The past two weeks have flown by!  In week 2, we focused on blocking (staging) the show.  Blocking is always fun because the actors finally get to be on their feet and try out their characters’ physicality. Blocking can also be one of the most challenging times because we are figuring out the logistics of entrances and exits.  Often, we’ll try a moment several different ways.  Just like a writer has a first draft, blocking can have a first draft too. In this process, our draft keeps getting refined right up until opening night!

Week 3 was all about editing -both the script and our staging. Thanks to the generosity of Hampstead Stage Company, we were able to borrow some beautiful costume pieces.  Just like with past projects, the actors will be wearing all black and adding simple costume pieces for each of their characters.  In this show, the actors play upwards of 50 characters in an hour!  So, as you can imagine, staring to incorporate the costumes into our run-throughs involved even more logistics.  As we worked through each of the scenes, we also started to realize lines that could be cut or trimmed, as well as props that could simply be mimed.  There were details that we realized were better to leave to the audience’s imagination.

We ended the week with a stumble-through of the show -the first time we ran the entire show start to finish. Stumble-throughs always have their “stumbles”, but it always feels so good to see an outline of what the entire show will be like.  Now our job going into Week 4 and performances is to run the show as much as possible and continue to refine.  We are so excited to see how the show grows in the next week!