July
30, 2005
For
the past two nights, Lennon seems to have been a different show. This
is mainly because the original beginning and end were both discarded, which
changes the first and last impression, even though the middle is basically the
same. People seeing the show for the first time, of course, have no idea that
anything else was ever there, but what we tried on Friday still had some shortfalls.
A technical difficulty caused the show to open flat, which made it hard to engage
the audience all night, and a new ending we had rehearsed that day didn't work
all that well and will have to be revised. This is the whole idea behind previews,
to experiment in front of a live audience. And this is the reason we've bought
ourselves more time, to develop these new ideas to their fullest potential and
then work on perfecting them in the performance. I must point out that even
with Friday's show feeling awkward to us who were doing it, we still got excellent
feedback from audience members, and Don was eager to share them with us.
Some quick measures were put in place for the two shows today. A stripped-down version of New York City was performed on acoustic guitar with vocals by Will. That set up the show's new lively and upbeat beginning. Some material from the old ending was put back in, and it appears that we have something we can work with for the weekend. It'll no doubt evolve over the next few days.
Today's shows were especially unique in terms of the people who performed them. Several cast members called out for at least one of the two shows. As a result, all of the swings took the stage today, and Nicole Lewis made her Broadway debut. These folks didn't have the luxury of even a short rehearsal like I had, but they all went in and got the job done (and quite well, I might add). Everyone put in some extra time to help them all prepare. That was a lot of ground to cover. And of course there were flowers, champagne and other goodies for each swing making their first appearance.
After a couple of days like these, what could be next? Tomorrow never knows.