibly silly and cute performances, so I can’t wait!)

No more typing. Showering and leaving for work!

Happy Friday!