Wow, I am NOT keeping up with the blog! Work has been crazy. We just shipped 4.8.0 of our Coral8 engine and that kept me busy every day this week until midnight. Barb went off to Las Vegas for a fun trip including shopping for HAiR costumes and a little gambling and sunning, to recharge her batteries for the upcoming event of HAiR. She got some REALLY cool things for the show, too!
And auditions are around the corner... Tomorrow, we have our first audition and it is very exciting. We have 33 people signed up in advance for auditions, and we expect more will show up unregistered. Metro Silicon Valley ran a small audition calendar listing on Wednesday and we have been sending out mailings like crazy to everyone we have ever worked with before. Bay Area Theatre Bums (BATB) also provides us with good access to actors, as does craigslist. I perused the Theatre Bay Area resume listings and picked some people to mail to as well. We shall see, we shall see.
Of course, the biggest problem that always seems to plague smaller companies is getting men to audition. Women are always interested, but men are harder to get. Our ratio of preregistered men to women is about 3:1 which means we should have enough talent to pick and choose among the women, but unless every man who tries out is great, we are going to need to do some more recruiting.
Another show that is in preproduction, Insignificant Others, written by Jay Kuo, is having a similar problem (see Jay's blog for his ruminations on the audition process too). So its nice to know we aren't the only ones!
I am most worried about finding a really good black male performer to handle the role of Hud. Hud needs to be a kind of cross between Huey Newton and Sly of Sly and the Family Stone. A sensitive, fun-loving but deep-down very politically aware young black man. He hangs with the hippies, but inside, I sense a real need to express his feelings about the oppression his culture has experienced. And he has to sing in a great Paul Robson-type voice! Yikes! (Fortunately, Broadway By The Bay is doing Showboat right now and I expect they may have one or two cast members who might fit ;-) )
I have two really good audition pianists lined up (that was a concern until this week, as it always is). We have all the forms, scene cuttings, CDs, etc., ready to go.
Bring on the actors!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
A little history...
This is the second time I have been associated with a production of HAiR. The first was in 2002, when I had another theater company in Santa Cruz, OpenStage Repertory Theater. We had done two years of shows and I was in the midst of some strange changes in my life (a divorce, a new job, etc.) My new work was very near San Francisco, and so I was only in the Santa Cruz area every other week.
A good friend, Cat Winske (who had been in one of my shows, Tomfoolery, the year before), wanted to produce HAiR, so I told her "go for it" and she used OpenStage as the backing company to mount the show. It was scheduled to play for two performances only at the Rio Theater (a very large 700-seat converted movie house in Santa Cruz).
The auditions were awesome (I dropped by to watch) with over 100 people showing up and many very talented individuals to pick from. Cat was working with Ed Levy, another friend who had played El Gallo in OpenStage's first production of The Fantasticks in 2000 (and Ed was incredible in that role). Ed directed and music directed the show.
There were a lot of good things with that production, and number of not so good things. Without going into too much detail, there were some real tough times heading into hell week, and I stepped in to help out, although not everyone was happy about that. The show was a sell-out and we added a Sunday performance, but behind the scenes, we had enough issues that things weren't very smooth. Also, Ed's version of the show was highly modified from the original Broadway production and I wasn't thrilled with it. But we did mount the show, and despite the issues that we were dealing with, the show was very successful. We even brought it back in the summer for another one weekend run and did very well (although not as well as the first run).
This go-round will be much different. The venues are smaller (about 150 seats per theater compared to 700 seats at the Rio), the stages are smaller, making for a more intimate show and a much smaller cast (maximum of about 20 this time, compared to over 40 the last time).
I also will be sticking much closer to the Broadway script as provided by Tams-Witmark. We want to honor the spirit of the original show on its 40th anniversary, although we will make a few minor adjustments.
Most people who work on HAiR say it is often a life-changing experience. The 2002 production was for me, and my life has turned in very different directions partly as a result of that show. I hope there will be more changes in store with this production, which I am helming from the start. And hopefully a lot of fun along the way, as well!
A good friend, Cat Winske (who had been in one of my shows, Tomfoolery, the year before), wanted to produce HAiR, so I told her "go for it" and she used OpenStage as the backing company to mount the show. It was scheduled to play for two performances only at the Rio Theater (a very large 700-seat converted movie house in Santa Cruz).
The auditions were awesome (I dropped by to watch) with over 100 people showing up and many very talented individuals to pick from. Cat was working with Ed Levy, another friend who had played El Gallo in OpenStage's first production of The Fantasticks in 2000 (and Ed was incredible in that role). Ed directed and music directed the show.
There were a lot of good things with that production, and number of not so good things. Without going into too much detail, there were some real tough times heading into hell week, and I stepped in to help out, although not everyone was happy about that. The show was a sell-out and we added a Sunday performance, but behind the scenes, we had enough issues that things weren't very smooth. Also, Ed's version of the show was highly modified from the original Broadway production and I wasn't thrilled with it. But we did mount the show, and despite the issues that we were dealing with, the show was very successful. We even brought it back in the summer for another one weekend run and did very well (although not as well as the first run).
This go-round will be much different. The venues are smaller (about 150 seats per theater compared to 700 seats at the Rio), the stages are smaller, making for a more intimate show and a much smaller cast (maximum of about 20 this time, compared to over 40 the last time).
I also will be sticking much closer to the Broadway script as provided by Tams-Witmark. We want to honor the spirit of the original show on its 40th anniversary, although we will make a few minor adjustments.
Most people who work on HAiR say it is often a life-changing experience. The 2002 production was for me, and my life has turned in very different directions partly as a result of that show. I hope there will be more changes in store with this production, which I am helming from the start. And hopefully a lot of fun along the way, as well!
Introducing Barb...
I have already mentioned her a few times in my first blog post, so it is probably appropriate to introduce her to all.
Barb is my partner, my anchor, my producer, my costumer, a mom-par-excellence... All things considered, this show is going to happen because of her. She keeps me on track, focused (as much as possible :-)), and her willingness to take a risk on this show is what is making it all possible.
She was even willing to give up going to Burning Man this September (which would have meant the FOURTH time we would have missed it in a row, arrgghhh!) in order to do the show in October, but as fate would have it, we are doing it in the summer and Burning Man won't have to be missed. We will be able to "go home" Labor Day weekend for the first time since 2003.
In fact, we might even try to drag the whole tribe out to the desert and put on an impromptu performance of HAiR for the Burning Man community. (Did I actually put that in print? :-) ) But that is five months away, time will tell whether that could actually happen.
Thanks, sweetie, I love you!
Jon
Barb is my partner, my anchor, my producer, my costumer, a mom-par-excellence... All things considered, this show is going to happen because of her. She keeps me on track, focused (as much as possible :-)), and her willingness to take a risk on this show is what is making it all possible.
She was even willing to give up going to Burning Man this September (which would have meant the FOURTH time we would have missed it in a row, arrgghhh!) in order to do the show in October, but as fate would have it, we are doing it in the summer and Burning Man won't have to be missed. We will be able to "go home" Labor Day weekend for the first time since 2003.
In fact, we might even try to drag the whole tribe out to the desert and put on an impromptu performance of HAiR for the Burning Man community. (Did I actually put that in print? :-) ) But that is five months away, time will tell whether that could actually happen.
Thanks, sweetie, I love you!
Jon
Monday, March 26, 2007
First tickets sold today!
HAiR, the American Tribal Love Rock Musical, is coming to San Jose!
This is my first blog post ever and it is pretty exciting. We are about five days from auditions and there is a lot left to do. There are many things that happened over the past few weeks which I will try to go back and write about when I have time, but today was a real landmark because we sold our first two tickets for the show!
We published an ad (our first) in the program for Nixon's Nixon, which opened at San Jose Rep over the weekend. I spent a good chunk of Saturday making sure that the ticket sales system was up and running correctly, including the NIXON discount code, at Brown Paper Tickets, our ticket vendor. Barb and I went to see the show at the Rep on Saturday evening and it was very good (I saw it back in 1997, at the Montgomery Theatre, but this was the first time Barb had seen it - it is really an amazing play about abuse of power and the fatal character flaws exhibited by Nixon, but enough about that!)
We got a copy of the program when we bought our tickets and immediately searched for the ad. They placed it on Page 4, right opposite the main title page for the Rep show! Awesome! We went and had dinner and were quite giddy about the ad placement. It is a full page ad too, and very dramatic (I will try to upload a copy some time soon).
When we took our seats at the theater, we had fun watching other people as they opened the program and saw the ad. We saw two people in particular who nudged their partners and obviously showed them the ad. It was way cool! Possibly the people who bought the first tickets were ones we saw that night.
Anyway, this morning, two tickets using the NIXON code were purchased. Very exciting! We offered the purchasers a free upgrade to a reserved table as the very first purchasers.
We are on our way!
LET THE SUN SHINE IN!
Jon
This is my first blog post ever and it is pretty exciting. We are about five days from auditions and there is a lot left to do. There are many things that happened over the past few weeks which I will try to go back and write about when I have time, but today was a real landmark because we sold our first two tickets for the show!
We published an ad (our first) in the program for Nixon's Nixon, which opened at San Jose Rep over the weekend. I spent a good chunk of Saturday making sure that the ticket sales system was up and running correctly, including the NIXON discount code, at Brown Paper Tickets, our ticket vendor. Barb and I went to see the show at the Rep on Saturday evening and it was very good (I saw it back in 1997, at the Montgomery Theatre, but this was the first time Barb had seen it - it is really an amazing play about abuse of power and the fatal character flaws exhibited by Nixon, but enough about that!)
We got a copy of the program when we bought our tickets and immediately searched for the ad. They placed it on Page 4, right opposite the main title page for the Rep show! Awesome! We went and had dinner and were quite giddy about the ad placement. It is a full page ad too, and very dramatic (I will try to upload a copy some time soon).
When we took our seats at the theater, we had fun watching other people as they opened the program and saw the ad. We saw two people in particular who nudged their partners and obviously showed them the ad. It was way cool! Possibly the people who bought the first tickets were ones we saw that night.
Anyway, this morning, two tickets using the NIXON code were purchased. Very exciting! We offered the purchasers a free upgrade to a reserved table as the very first purchasers.
We are on our way!
LET THE SUN SHINE IN!
Jon
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