Here we are on May 6th, and the first week of rehearsals just flew past! A daily recap:
April 29
Casting decisions were finally announced and posted. I contacted all people with principal roles and we posted the rest. I wished I could have called everyone but it takes a lot of time especially when people don't always answer. Fortunately, we had already sent out email to the entire tribe that was cast so everyone knew they were selected for the show.
As of the moment of casting, we were still looking for a Hud and possibly one more black male actor, but all other roles were filled.
April 30
A few bumps in the road. Several people who were cast dropped out (I won't mention specific names here). One of the women who I had cast in a principal role called me to tell me that she had been offered a lead role in a major musical in San Francisco (Equity contract!) Arrghhh! I told her it was okay, I fully understood, and I probably would do the same thing. One of the costs of delaying our callbacks was just this kind of risk. It is hard to ask people to wait and they have to keep auditioning (after all, they don't know if they will get cast in our show until we tell them!) She goes with my blessings, although I have a nagging suspicion even she isn't totally sure she will enjoy this other job better than she would have enjoyed HAiR! The other person is someone I think may have really wanted a principal role and when it didn't happen, decided that they weren't interested in the ensemble. Sigh... This show is ALL ABOUT the tribe, but I understand.
May 1
First rehearsal! We gathered at Historic Hoover and everyone was accounted for except for Cy (who was excused because of a conflict) and one other women who I think is probably a drop-out also (although this still hasn't been confirmed by an email or phone call, but she hasn't shown up to any rehearsals so I expect that's it ;-) So we are now missing 4 people: Hud, one black female and two more actors of no particular ethnicity. We will start the hunt immediately!
Our first rehearsal went great. We spent a half-hour talking about some administrative stuff, Barb took some costume measurements and then we plunged into the read-through. Everyone read their lines and I played the tracks from the original Broadway cast album (and a few from other albums where the OBC didn't have the music, such as Dead End and the Ain't Got No reprise in Act II). A lot of the tribe sang along with the album which was very cool to watch. Obviously a lot of people already know some of the music!
One thing I noticed which was very good was the number of people in the tribe who hung around at the end of rehearsal. Sometimes everybody just packs up and leaves. While this isn't always true, it is often an indication that there is no real affection for the show or the rest of the cast. When people don't want it to end, that is a really good sign!
May 2
Our first music rehearsal. We did some more administrative work, and Barb took some more measurements. We bring in the keyboard and decide to tackle Aquarius first.
BUZZER!
Aquarius is one of the songs in Hair with the most difficult harmonies for the tribe (there are some other songs with tough harmonies too, but they tend to be smaller groups which are easier to manage). My naivete in not being totally prepared for this was obvious. For one thing, the harmonies in Aquarius aren't always written as to make it clear who should sing what, and so I fell back on asking people where they felt most comfortable singing (a great vocal director would have had each person in the tribe already picked out for their part). Lesson learned: I will make sure before other rehearsals to have this worked out in advance. Fortunately, most of the other tribal numbers don't have this complication ;-)
We stumble through the first 16 bars of the group singing (after the initial solo measures) and it takes us a while to figure out the harmonies. Fortunately, everyone recognizes my tentativeness and jumps in to help. In particular, Dennis Beasley (our Woof who also has experience as a chorus director) gives me some good advice and we finally get a few of the trickier part assignments worked out. We move forward through another dozen measures and then go back to review. WOW! Its been less than an hour, and despite my own errors in preparation, the tribe sounds like, well, a TRIBE!
Another half-an-hour and the song is sounding very very good (especially for a first rehearsal with me as vocal director). We move from the keyboard to the Hairaoke CD that we have and run through the song with full accompaniment and it sounds amazing! This is going to really be good!
I decide that for the second number of the night, we will try something easier. Hashish ;-) No harmonies at all, just slow, rhythmic pulsed singing (almost moaning :-) This one goes much much easier and in about 30 minutes, we have it done. We run through it a few times and then go back to Aquarius. Only a few minor glitches.
I am very very pleased with this first music rehearsal, despite the false start.
Again, everyone hangs around a while talking about the show. There is obvious concern for filling the role of Hud, although I am less concerned. I would, of course, love to have Hud here from the beginning, but we still have plenty of time, 10 weeks to be exact, which is much longer than most shows have from the beginning.
May 3/4
These days are a blur. Lots of stuff to do at work, and a lot of sleep to catch up on. We (Barb and I) have been going almost non-stop since we left for New York, with callbacks starting as soon as we got back, and then rehearsals almost immediately after the decision-making process was done. We had planned to see a show on Friday evening, but I was so tired, we just went straight to bed.
May 5
Our second music rehearsal is another success! We start with some non-singing exercises just to get everyone "in the mood" and then move on to vocal warm-ups. Thanks to Dennis for jumping in and helping here again! I decide to try one of the songs that is difficult to learn not because of harmonies (it has almost none) but because (a) it is a patter song to rival Gilbert and Sullivan and (b) most people haven't ever heard it.
The song is The Bed and I start out by explaining what I consider to be the significance of The Bed. Most directors cut The Bed. I think they don't understand it. First of all, The Bed is a very important number to show once more Claude's gradual separation from the tribe before he ultimately submits to the Army. It comes after The Trip and Good Morning Starshine, and sets up the Aquarius Goodnights where the tribe leaves Claude just before he transitions to being a soldier.
Even more important is that this is a classic "show" number and removing it actually is one of the reasons people wrongly think Hair "isn't a true musical". In fact, Hair is very much a musical and in many ways, follows quite traditional form ans structure. Of course, a completely different style of staging and music is superimposed on top of that, but to say it has no structure is simply wrong.
Consider that The Bed, which is a playful, funny song, is precisely at the same point in the show (near the end) where many other dramatic musicals have a similar comedic song. The immediate example that comes to mind is West Side Story (the theatrical musical, not the movie, which screwed it up by switching songs around ;-) In the stage version of West Side Story, right after the rumble and just before the scenes where Anita is raped in the drugstore and Tony is killed, there is a pressure relief number, Officer Krupke. This also happens in other musicals. There is a real need to lighten the spirit after the set-up and before the final climax, or the audience has no real chance to recover. And it also makes the final climax even more clear. (By the way, in true musical comedy, this is often switched, with a more serious number coming at this same point, sandwiching two comic moments, usually a set-up and then the final comic climax).
In any case, we started to work on The Bed and it went very well indeed. Fortunately the music itself is simple with only a few notes of simple chord harmony almost precisely where you would expect it. The middle of the song is a very difficult patter with weird rhythms. But the tribe got it (in fact, I tried to simplify it for them and they resisted, wanting to do it they way it was written!)
The Bed is a fun song and I think everyone had a good time learning it.
Just before we moved on, we had a brief moment of fun ;-) My cell phone rang and I had no idea who it was (private number). I decided to answer it, and it was a good thing because it was Michael Butler! He had called to talk to me about our upcoming press release. I told him I was in the middle of rehearsal. The whole tribe yelled "Hi Michael!" and he laughed on the other end of the phone. (Barb later told me I should have had them sing The Bed for him! Damn, I just don't think fast enough on my feet sometimes!) Fortunately, we agreed to talk on Sunday and he urged me to get back to the rehearsal.
Next we did Initials. This one is a simple song, with only three notes of harmony at the end. The melody is simple and the range is limited so we had no difficulty learning it. We worked a bit on the staccato "initials" and it sounded very good for a first effort.
We moved on to the reprise of Walking In Space (Our Eyes Are Open Wide) and finished it quickly. It is really fulfilling to listen to the amazing music that MacDermot, Ragni and Rado put together being developed by live singers all over again. This song is always one of my favorites and the tribe is doing it tremendous credit.
Finally, we tackled Ain't Got No Grass. Another patter song, this one has the tricky middle section ("A bombs/ H bombs/ P bombs/ Q bombs/ Chinese/ Czechs/ Hindus/ Bindus/ Italianos/ Polacks/ Germans/ Youse/ Jews/ Ups and Downs" and more!) that moves like a runaway train. With no threat of harmony to intrude ;-) this one became mostly an exercise in learning the rhythms correctly and working through the tricky syllables. I emphasized to everyone the need to "not be a hero" and to take a breath somewhere in the middle as long as everyone doesn't do it at the same time!
Our time was almost up and we reviewed all the numbers pretty successfully, and went back and did Aquarius, too. Fortunately, not too much had been lost since Wednesday!
I got home Saturday late afternoon pretty tired, but we had opera tickets and I am glad we went. Opera San Jose did a magnificent production of Madame Butterfly. I'm glad we got to see it.
Sunday was a work-at-home day for me (although I ended up in the office for a while because I had some things to pick up). I finally talked to Michael about our press release which will be going out this week and he gave me a few comments which I incorporated. We are working on plans to have Michael conduct some press interviews on our behalf and also to do several audience talkbacks during the production run.
Oh, and I think I may not have mentioned this yet, but we finalized our plans with Jonathon Johnson to come talk with the tribe in June and also do several audience talkbacks in July during the second week of the run! Jonathon is a terrific man who wrote the recent book Good Hair Days about his journeys through several productions of Hair. He played Claude on Broadway during the final months of the production including the last performance. We are very excited to have him work with us!
We are heading into Week 2 of rehearsals and our first dance rehearsals. Things are moving along well and I am very excited. See you next time!
Let The Sun Shine In!
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