Beth (Sandy) tells me her mother has been reading my blog! Oh fuck! She's gonna think I'm a fuckin' neanderthal with all this fucking language! I'm totally fucked! (Just kidding, Beth's Mom!)
It made me think about when my mom came to see the musical I had written, Johnny Appleweed, which we produced in October. A musical with 52 fucks in it. Yes, I counted them. After mom saw the show I asked her how she handled the four-letter words (my mother is so clean-mouthed she says Heck's Bells!), and she told me that after the first ten minutes or so (8-10 fucks into the show), she stopped noticing the obscenities. Which of course was my whole point.
But that's not the point with Grease. The language in Grease is about authenticity, and a realignment of morality in America. The other night I saw this brilliant new documentary FUCK, and it made me think a lot about the language of Grease. Much of the language in the show is just colorful, period slang, and any valid depiction of this world has to talk the way these kids talked. But there's also one very important fuck at the end of the show...
Even more significant than Sandy's new sexualized rock and roll persona in the climactic "All Choked Up" is her line after the song: Danny asks her if she's still mad at him and she answers, "Nah, fuck it." That this is the first time we've heard Sandy talk like that is certainly important, but even more so is what her answer means. The phrase is not just obscene; it's also a universally recognized idiom with two related meanings. First, it says to the world that the speaker just doesn't care anymore. Sandy's not just cussing here; she's publicly rejecting all the values of her past life. She's moving from the 50s to the 60s. The other parallel meaning is that regardless of the consequences, the speaker is charging ahead. That's part of this moment as well.
But it goes even deeper than that. Fuck is the granddaddy of all cuss words, the word that draws a line in the moral sand. Especially in 1959 - but even still today - fuck is a word that separates the "nice" (i.e., conforming) people from the "bad" (i.e., less repressed) people. Sandy has picked sides by the end of our tale, and her journey has moved out of the personal and into the political, as she utters this infamous word that will stand at the epicenter of the counterculture of the 1960s, the word that Lenny Bruce will go to jail for. It's a great way to end this story, and it's also why a cleaned-up Grease is worse than no Grease at all.
Then again, what the fuck do I know?
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
Well, I Feel So Strange
As I watched our run-through tonight, I tried to see the show through the eyes of a stranger who just bought a ticket. What will people think of this enterprise of ours? I laughed so many times imagining the shocked faces that will dot the audience like a mixture of Where's Waldo and The Scream.
I think our audience members will fall into one of three categories...
Category One: Holy Fucking Shit, I Fucking Love This! These are the folks who have no emotional stake coming in. Either they know absolutely nothing about Grease or they know the movie but carry no expectations about what the stage show will be like. I think these people will really embrace our show, delight in our madness, and leave having had a total fucking blast.
Category Two: Why'd You Have to Dirty It Up Like That? These are the folks who know the movie and in some cases have seen those Grease tours, so ill-conceived they make Jekyll & Hyde seem like Sweeney Todd. Many in this category have seen Grease many times, performed by high schools, middle schools, church groups, summer camps, student-directed college groups, and The Muny. They live in blissful ignorance of the Dark Side of the Grease, believing the show to be nothing more than a cheery romp through Cupid's grove with some mischievous suburbanettes. They've never heard the whole lyric to "Greased Lightning," thinking that the dozen or so jump cuts the broadcast networks insert, leaving barely a single angry inch of the original song, is just some edgy new-fangled style of editing. They'll literally shit themselves in shock when Sandy punches Patty in the last scene and then says "Fuck it!" These decent folks won't hate the show, but will be disappointed in us for having a rusted moral compass. They won't care that we're just doing the show the way it was written. We haven't added a word.
Category Three: You killed Grease! These are the folks who are going to hate, hate, HATE our production. Most of this group knows the movie inside and out. They can reproduce the staging for "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're the One That I Want" with one saddle shoe tied behind their back. Nearly a quarter of them have actually bought a wading pool for their backyard, and a fun house. (That last statistic provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.) These are the people responsible for making the shallow stench of the movie forever stick to the stage show like poop on a shoe. They will hate that our show isn't the movie. But the truth is, we already know these folks -- we met them when we did The Rocky Horror Show. They hated that too.
I'm pretty confident that everyone will fall into one of these three categories. The fun will be in predicting who will fall where...
Stay tuned...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
I think our audience members will fall into one of three categories...
Category One: Holy Fucking Shit, I Fucking Love This! These are the folks who have no emotional stake coming in. Either they know absolutely nothing about Grease or they know the movie but carry no expectations about what the stage show will be like. I think these people will really embrace our show, delight in our madness, and leave having had a total fucking blast.
Category Two: Why'd You Have to Dirty It Up Like That? These are the folks who know the movie and in some cases have seen those Grease tours, so ill-conceived they make Jekyll & Hyde seem like Sweeney Todd. Many in this category have seen Grease many times, performed by high schools, middle schools, church groups, summer camps, student-directed college groups, and The Muny. They live in blissful ignorance of the Dark Side of the Grease, believing the show to be nothing more than a cheery romp through Cupid's grove with some mischievous suburbanettes. They've never heard the whole lyric to "Greased Lightning," thinking that the dozen or so jump cuts the broadcast networks insert, leaving barely a single angry inch of the original song, is just some edgy new-fangled style of editing. They'll literally shit themselves in shock when Sandy punches Patty in the last scene and then says "Fuck it!" These decent folks won't hate the show, but will be disappointed in us for having a rusted moral compass. They won't care that we're just doing the show the way it was written. We haven't added a word.
Category Three: You killed Grease! These are the folks who are going to hate, hate, HATE our production. Most of this group knows the movie inside and out. They can reproduce the staging for "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and "You're the One That I Want" with one saddle shoe tied behind their back. Nearly a quarter of them have actually bought a wading pool for their backyard, and a fun house. (That last statistic provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.) These are the people responsible for making the shallow stench of the movie forever stick to the stage show like poop on a shoe. They will hate that our show isn't the movie. But the truth is, we already know these folks -- we met them when we did The Rocky Horror Show. They hated that too.
I'm pretty confident that everyone will fall into one of these three categories. The fun will be in predicting who will fall where...
Stay tuned...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
We Go Together
When we start work on a new show, if I have in mind some radical approach to it (and again, I mean the real definition of radical, meaning returning to the root or origin), usually I have to "sell" the cast on my ideas. I have to really convince them that my road is worth following. But once in a while, we assemble a cast so confident and so trusting and so adventurous, that I don't have to sell anything. Whatever I propose, they try it.
It happened with Jesus Christ Superstar (which we produced in June 2006) and with Grease. In both cases, I explained my plan at the first rehearsal and it was accepted without hesitation. With Superstar, I wanted to take out the religion that is usually imposed on the show (as the creators intended); it's a show about political activism, not religion. And I also planned to set the show in 2006, allowing modern clothing to help define who the major characters were politically, socially, and economically. This changed the show a great deal, and Superstar is one of those shows people feel very protective of. But the cast never questioned the path I set us on. And because they committed to my ideas so unanimously, the show was amazing.
The same has been true of Grease. Though our plan is to produce the show as much as possible like the original, that's a major departure from the way everybody else produces Grease. That ours will be so different from other productions and from the film will certainly bother some people. But again, this cast embraced my ideas fully from Day One. My great thanks to all of them.
And another thing...
Most actors will tell you that in most shows the cast gets to be very much like a family, often a really strange, fucked-up family, but a family nonetheless. I'd say it's true about 80% of the time. But sometimes it's more true than others. We're very lucky that it's been more true for quite a few of our shows -- Hair, Bat Boy, Superstar, and now Grease. Our process is unusual in many ways, more leisurely than most, more communal, more experimental, more open. More fun. It may sound a tad pretentious, but we are conscious that we are making art, not just opening a show. We love the process. We marvel at it. We are humbled by it. And more than anything, we respect the work. We know how important art is to the soul and to society. We know the enormity of the responsibility on our shoulders because we are the ones lucky enough to make art, to record our civilization, to make order out of chaos.
We are very lucky indeed.
Long Live the Musical.
Scott
It happened with Jesus Christ Superstar (which we produced in June 2006) and with Grease. In both cases, I explained my plan at the first rehearsal and it was accepted without hesitation. With Superstar, I wanted to take out the religion that is usually imposed on the show (as the creators intended); it's a show about political activism, not religion. And I also planned to set the show in 2006, allowing modern clothing to help define who the major characters were politically, socially, and economically. This changed the show a great deal, and Superstar is one of those shows people feel very protective of. But the cast never questioned the path I set us on. And because they committed to my ideas so unanimously, the show was amazing.
The same has been true of Grease. Though our plan is to produce the show as much as possible like the original, that's a major departure from the way everybody else produces Grease. That ours will be so different from other productions and from the film will certainly bother some people. But again, this cast embraced my ideas fully from Day One. My great thanks to all of them.
And another thing...
Most actors will tell you that in most shows the cast gets to be very much like a family, often a really strange, fucked-up family, but a family nonetheless. I'd say it's true about 80% of the time. But sometimes it's more true than others. We're very lucky that it's been more true for quite a few of our shows -- Hair, Bat Boy, Superstar, and now Grease. Our process is unusual in many ways, more leisurely than most, more communal, more experimental, more open. More fun. It may sound a tad pretentious, but we are conscious that we are making art, not just opening a show. We love the process. We marvel at it. We are humbled by it. And more than anything, we respect the work. We know how important art is to the soul and to society. We know the enormity of the responsibility on our shoulders because we are the ones lucky enough to make art, to record our civilization, to make order out of chaos.
We are very lucky indeed.
Long Live the Musical.
Scott
My Brain is Reeling and My Eyesight's Blurred
And still... and still... one thing keeps gnawing at me. It's nothing that'll keep the show from being kickass and taking names... I doubt anyone will even know about this problem of mine (except now it's on the web, ya moron!). The problem is this: I still haven't found a consistent approach for moving in and out of songs in the show. It's maddening because I feel so completely in tune with this show, so totally on the right road, in every other respect, and yet this one thing still puzzles me. This show doesn't work like other musicals.
How do we reconcile the very naturalistic style the creators of Grease clearly wanted with the wholly un-naturalistic practice of breaking into song? And I've made it even harder for us by deciding we will use hand-held, corded microphones, just like the original production did. But what are the rules? Are the actors moving out of the action when they sing? Is it fantasy? Is it commentary, Greek chorus style? Is it its own style entirely with its own rules? I'd bet my fuel-injection cutoff that there is one unified approach that makes it all work.
I know what you're thinking -- for God's sake, ya meatball, it's just Grease! Don't over-analyze it!
I know that's what you're thinking! Don't deny it -- I can hear your thoughts. You didn't know I could do that, did you?
I'll answer you this way: I've learned over the years (I've been directing musicals since 1981) that when something in a show doesn't make sense, when it seems inconsistent or sloppy, when you're thinking, "Boy, they sure did write this scene badly..." When you get to that moment, the odds are a thousand to one that the fault lies with you, not the material. Why do so many directors putting on community theatre -- and professional -- musicals think they're somehow better storytellers than the folks who've written classic hit Broadway shows, that they know how to fix the "problems" that the pros couldn't solve? Sondheim and Hal Prince couldn't make it work, but the also-ran Brainiac who works the graveyard shift at 7-11 has all the answers? Really? I've seen so many productions in which the director has cut songs, added songs from movie versions, even written new scenes of their own!! What are they thinking?
Sure, I have felt occasional frustration, moments I just didn't get, in shows like Hair, Jacques Brel (a lot in that show!), Songs for a New World, A New Brain, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Camelot, Pippin, just sure that the writer(s) had failed. And in every case, I thought and thought about it, and eventually figured out what I was missing. The truth was that the material was incredibly well crafted in every show, and I just hadn't yet understood what the authors were trying to do.
So my current dilemma... I've come to respect Grease as a piece of theatre so much more since we've been working on it. I think this time, just like all those other times, the show itself is as tight as Kenickie's ass, and I just have to work a little harder, and keep at it, and one of these days, that little cartoon light bulb will go off over my head, and it will all make sense... and it'll scare the living shit outta my cat!
We've got plenty of time. But it does bug me.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
How do we reconcile the very naturalistic style the creators of Grease clearly wanted with the wholly un-naturalistic practice of breaking into song? And I've made it even harder for us by deciding we will use hand-held, corded microphones, just like the original production did. But what are the rules? Are the actors moving out of the action when they sing? Is it fantasy? Is it commentary, Greek chorus style? Is it its own style entirely with its own rules? I'd bet my fuel-injection cutoff that there is one unified approach that makes it all work.
I know what you're thinking -- for God's sake, ya meatball, it's just Grease! Don't over-analyze it!
I know that's what you're thinking! Don't deny it -- I can hear your thoughts. You didn't know I could do that, did you?
I'll answer you this way: I've learned over the years (I've been directing musicals since 1981) that when something in a show doesn't make sense, when it seems inconsistent or sloppy, when you're thinking, "Boy, they sure did write this scene badly..." When you get to that moment, the odds are a thousand to one that the fault lies with you, not the material. Why do so many directors putting on community theatre -- and professional -- musicals think they're somehow better storytellers than the folks who've written classic hit Broadway shows, that they know how to fix the "problems" that the pros couldn't solve? Sondheim and Hal Prince couldn't make it work, but the also-ran Brainiac who works the graveyard shift at 7-11 has all the answers? Really? I've seen so many productions in which the director has cut songs, added songs from movie versions, even written new scenes of their own!! What are they thinking?
Sure, I have felt occasional frustration, moments I just didn't get, in shows like Hair, Jacques Brel (a lot in that show!), Songs for a New World, A New Brain, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Camelot, Pippin, just sure that the writer(s) had failed. And in every case, I thought and thought about it, and eventually figured out what I was missing. The truth was that the material was incredibly well crafted in every show, and I just hadn't yet understood what the authors were trying to do.
So my current dilemma... I've come to respect Grease as a piece of theatre so much more since we've been working on it. I think this time, just like all those other times, the show itself is as tight as Kenickie's ass, and I just have to work a little harder, and keep at it, and one of these days, that little cartoon light bulb will go off over my head, and it will all make sense... and it'll scare the living shit outta my cat!
We've got plenty of time. But it does bug me.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
She's the girl that all the kids "know"...
Well, Grease is staged. I laid out the road in front of us and we're far enough down it now that turning back would just be silly, after the miles we've traveled together, and besides, my feet hurt a little.
I think I sense some metaphor trouble...
We're finally to that point where the big choices are all made and now we find out if they were good ones or if blocking a show at 3:00 a.m. when you're stoned out of your mind is not as smart as it seems when it's 3:00 a.m. and you're stoned out of your mind. I'll just say this and no more -- only block with quality herb, never with ditch weed. That shit'll have your actors doing jazz squares and kick lines and mugging like Bill Shatner on a Priceline commercial. Never ask the audience for a laugh!
I feel kinda like when we did Hair the first time. No, I take that back, I was abso-fuckin'-lutely clueless when I blocked that one. (Though I totally figured it out later. Don't tell anyone.) No, I guess it's more like when we did Jesus Christ Superstar. I spent a great deal of effort learning everything I could about the writers' original intentions, and then found contemporary equivalents to those original impulses. Of course, the end result of my efforts was shooting Jesus in the head at the end of the show every night, which not everyone appreciated. You had to see it in context! Shut up or you're next!
So this time, I've learned everything I could about the authors' original intentions for Grease, and I'm doing my best to work from those intentions and present this show the way it was meant to be. The only thing that makes me nervous is that Grease's surviving author is an active part of that demon reality series, so it makes me wonder if he just doesn't give a shit, which would make my extensive, painstaking research something of a joke, wouldn't it? Yes. Shut up, I didn't ask you! Okay, I did ask you, but it was a rhetorical question and I... shut up!
Then again, when Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey wrote Grease, they probably didn't set out to create an historical document; in a sense, they were writing an autobiography, basing the characters on people they knew, and basing events on their own experiences graduating high school in 1959. But I'm not creating autobiography since I graduated high school in 1982, listening to Kool and the Gang singing "Celebration" (Come on!), although I did music direct Grease my junior year, so that must mean something, right?
Though Jacobs and Casey may not have set out to write a piece of historical social commentary, that is what they ended up writing. And now in 2007, 48 years after those guys graduated, Grease is American history, just like Hair and Rocky Horror are.
"The reality is that what we do and what we are is expressed today through the central recording mechanism of our civilization, through our culture." -- John Ralston Saul, in his introduction to Connecting Flights.
In a time when parents are reacting to rap and other hip-hop forms exactly like 1950s parents reacted to rock and roll (panic, outrage, That Old Time Religion), and now that we know that the rock and roll "fad" has lasted more than 50 years, maybe Grease does have something of import to say, even more so than when it opened in 1971 when the Fifties didn't seem quite so long ago. Jacobs and Casey created a piece of historical drama (defined in the widest sense of the word) but may not have realized it initially because it was also autobiography.
In other words, just because Jacobs is whoring Grease out, doesn't mean Grease is a whore. (Though there are worse things it could do.) And just because I'm taking the show seriously as social satire doesn't mean I'm a geek. I'm not a geek! So stop calling me that! I'm not gonna warn you again!
I gotta stop smoking this ditch weed, man!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
I think I sense some metaphor trouble...
We're finally to that point where the big choices are all made and now we find out if they were good ones or if blocking a show at 3:00 a.m. when you're stoned out of your mind is not as smart as it seems when it's 3:00 a.m. and you're stoned out of your mind. I'll just say this and no more -- only block with quality herb, never with ditch weed. That shit'll have your actors doing jazz squares and kick lines and mugging like Bill Shatner on a Priceline commercial. Never ask the audience for a laugh!
I feel kinda like when we did Hair the first time. No, I take that back, I was abso-fuckin'-lutely clueless when I blocked that one. (Though I totally figured it out later. Don't tell anyone.) No, I guess it's more like when we did Jesus Christ Superstar. I spent a great deal of effort learning everything I could about the writers' original intentions, and then found contemporary equivalents to those original impulses. Of course, the end result of my efforts was shooting Jesus in the head at the end of the show every night, which not everyone appreciated. You had to see it in context! Shut up or you're next!
So this time, I've learned everything I could about the authors' original intentions for Grease, and I'm doing my best to work from those intentions and present this show the way it was meant to be. The only thing that makes me nervous is that Grease's surviving author is an active part of that demon reality series, so it makes me wonder if he just doesn't give a shit, which would make my extensive, painstaking research something of a joke, wouldn't it? Yes. Shut up, I didn't ask you! Okay, I did ask you, but it was a rhetorical question and I... shut up!
Then again, when Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey wrote Grease, they probably didn't set out to create an historical document; in a sense, they were writing an autobiography, basing the characters on people they knew, and basing events on their own experiences graduating high school in 1959. But I'm not creating autobiography since I graduated high school in 1982, listening to Kool and the Gang singing "Celebration" (Come on!), although I did music direct Grease my junior year, so that must mean something, right?
Though Jacobs and Casey may not have set out to write a piece of historical social commentary, that is what they ended up writing. And now in 2007, 48 years after those guys graduated, Grease is American history, just like Hair and Rocky Horror are.
"The reality is that what we do and what we are is expressed today through the central recording mechanism of our civilization, through our culture." -- John Ralston Saul, in his introduction to Connecting Flights.
In a time when parents are reacting to rap and other hip-hop forms exactly like 1950s parents reacted to rock and roll (panic, outrage, That Old Time Religion), and now that we know that the rock and roll "fad" has lasted more than 50 years, maybe Grease does have something of import to say, even more so than when it opened in 1971 when the Fifties didn't seem quite so long ago. Jacobs and Casey created a piece of historical drama (defined in the widest sense of the word) but may not have realized it initially because it was also autobiography.
In other words, just because Jacobs is whoring Grease out, doesn't mean Grease is a whore. (Though there are worse things it could do.) And just because I'm taking the show seriously as social satire doesn't mean I'm a geek. I'm not a geek! So stop calling me that! I'm not gonna warn you again!
I gotta stop smoking this ditch weed, man!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
Coasting Through the Heat Lap Trial
No Deep Thoughts on Grease today, just an update for those who are interested in Process. Everything has been staged except "All Choked Up," which will be choreographed Sunday. After that, there's nothing to do but run the show...
We have the luxury of TEN full run-throughs before we open! So much time to play, to find wonderful little truthful details, develop character and relationships, and get comfortable enough with the technical crap (harmonies, memorization, set, props, etc.) that it can all be set on autopilot, and the actors can really get deep down inside these characters and really live in 'em. We don't always have this many run-throughs, but for shows like this, with so much ensemble work, I always front-load the schedule, so we learn and stage the show relatively fast and then take our own sweet fuckin' time just playing... That's when the truthful stuff gets found...
Though I sometimes envy Stages, the Muny, and the Rep their bloated budgets, I sure would hate to put shows together as fast as they do. We have so much time to explore and to play. (As my buddy Nick says, "They call it a play for a reason.") All that time to play is what made Bat Boy and The Robber Bridegroom so much fun. Even on opening night, the cast wasn't focused on technical stuff -- that was all under control -- so they could live fully inside the world of the show. All those run-throughs turn a good ensemble into a great one, so in tune with each other, so aware of everybody's little moments, so much a team.
And I can already see that starting to happen. I can already see the backstories in the way these characters interact with each other. I can already start to believe that these kids have known each other since grade school. And we haven't even had a full run-through yet.
So many of our characters are so different from what everyone expects from Grease, and these actors of ours are so enthusiastic about coming at these kids fresh, approaching them almost as if none of us had ever seen Grease before. Sonny (in a fearless performance by Joe Garner) is a crazy and dangerous motherfucker, like no Sonny I've ever seen before. Roger (Jeff Wright) is the slyly subversive, cut-through-the-bullshit Truth-Teller and class clown (and he's also Doody's protector) -- and though this now seems obvious to us from the text, I've never seen Roger played that way before. Sandy (Beth Bishop) has backbone and some real balls (you can just tell she has brothers!). Jan (Katie Nestor) is Tough and a little damaged. Patty (Erin Marie Hogan) is a shrewd junior politician with an agenda, and not a giggly, airhead stereotype. Eugene (Chris Owens) is neither gay nor awkward (as he is in most productions) -- he's the only one who we know will have a "respectable" job when he's grown up: with Straight Shooters Unlimited, Research and Marketing. Miss Lynch (Cindy Duggan) is a serious ball-buster, a most formidable foe for Sonny and clearly capable of running a minimum security prison if she had to.
On another topic... we're getting to move onto the stage a week earlier than we thought (mega-thanks to our tech director Greg Hunsaker!), which is great because a fair amount of our show will happen out in the audience, so the more we get to work in the actual space, the more comfortable the actors will be with that stuff...
I can't wait to see what this show will be when it's ready for an audience... There's so much potential in this cast, so many possibilities...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
We have the luxury of TEN full run-throughs before we open! So much time to play, to find wonderful little truthful details, develop character and relationships, and get comfortable enough with the technical crap (harmonies, memorization, set, props, etc.) that it can all be set on autopilot, and the actors can really get deep down inside these characters and really live in 'em. We don't always have this many run-throughs, but for shows like this, with so much ensemble work, I always front-load the schedule, so we learn and stage the show relatively fast and then take our own sweet fuckin' time just playing... That's when the truthful stuff gets found...
Though I sometimes envy Stages, the Muny, and the Rep their bloated budgets, I sure would hate to put shows together as fast as they do. We have so much time to explore and to play. (As my buddy Nick says, "They call it a play for a reason.") All that time to play is what made Bat Boy and The Robber Bridegroom so much fun. Even on opening night, the cast wasn't focused on technical stuff -- that was all under control -- so they could live fully inside the world of the show. All those run-throughs turn a good ensemble into a great one, so in tune with each other, so aware of everybody's little moments, so much a team.
And I can already see that starting to happen. I can already see the backstories in the way these characters interact with each other. I can already start to believe that these kids have known each other since grade school. And we haven't even had a full run-through yet.
So many of our characters are so different from what everyone expects from Grease, and these actors of ours are so enthusiastic about coming at these kids fresh, approaching them almost as if none of us had ever seen Grease before. Sonny (in a fearless performance by Joe Garner) is a crazy and dangerous motherfucker, like no Sonny I've ever seen before. Roger (Jeff Wright) is the slyly subversive, cut-through-the-bullshit Truth-Teller and class clown (and he's also Doody's protector) -- and though this now seems obvious to us from the text, I've never seen Roger played that way before. Sandy (Beth Bishop) has backbone and some real balls (you can just tell she has brothers!). Jan (Katie Nestor) is Tough and a little damaged. Patty (Erin Marie Hogan) is a shrewd junior politician with an agenda, and not a giggly, airhead stereotype. Eugene (Chris Owens) is neither gay nor awkward (as he is in most productions) -- he's the only one who we know will have a "respectable" job when he's grown up: with Straight Shooters Unlimited, Research and Marketing. Miss Lynch (Cindy Duggan) is a serious ball-buster, a most formidable foe for Sonny and clearly capable of running a minimum security prison if she had to.
On another topic... we're getting to move onto the stage a week earlier than we thought (mega-thanks to our tech director Greg Hunsaker!), which is great because a fair amount of our show will happen out in the audience, so the more we get to work in the actual space, the more comfortable the actors will be with that stuff...
I can't wait to see what this show will be when it's ready for an audience... There's so much potential in this cast, so many possibilities...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
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