It was the second day of rehearsal, this time with Kersten Rodau (we call her Keri). She's in great voice, as always, and still has the dramatic notes and comments we had discussed in our Rough Cuts reading three years ago. Keri was in our production of JOHN AND JEN last year at the Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview, and it looks like she (and the audience) will be as moved by ORDINARY DAYS as she was by that piece. We talked about the need for our audience to see the happy times between Claire and Jason, so when their relationship is endangered, we really care about the outcome. Similar to my conversation with Doug, we talked about finding moments of lightness and connection -- both of which she is certainly able to convey.Doug joined us in the afternoon for duets with Keri -- the two are great together, of course. We had a great conversation about 9/11 (Doug was in NYC when it happened) and how people handle tragedy; a point rather germane to Claire's commitment issues. After Keri left, we started staging, with Doug working on his solos. It was wonderful to be working in the space, on our feet, and digging into the material -- moving fluidly between content discussion, musical notes, and staging explorations. We got through two numbers, sketched out enough so Doug can work on his own. It's so nice to work with a thoughtful colleague not afraid to stop and ask questions, not just of me and Mindy, but of himself. The whole cast has a bit of that; it's going to be wonderful to get all four of them in the room at the same time!
During rehearsal, we received the news that we have exceeded our goal in our Indiegofgo campaign -- over $3,000 raised! And tickets just went on sale, and are starting to sell -- it's very gratifying to know that somebody's paying attention :)
