Today...oh today. It wasn't as much labor as the wrangling, the meetings, the dressing of mannequins, etc... It was a labor of trust. Got the set list together based on the notes last night. Text those who were not there last night about our new start time tonight. Making sure that those that needed to be reminded that there was a press interview tonight. Sending out the updated schedule along with the set list to everyone, etc... setting up the time for the sound guy to come in, talk to the higher ups about some of the issues we were having and got all of that squared away.
During the day, between my getting ready to go to the theater and such I was texting with Chris Love. Chris is one of the composers of the show who will unfortunately be unable to be at the show. I wanted him to know that he was missed and being thought of, it felt kind of like calling a grandmother who is surprised you remembered their birthday. It was both sad because of his being unable to be with us for this show (he played Harker in the production) but also kind of sweet that he had me send his love to the cast and crew and tell them how much he missed them. I understand why he's unable to be with us, but it does feel weird to hear his songs sung by someone else. Jed is kicking ass and taking names with it, but it's not the same since those songs were written for Chris. It's a bitter sweet thing, but I do miss him. Regardless of the fact that he is one of of the writers, and that he played Jonathan, he was also my chorale director. With the harmonies, he took the lead, he made them work and got everyone through it with out drama... It was a skill to be admired.
Between day work and rehearsal I had a moment of time which was perfect as I needed to go and teach my Burlesque Fundamentals Class over at The Atlanta School of Burlesque. Switching gears back and forth is making me kind of crazy, but bills don't care about my sanity, they just care if I pay them so I gotta work. Got back in time for the start of the press interview, the arrival of everyone and getting ready for go time.
Tonight was so much fun. It's the first night we had everyone. Well, kinda, Rick came late because of work and Jess was working at Java Lords so there was running back and forth, but ya know...it's the little victories of getting to do all of the songs in one rehearsal. So we went through the entire set list tonight. Discovered a lot of what we needed to work on and what was awesome, what worked as far as stories between songs and what was just getting out of control. It was a fun time with the music and touching on all those funny stories. Not just the funny stories the cast had, but the funny stories that we had on the crew side as well.
My mini-me, Edi, came to rehearsal tonight. She was a spot light op when we did the show back in 2012. She was a member of 7 Stages Youth Creates program and has grown into a wonderful actress in her own right. (You know this if you came and saw Krampus) However, she's been at 7 Stages since she was 12 for their production of Hair...she'll be 20 this year. During the run we had our own jokes with being stuck far from the action on head sets making sure everything looked amazing. We rated the "rapeyness" of the scenes. Mina feeding on Dracula always won during Mina's Bites, the brides on Harker second and the Lucy scenes 3rd. It sounds like a TERRIBLE thing to make a joke about, but you end up with a lot of gallows humor with the crew. You don't want to know about the snow... We also judged each night the "Dance Off" during Van Helsing Teaches to see who rocked it during the instrumental part. Jed, who played Arthur was almost undefeated, one night Chaz won as Dr. Seward. We also had alternate lyrics to many of the songs. Heidi and I became theater wives because of Oh, Johnathan. Edi and I had a decent amount of involuntary giggling tonight just thinking about all of this. We were also calling the cues under our breath, seriously, we still remember them all. I love that she's going to be there working with me on this concert version, it just makes it seem that much more like a home coming.
The show was two acts and therefore the CDs for sale are two disc sets. On the way home I listened to the first disc from the show. I am a huge Dracula nerd. I spent my high school years obsessed with Dracula and vampires be it in books, in movies, television shows, magazines, seriously anything I could get my hands on. I actually had one wall of my room covered in articles about vampires from the Weekly World News. However, Dracula has always been my kind of love story. Think about it. Mina and Harker, Lucy and her suitors, etc... all this love and all the obstacles. Real love is like that with all of the obstacles and you might get the story book ending. Much like the first half of the book; the first disc is a dark, raw, animalistic kind of twisted sexy and the second half/disc is more of a bitter sweet awe, love is awesome, good triumphs and we can leave all the dark twisted stuff behind.
I'm a little sad that more of my favorites from the first act aren't in the show. This His Blood is one that I was sad to see go. Really most of the first act is a much harder driving beat of evilly goodness with the second act having some much sappier songs that, though good, don't speak to me as much personally. I guess all those years of hanging out in goth clubs warped what I'm attracted to, evil is sexy. The hottest songs in the second act are about killing things so I guess I don't stray that far from point. Alone in Transylvania, however, is beautiful. There is something about that one and Mina's Hypnotism that just gives me goose bumps. They're like these amazing melodic kind of fairy tales, but not the Disney versions, the originals that were dark and haunting and actually meant something. Good doesn't always win, but it tries and sometimes being strong enough to try is enough.
PURCHASE DRACULA: THE ROCK OPERA TICKETS HERE
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