Notes from Saturday

Overall, I am very pleased with your progress and your diligence. Please don't let up!!! Review your lines, your choreography and your blocking, so you can be in character and not have to be "thinking" on stage.

PLEASE, THERE CAN BE NO MORE MISSED REHEARSALS. THIS HAS TO BE A PRIORITY.

Monday, please come at 6:30 to get microphones on and warm up vocally. We are going to start running the show with the party scene at the end of Act I and run through the end of Act II. We will begin at 7:15 pm SHARP with costumes. Rehearsal will go until 10:00 pm.

Tuesday, Arrive at 6:30 for microphones and warmups. We will pick up at the top of Act I, at 7:15 pm SHARP with costumes. Rehearsal will go late on Tuesday.

Wednesday, We will RUN the SHOW with the blue cast - no stops unless there is a total train wreck. Stay in character, run it like a show, with no one in the audience other than the green cast von Trapps, who will sit with me. Do not direct each other on stage, or stop and think, or stop to ask me a question from the stage. Call time is 6:30. We will do mic checks and run a couple songs and get started at the top of act I at 7:15. We will run until finished.

Thursday, NO REHEARSAL - Spend the day in a spirit of thankfulness.

Friday, OPENING NIGHT - call is 6:00. We will do warm-ups and run a couple numbers before the show. We have a cast circle at 7:15 just before we open the house. Circle is for everyone, and is designed to be an encouragement, help settle nerves, and help energize the cast. It concludes in a brief prayer. The house opens at 7:30, and at 7:45 we offer a voluntary prayer circle backstage for those who want to participate. Curtain is at 8:00

Saturday at 10:00 am, rehearsal for Green cast. Called: anyone who is ever on stage at the same time as the children.

Saturday evening: OPENING NIGHT for Green cast. Call is at 6:00 pm. If you live a long way away and need a place to hang between rehearsal and the show, please let me know.

Sunday afternoon: CALL: 1:30. SHOW: 3:00



NOTES from Saturday's rehearsal:
At top of show, grand opens on third solo.

SET: need a black curtain in the house right doorway.
Nuns/novices/postulants will carry votive candles and put on table center stage where stairs meet UL platform.

Nuns will need a very natural unmadeup look. Mascara is ok, but no heavy liner, and no dark lipstick.

Closer formation for morning hymn; spread out for Alleluia. Need a much more worshipful and praiseful expression. You may not understand Latin, but these nuns did! Much more jubilant on the Alleluia.

Nuns/novices/postulants: Exit through the closest exit as you all spread out to look for Maria!

Mother Abess: Sister Margaretta, not Sister Margarette.

Need to work timing on Maria at the end of the song.

Mother Abbess: You’re right. It IS that kind of song!

Scene 4:
SET: Shorter dressing room screen,

Maria come out when in dress. You can put your coat on after you’re visible.
I have confidence: There were at least two times when putting guitar and bag down and picking them up again didn’t make sense. You could pick them up move somewhere and put them down, then pick them up, cross the stage and put them down again. But up and down in the same place looks funny.

Scene 5:
SOUND: Need a phone ring at end of the scene change cue to give motivation for Frau Schmidt to leave the room (pg 20)
Another item on the table for Franz (he could sort through the mail, take one addressed to him)

Franz: Entrances and holds need to be more authoritative. Please take one more step onto the stage so you’re not hidden at al.

Green cast kids w/ blue cast Kurt: WOW! EXCELLENT job coming down the stairs at the top of the show!

Blue cast kids w/ green cast Kurt: I’m afraid you let the other cast beat you on this one. The marching was way off for several of you, coming to the stairs, coming down the stairs and marching to the line. Kurt – need to really work on this one.

Green cast Kurt: you don’t know your name? Each child steps forward and says his/her name. You stepped forward and forgot what to say.

Kurt: Make sure you step in quickly to say, “No Louisia, don’t. I like her”
Marta and Louisa, remember to giggle at the thought of Friedrich being a man.

Kids: In do-re-mi, Maria points on fa, the kids all point on long.

Scene 6:
Liesl cross all the way to stage left so he has to follow you to DL
Need Rolf’s hat for this scene.

Rolf and Liesl, work on spin to knee

Scene 7:
Frau Schmidt: Don’t cross on “want to see their father”

Frau Schmidt: Sitting on the bed looks unnatural, because you’re standing up again right away. Stand up just a little later than you did, like a sentence later. Stand up on “It will work out”

Frau Schmidt: You will not be bringing on the bed. This makes more sense for your entrance, and asking permission to enter.

SET: Need to cinch strap the mattresses to the bed frame and construct a headboard that’s not too heavy

Kurt and Friedrich, don’t just sit on the end of the bed. Come stand or kneel on the floor on both sides of the bed.

Scene 9:
Cast: Max’s last name is Pronounced Detvieler (with a V)- I should have caught this earlier - sorry

Captain: Enter left of Elsa, not between them, How can love survive

Elsa, wig is pretty, but we need to get it to have much less sheen

Marilyn – you really need to project.

Max, look is good. With the mustache, we won’t need any age makeup other than some laugh lines around the eyes.

Captain: We’ll take a look at some makeup on Monday.

Elsa needs jewelry

Captain and Elsa: in the close dancing, predetermine which feet will move when so you glide together.

Maria, a bit more of a takeaway when you say “even when you don’t want her to”

Captain: nice inflection on the word “uniforms” when telling the kids to change

Captain: keep what you did with the whistle, holding it until you decided to put it away.

Party:
SOUND: We need a stage monitor for upstage

COSTUMES: At the party, Liesl looked like she was in the dress for the wedding.

Captain: Cut off Herr Z and Baron with “much more pleasant”

Frau Schmidt: Remember to stand up straight when delivering line from top of the stairs. You don’t have to bend down and look at him. Just stand up and in a military fashion make your announcement

Franz and Ursula need to be more visible during party, circulating with glasses, but also with food. Even some easy little canapé sandwiches.

Frau Schmidt: Need to get Gretl and Marta off stage before the end of the Lendler.
Kurt, break the awkward silence after Maria goes upstairs by saying “I hope you’re feeling better” to Frau Schraeder. Do this in a way that sounds like you’re trying to change the subject.

Brigitta, you have to go off upstage left after telling father that Max is here. That way you can return and tell Frau Schraeder that they’re talking about her.

Brigitta – a little more natural in your conversation with telling Maria about what you’ve noticed with her and Captain, being in love and all. With both Brigitta’s, it’s starting to look a little forced and over-acted.

Brigitta – I love the exchange of looks with you and Maria after Captain talks about her dress– the “I told you so” smirk was great!

Liesl – Lauren missed an entrance. I wondered if the line cueing her was dropped…

Max – not sure about the cape. You look like Harry Potter.

Gretl – CJ, you need to bend over more on the cuckoo lines.

All Kids – need more energy in your so long farewell movements, and more crispness in the counts and assembly line.

Maria – You’re doing a fabulous job with your scene leaving the von Trapps.

Act II, Scene 1:
Novices use hymnals during the choir scene. Group a little more stage right so you can be in the light.

Act II, Scene 2:
Everyone, start playing as soon as curtain even starts opening. It should look like the curtain is opening on a scene that’s already going on. DON’T just stand there waiting for Max to start singing.

Green cast went the wrong way to go find father. You need to go upstage and then left.

“Somersault” looked great.

Max: in the choreography where captain has hand on your shoulder, and Elsa has hand on his, and you are in front, don’t hold your hand up like a “heil”
Captain, look a little startled at Elsa’s line “I’m going to miss them.”

WEDDING:
one of the postulants crossing the stage will have a basket with all the kids’ bouquets

Nuns exit after putting on the Mother Abess cape. Platform turns when Maria is set on platform.

WE ARE GOING TO TRY THIS: Sophia needs to be the first one to exit the bride’s room, and she needs to be able to get up the stairs. Maria would exit the room next, and then the other nuns. Nuns will precede the wedding party, and let the wedding party pass in front of them. If this takes too long, I’ll have to work out something else.

Kids, come down the stairs in this order: Gretl in front, then Marta and Brigitta, Kurt and Louisa, Friedrich and Liesl. Step down the exact same way you did in the opening scene, but not in a march.

FESTIVAL:
Max will bring on the microphone from SR to center and cross left
Two Nazi’s on the balcony will move draperies, position Nazi flag and position themselves in doorways

Captain, add “Please join me in a love song” and then let the audience’s singing help move you to tears.

Max, strike the microphone after the scene.

We need to have a nun strike the nazi flag in the transition and exit again stage left.

CHURCH PRAYER GARDEN/GRAVE YARD
We have one cross-shaped monument that goes just down right of the arch. One tombstone goes on the platform up left, and one in the corner where the family hides. Hoping to attach a metal gate to the archway that would open to be behind the cross monument.

One actor will need to operate the fog machine.