Mame Journals.............. Mame-(Sally Goggin), Beau -(Don Kuehlhorn)
11/29/04
Boy, how quickly they fall.....Yesterday I was celebrating our eleventh standing ovation with cast and crew...today I'm fighting a headcold with a nose the size and color of Rudolph's! I think my body finally decided I had time now to get digustingly sick...
But...the glow I still feel from the show isn't from a fever. What an incredible experience! As a group, our cast, crew and orchestra became more and more solid with each performance. And I think we found little nuances to add each night, not necessarily things an audience would pick up, but there's no question that each night was a little bit different show. The more comfortable we became the more fun we had. For example..Junior Babcock became just a little bit more of a letch....Gloria's personality and hair became a more irritating...Mrs. Burnside drew more and more laughs with her disgust for Mame...Gooch found all the places in her song that accented the sight gag of her pregnancy...Lindsey made even short phone call with the stockbroker hysterical...Beau found more and more delightfully funny ways to be in pain while still being attracted to Mame...Ito found he could dance and talk at the same time....Old Patrick developed a stronger relationship with Mame...Young Patrick grew stronger and stronger vocally, and more and more believable as a young boy.. I could go on, but these are just a few observations...
My thanks to the OTP family for welcoming me and making me feel at home. I can't wait to get involved again! The show has been a reminder to me that we all need to simply "Live each living day!"
So long ....for now!
Sally
11/17/04
It's Wednesday am...half the run of Mame is over, and tomorrow we start the second half. Boy has this little break been nice. I've slept a LOT...practically all day yesterday. Today I'm back to work, and ready to get myself back on the boards. I'm surprised that I'm still anxious to do the show again. I think it must be because I have basically no down time during the show. And I love the music...and I love the folks I'm with onstage and offstage...and I'd like a few more chances to get it exactly right! Thank you OTP and everyone involved in Mame for a wonderfully fulfilling experience!
11/11/04
Today we start the second weekend of "Mame"s run...Can't believe rehearsals went so FAST!!!!
I'm having a most unusual reaction to this production. I've always had a hard time with performances....I love the rehearsal process, and felt the goal was opening night. After opening I've had a hard time making myself get to the theatre and finish the run. In fact its usually the hardest part of the whole production for me. Today...I can hardly wait to get to the theatre and go through the whole process again. I spent time last night running lines, discovering new nuances, discovering what lines I've been forgetting or paraphrasing! Yikes! Four more chances this weekend to get it right.
I'm also feeling better....I knew Saturday night I was coming down with bronchitis...again! Very Scary! The doc gave me great meds the first of the week, so today I'm doing better than last week. Yeh! Now I can just go out and have fun!
October 22
Soooo much has happened! It's two weeks before we open, and it seems that it will never come together! (Typical of 2 weeks before opening!) The cast is finally complete! The character of Lindsey has been portrayed by three different fellows! ...now permanently by Phil Murphy, and our Vera, Nancy Sundstrom, is recooperating from a car accident, and has been replaced by Nan Worthington. That means the role Nan was playing was recast, etc., a little domino effect. The other night, during an Act II run-thru, I was onstage with 2 folks who were on book and had never done the scene, and one stand-in for a fellow missing from rehearsal. Admittedly, very frustrating. HOWEVER....those who are taking on the responsibility of major roles, at the last minute, are my heros! Huge thank you's to Phil, Nan, Barb, and Margaret Ann. You're doing a terrific job, and you're all so talented...and brave!
We have set pieces to move around now. Don's periactoids (say it out loud...sounds like some kind of dinosaur to me, so I just call them the dino's), are working wonderfully. They're 3-sided, and revolve to show a different scene on each side! My husband, Pat, constructed a moon that I sit on, and fall off of, during a scene. When I used it for the first time, even the cast thought I'd had an accident when I fell. Guess it's working well, too!
The next two weeks are my favorite time during the rehearsal process. Repeating scenes and dances to make them solid. I especially love it when movements and lines become second nature, and you don't have to think what to say next, it just happens. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Ain't theatre grand!
October 7
A week of choreography rehearsals completed! Slowly its all coming together! It's a month before we open and I must admit, all the typical "Are we ever going to be ready?" thoughts are racing through my mind!
On Sunday Vera (Nancy Sundstrom) and I learned a time step for "Bosum Buddies" ( I think we both feel a little rusty!), and on Monday started kicklines for "Mame." By Tuesday morning my thighs and calves were so sore it was REALLY hard to get out of bed! Don Kuehlhorn became our Beau on Monday. Thank you SOOO much!
October 3......
It's 1966, I'm watching the "Today" show, wrapped in a blanket, trying not to scratch while suffering through the chicken pox. Hugh Downs is interviewing (it's about the 10th day of the scabs and I'm REALLY bored) a man named Jerry Herman. He's talking about his big hit "Hello Dolly," that 's playing on Broadway, and about the new show that's opening that night "Mame." He tells the story, plays some of the songs on the piano and sings a little. I am enthralled!!! I decide then and there that I MUST be in that show "Mame" someday!
So.....here I am. I'm in that show! I'm even Mame! No one is more surprised than I am. As an unknown quantity in Traverse City and a "newby" to the OTP, I have not paid my dues in this theatre. And yet, wonder of wonders, the directors have given me this terrific opportunity to meet my hearts desire! And I am having the time of my life.
So far, we've finished two weeks of music rehearsals, a week of blocking rehearsals, and on Sunday will start choreography. Admittedly, I'm chomping at the bit to get moving! It's always better when lines are down, music is memorized, and we know exactly where we'll be when!. Then the real fun starts! Honing a character, believing what you've created, and making others believe it too!. To heck with performances, rehearsals are where the real excitement happens.
Sally Goggin
November 29
Done and Done! Another play moves off main stage and into history. At the post play party, always necessary after a play, we had tears and promises of keeping in touch. Well some of them did. Not me! I have been here before and know that i should see many of them at the next audition or production meeting. This one will be different for me though. I have been working on almost every play since "Rumors" which i directed and had to perform in after our actor had an accident. I am tired of the grind. I need a rest and i will get one! I am done, save for a few production meetings for my next directorial offer, "Carousel",in January. I will rest and not think about the playhouse. That is why it was so easy for me to not see the tears or the promises at the party. I won't be there! Well, at least after i stage manage the TCCT's "Aladdin" opening in two weeks. Then i am done and done! i hope.
November 16
Here it is, Tuesday of the third week of our run and i am getting bored. At ths time two weeks ago, i was making set pieces, finding people to bring their set pieces in., looking for the holes in the set that needed fixing, studying my lines, rehearsing.... and now... i wait for Thursday to come so i can sit in a corner until Act1 Scene 8 and become Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside for 20 some mintues. Life was so full and busy and , might i say, harried, now it is mundane. In one sense I was important. People would bother me with requests for set pieces or props or paint jobs or soft places to land or complain about my performance or song pitch. I was somebody and i could'a been a contender. If you had asked me two weeks ago, or even spoken to me, i would have ripped you head off., I was that busy and harried and so full of life and important. Now...? please talk to me. I have gone the way of all theater people when their role on stage is done. I am lonely.... and bored.
November 7
Sunday, a day of rest! We opened to a packed house Friday night. Saturday brought another packed house. We had satisifed audiences when the curtain rang down. Now it is a time of relaxation and rejuvenation. Having played in so many productions, i know that i can't let the rest become too consuming. All to soon, Thursday will be here and we will be on the boards once again. Hopefully, the rest of the cast realizes this and runs their lines daily. Though i preach to the choir for those actors who have more then one production under their costumes, i know the first timers, of which we have several, will need a reminder of this. Thursday is the wrong day to get that reminder. But today is Sunday and i will rest. maybe watch some football.
November 5,
I had these big dreams, see! I had a set design that would have stage pieces flowing on the stage and set changes made in 30 seconds. I had stage magic, if you will. Only problem was, it looked good in my brain and on paper. When it came to making physical items to accomplish my dream, i fell short. The dream still holds, it just needed more time, like i should have been on vacation all week to work and work and work. Most of it is there so i am happy.
In community theater, we exercise our right to dream. 9to5 i am a peon of industry and working to pay my mortgage. After 5 i am a slave to theater to pay my passion to the arts. I don't think i am alone in this. You must have some dream to work all day then spend all night away from family, friends and TV. The payoff, i guess, is the production of theater and seeing something from nothing happen. The applause from the audience ain't bad either!
We, technically, open tonight. However, we had dress rehearsal last night with the reviewer in the audience. Maybe not fair to us, dress rehearsal is still a rehearsal, but the reviewer was there and we take what we get. We gave a lot. The audience responded favorably. I think, now that we know where the audience will laugh and cry, we will knock 'em dead! This is another dream that i know is big and this one we will accomplish.
November 2, 2004
Election Day! I voted this morning, never mind for whom, but i voted. Now i finish my tasks as Set designer. I have this Tuesday's work to do and i shoudl be done, save the incidental things. We are dark tonight which means i have the playhosue to myself to paint and say line sand cut mobile thingys and such. This is the part i really don't like. Give me a big plan and i am happy. Once it get s to the details and little stuff i get confused and bored. Of course, i realize the details make the show but that's not for me.
I was able to get referneces to most of our announces shows next year on this stage. We have Anatomy of a Murder, Bueaty and the Beast, Rocky Horror Picture show , and Musical Comedy Murders of 1940. They are referneced if you look hard enough. I may put 12 Angry Men as well, since it has been mentioned.
Now that most of the furniture moving has been taken on by the Stage Manager, i am free to become Beauregard. It goes well. We open this Friday! See ya.
October 21
Last night we ran act 1 for the first time straight through. We had some lights and some furniture moving and lots of energy. Finally, when one gets the play out of rehearsal and into running it, one sees the whole picture and it starts to make sense. When it makes sense then it becomes fun. The energy and focus of the cast rose immensely during this run. Now it is a play.
As set designer i had a contraption in mind to display a moon and have Mame fall from it as directed in the script. Mame's real-life husband built it from the flimsiest of design drawings ever produced. It worked perfectly. When Mame fell off the piece,the cast was horrified that she had hurt herself. I had several cast memebrs come to me and request a cushion or mat so Mame wouldn't hurt herself. Well.... i will have a mat at some time but when one knows one will fall, one makes it look like a fall but in accuality it is a controlled drop to the ground. As long as Mame knows she is to fall, she will and do it without so much as a scratch. When you see the show...worry not.
October 17.
We begin the run process this week. Today, Sunday, we run act 2. I have one line in it then i am done. Yet, I may stay just to begin the training process of moving the set pieces. Did i tell you the set design incorporates objects called periactoids?
Well, a periactoid is a three sided tower. In my case, a face is 3 feet wide by 8 feet tall. connect three of those togther at the edges and add rollers to the base so they float around the stage and you have a periactoid. The audience only sees one face at a time so the other faces can have new scenes. When the current scene ends the periactoid is rotated and a fresh face is presented to the audience. In my design, I have flats that i hang on the periactoids to increase the amount of scenes available. These periactoids, also, move aorund the stage. This is the part i must teach the people who will move them. To make it look good the people should not be seen moving them nor changing the faces yet it should be choreographed to look like a dance. Stay tuned.
October 8.
Whewweee! What busy week this was! I have been attending class for the past 4 weeks Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have designed lights for the Studio theater piece Misery which opens tonight and i am learning my lines for the part i accepted. Of course set designing for Mame. I am in the process of looking for artist types to bring my design to life. It all came together this week and i lived through it.
Misery goes up so i am done there. My class is on break so i am done there. My lines are not sticking in my head but i have all the time in the world there. I have several people lined up for set painting and decoration so i am in the clear there...... for a little while. Happy to be busy but even happier to have the light at the end of the tunnel not be another train! Got on stage this week, feels good.
Oct 5, 2004
I am back in the saddle again! I had accepted the Set Design responsibilty for Mame some time ago. I have reviewed the script for the number of sets needed to present this play and have a wonderful, if i may say so myself, idea for the whole set. I plan to make some pieces that move all over the stage presenting a different face to the audience suggesting a different place during the play. I say I decided, but in truth, the directors offered the basic idea that matched our early set discussions. So if i do say so myself, WE had a great idea.
I started this day with my saddle story. I am set designer but, also, accepted a role in the playl. Now i work to find people to draw and paint my design and i work on lines. The lines are not much and the set is not much but added together.... we will see.