in comes "company!"

Usually, the week a show opens is filled with stress, sleep-deprivation, scratchy voices and general grouchiness. Our director for Wait Until Dark went through five bottles of Maalox during tech week. I still have nightmares about the cue-to-cue of Bye Bye Birdie, when I was stood terrified atop of a 4x4 fourteen-foot-tall platform for an hour as the lighting designer bickered with the conducter. More often than not, much of the cast is on "vocal rest," wherein we don't speak all day (including with colleagues, friends and significant others) we we can save our voices for the show. I can just imagine the look on my boss' face if I replied to his questions about trip preparations by handing him an index card reading "For the next three days I will not be speaking, as to rest my vocal chords for a theatrical production." Riiiiight.

Company has been remarkably free of these usual travails. We've been running the whole show for two weeks now, and so far tech has just been... fun! I cannot overemphasize how rare that is for this stage in the game, but it's true. Everyone's got their shit together, knows their characters inside out and is having a great time with the material and one another. Spirits are high, we're out of rehearsal at humane hours and we've annoyed many a neighbor in the Dupont/Logan Circle area by laughing too loudly over post-run drinks. The only sad part is that we won't still be working together in a month.

Last night was my favorite night of the whole process: sitzprobe and bows. Sitzprobe, though it sounds like something a German alien does to unsuspecting earthlings, is the first time the cast sings through the show with the orchestra. After working with just a rehearsal piano for two months, it's fantastic to hear bass and drums and winds added in-- the show takes on a whole new life. A lot of the music is very 70s, and that really came out for the first time last night. And of course curtain calls are always fun to plan-- hello, we're getting applauded! That never gets old. So come see us and applaud us!

The Foundry Players Present

Company

A Musical by Stephen Sondheim

November 4-6, 10-13, & 17-20, 2005
Thursday thru Saturday evenings at 8:00 PM
Sunday afternoons at 2:30 PM

Adults: $18 Seniors/Students: $15
Reservations: (202) 332-3454, or,
www.foundryplayers.org

The Foundry Players
1500 16th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036