Even to begin with, we have a very short production schedule to put on a show. For the play, auditions are typically held in late January or early February, with rehearsals starting soon after and performances usually happening on the first week of May. This gives us a total of about 12 weeks (or 84 days) to put together a show. However, when you take off weekends and Friday’s, when we don’t have scheduled rehearsals, this leaves only about 48 scheduled rehearsals, or about 6 weeks of time.
On top of our already limited time period, I’m sure you are all aware that the De Soto school district has had four snow days and three days off in the past three weeks, leaving only eight days of school where we should have had 15. Needless to say, this has greatly affected the shows rehearsal schedule.
As a result of how the rehearsal schedule was set up, dates for rehearsals being changed and rehearsals being canceled due to inclement weather, I have only been to three rehearsals. Let’s just say that I’m a little freaked out. This is my first year having a role where I don’t have to be at rehearsal every night to begin with, so that alone is weird. But knowing that no one else has been to rehearsals either definitely stresses me out.
However, I have faith in my fellow cast members and our directing staff. We have dealt with having fewer rehearsals than planned in years past and we have always managed to put on an amazing show. We just need to crack down and work on memorizing lines so that we can get our scenes blocked as quickly as possible.
On a positive note, set crew is meeting for the first time this Saturday. They will be planning out everything that they need to build for the set and will begin to build them. This is the earliest that set crew has began to meet in my memory. This is exciting to me, as it means that our set will be completed sooner and that we will be able to practice on it and get used to it, rather than only having a week to get used to it. But for now, I’ll have to settle for an empty stage.
