A Picture of Glee

We had a really wonderful run last night -- funny, high-energy, and terrific pacing. The cast and band have pretty much mastered this show. There are still little things to polish and tweak, but I took fewer notes last night than I've ever taken before during Hell Week. It's just that solid.

One more run-through tonight, then Thursday we put it in front of a preview audience, find out where unexpected laughs may be, get a sense of where to hold for applause, all that stuff.

Todd's psychedelic set is so cool, such a great playground for the actors to play on. The costumes are a hoot, the lighting is really cool (lots of gobos, my favorite!), and the band is truly rocking the score. Everything has really come together.

I think some of the actors were feeling a bit weird after Monday's run-through. Because there are so many elements in this show -- some of them pretty complicated -- Monday night's run was less about the art and more about figuring out all the practical stuff. They were working with live mics for the first time, dealing with costume changes (including one onstage), hearing entirely new sounds and cues coming from the full band, so much suddenly thrown at them all at once, after weeks of relative comfort thinking about nothing other than the acting and singing. But I knew that for a show like this, that less artful Monday night run was an important step. They had to deal with all that practical stuff so that last night they could "run free" inside their characters.

And that's exactly what they did. Any hesitation or confusion from Monday was totally gone last night. All the emotion, humor, wackiness, etc., all came roaring back last night. Just like I knew it would.

We'll do a little more tweaking tonight -- and Jill will be there to take production photos -- and then we send it out into the world...

This is my favorite part of the process. After tonight, I get to sit back and watch our awesome, crazy show grow deeper and richer over the next four weeks.

I love my job.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott