Saturday, July 23, 2005
First reports
So, have you heard the one about the bad final dress rehearsal?
Yeah, it's an old theatre adage: if you have a crappy final dress rehearsal, than your Opening Night will be great! I, of course, suspect that this adage is really only trotted out when you actually have a terrible dress rehearsal.
I mean, you don't hear people say, "Wow, that was a great dress rehearsal, Opening Night is going to be AWFUL."
So, I asked the Brigadoon cast what they felt about this old adage and how it applied to their show, and here's my very first report back from the field:
"Bad dress rehearsal, great opening night...definitely.
OK, maybe not a bad dress rehearsal, but it definitely had its moments. For example, each of us had a different tempo for the Sword Dance (and none of them were Brandon's tempo) and we went very flat on the final "Brigadoon." Most of the performance was pretty darn good, but there were certainly times when we were glad it was a friendly audience (who
hadn't paid.)
Opening night, though, everything just clicked. I think all of us felt that the performance was really good, and were very pleased. And we all managed to keep Brandon's tempo for the Sword Dance, which is a miracle in itself.
All the audience members I spoke to really enjoyed the show, and will spread the word."
Was anyone there Thursday night? And if so, did you even notice the things my little Briga-bird is sharing/ because it's pretty par for the course for the cast to be far more aware of little mistakes and out-of-synch moments than the audience.
Yeah, it's an old theatre adage: if you have a crappy final dress rehearsal, than your Opening Night will be great! I, of course, suspect that this adage is really only trotted out when you actually have a terrible dress rehearsal.
I mean, you don't hear people say, "Wow, that was a great dress rehearsal, Opening Night is going to be AWFUL."
So, I asked the Brigadoon cast what they felt about this old adage and how it applied to their show, and here's my very first report back from the field:
"Bad dress rehearsal, great opening night...definitely.
OK, maybe not a bad dress rehearsal, but it definitely had its moments. For example, each of us had a different tempo for the Sword Dance (and none of them were Brandon's tempo) and we went very flat on the final "Brigadoon." Most of the performance was pretty darn good, but there were certainly times when we were glad it was a friendly audience (who
hadn't paid.)
Opening night, though, everything just clicked. I think all of us felt that the performance was really good, and were very pleased. And we all managed to keep Brandon's tempo for the Sword Dance, which is a miracle in itself.
All the audience members I spoke to really enjoyed the show, and will spread the word."
Was anyone there Thursday night? And if so, did you even notice the things my little Briga-bird is sharing/ because it's pretty par for the course for the cast to be far more aware of little mistakes and out-of-synch moments than the audience.
// posted by ElisaC @ 1:45 PM 
