Its been 7 days since I have written a blog entry and I feel GUILTY (I guess I should blame that on my mother!) I will be trying to write daily entries in order to chronicle our process, but this past week, post-auditions and pre-New York trip has been hectic, both at work and with respect to the show. No excuse, I know, but the best I can do. So, without further ado, let's get to it!
Callbacks
Callbacks have filled out nicely. We appear to have a Hud for the show (which had been a major gap until over the weekend). We are calling back approximately 30 people for lead roles and also to read for some of the smaller roles in the tribe (the fathers and mothers, the principals and some of the parts in the hallucination scene in Act 2). We know that many people really want to be in this show, and we will have tell some of them "No, thank you", which is always one of those difficult things a director has to do. However, we also want to have the strongest possible tribe and we have a good chance at that given the small size we have chosen. Fortunately, because of our extended run at the Historic Hoover Theater, we will be able to offer a few of the performers who are "on the bubble" opportunities for "swing" roles.
The swing actors in our production will be part of the tribe, but will only be given a small number (3-4) performances during the first 4 weeks at Theatre on San Pedro Square. This will permit some of the regular tribe members to rest during the double performance days. When we move to Hoover, all of the tribe members will perform in all of the performances, because the stage and house are bigger than San Pedro Square. So while we will only have 18-20 tribe members onstage at San Pedro Square, we will have 24-26 at Hoover, giving a few more performers an opportunity to participate in the show.
Not everyone who auditioned was willing to take a swing role. Admittedly, it is hard to put in a lot of rehearsal time (in our case, upwards of 150 hours) and then not get to even perform on opening night. On the other hand, with a run of over 30 performances, including at least 12 at Hoover, a swing performer in this production will appear on stage at least 15-16 times, which is still a longer run than many local productions offer an actor in a regular part. Plus there is some (albeit minimal) pay (and swing and regular tribe members will get the same pay). We will explain this to everyone at callbacks again, just in case anyone wants to change their mind.
I have been delinquent in posting callback scenes. Because of work commitments and getting ready for the trip, it has been pushed off and pushed off (okay, and I probably procrastinated a bit too ;-( ). Deciding which scenes to use for callbacks is always difficult, and absolutely harder in this show because there are fewer true "scenes" and I find myself wanting to include more and more pages of dialogue when I really should be reducing it. Hopefully I will get this finished this morning after writing this post and have it done once and for all (I know all the actors are waiting patiently, or not, for those scenes to appear on the website! - I'm really sorry, guys and gals!)
Ticket Sales
Well, we aren't sold out yet ;-) But we have already sold 27 tickets totally based on our ad in the Nixon's Nixon program at San Jose Rep (and possibly on some early word of mouth). Given that we haven't even finished casting the show, and that we have no subscriber base at all, I am very pleased. There are two more weekends of Nixon's Nixon, and also a smaller ad is supposed to appear in the San Jose Stage Company program for The White House Murder Case by Jules Feiffer, one of the funniest political satires ever written for the stage. Unfortunately, we won't even be able to get to see that show until closing weekend because of callbacks and our New York trip.
The Trip!
I am writing this at 3 AM (well 4:13 AM now ;-) because I can't sleep. We changed our flight to New York from the ungodly hour of 6:40 AM to 9:55 AM (which delays our arrival in Philadelphia from 5:30 to 8:00 PM, but it also mercifully spares us rush hour getting out of the airport.) Barb said I must have decided on the 6:40 AM flight because I was so excited about the trip that I wanted to make sure we got in as early as possible! I'd say I'm guilty as charged.
Now that we are on a more reasonable flight (after struggling with Southwest Airlines and their computers at midnight to change it!), I'm up early enough to have made the flight anyway (but Barb is sleeping blissfully, so it is for the best).
I've spent a lot of time in the Big Apple (including the 3 years I lived there, or near there, from 1969-71, when I saw the original production of HAiR at the Biltmore Theatre, along with countless trips for business and pleasure), but this is Barb's first time! So we are making this a "grand tour". The original plan was for a purely vacation trip, just before rehearsals got underway for HAiR. However, fate stepped in and has made this trip ever-so-much more!
When I started researching HAiR, I hooked into the blog that is sponsored by Michael Butler, the original producer of HAiR in New York. After bringing this wonderful show to the world between 1967 and 1972 in New York, Los Angeles, London, and countless other cities around the globe, plus many other productions over the past 40 years, Michael continues to be one of the strongest and passionate advocates for this show and how it can and has changed the world. I enjoyed going back into the archives and reading his posts and exchanges with various tribe members and observers about the show, its meaning and purpose. (Please check out the blog at www.michaelbutler.com - Michael posts not only about HAiR, but also about world events in general and his observations are insightful to be sure.)
Through the blog, I also was introduced to Nina Dayton, who handles managing Michael's blog and the Hair Archives site, which consists of on-line articles, reviews, photographs and many other resources about the show and its off-spring. Nina is a marvelous lady from what I can gather, who became involved in HAiR during the original run at the Biltmore because she worked (as a teenager!) in the concession booth! I say "from what I can gather" because up till now, Nina and I have spoken just twice and exchanged a handful of emails. However, that is all going to change this weekend!
After meeting Michael in Los Angeles when I went to see the Fullerton College production of HAiR, he invited Barb and I to join a group of HAiR "alumni" for a dinner get-together this weekend. We were and are honored and humbled by the hospitality these tribe members of the original show have shown us and we are obviously looking forward to it. We don't know everyone who will specifically be there (except, so far for Michael, Nina and Natalie Mosco of the original New York tribe), but it should be a very exciting evening for us.
After that, we will spend a few days in Washington (visiting the Vietnam Wall is, of course, a priority, to get a "feel" for the ominous level of death and destruction that the Vietnam War brought upon us all), and then we head back to Massachusetts to visit Nina's home where she curates the "physical" Hair Archives, a huge collection of information, memorabilia and resources about the last 40 years of Hair productions everywhere! This is definitely going to be one special trip for both of us.
Of course, we will take in several shows in New York. The one we have been most encouraged to see is Spring Awakening, although I have to say that after hearing the album, I am not sure how I will react to it (sometimes it is better to see a show before hearing the album). It seems a bit like "Rent Redux" and without any signature songs (although admittedly I haven't had time to let the music grow on me yet and maybe it will). I compare this to my first reaction to the album Steel Pier by Kander and Ebb, which blew me away (although to be fair, Steel Pier may very well be one of those shows that is better HEARD first than seen, and good thing that is, because almost NOBODY does it ;-)
We also want to see Avenue Q (doesn't everybody), and possibly one of the new Sondheim revivals (Sweeney Todd or Company) with the actors playing instruments (everyone says it works, we will withhold our judgement). Of course it all depends on ticket availability.
That's going to wrap it up for this installment, but I hope to post a few notes during the trip (thank god for free hotel wireless Internet!) And then, the day after we get back, CALLBACKS!
Keep on truckin'...
Jon
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