First Production Meeting - Music and Dance

Week 38? - 6 months to opening night

We had our first production meeting last night - Ian (MD), Georgina (Choreography), Pete (Production Manager) and Jane W (Dance Captain). The idea was for me to sit down and go through all the show numbers and talk through what I had planned as far as the staging of the numbers was concerned, giving Ian and Georgina the parameters in which they need to work in (sometimes the script dictates what has to happen during a number, and other times they have a completely open brief and can do 'whatever they want'). We went through the entire show/score which highlighted where the underscoring was, where the problem areas were etc.

I was pleased, because there won't be any nasty shocks for Ian/Georgina/Pete/Jane when it comes to the the staging of the musical numbers. Plus it gives them the starting point to do all their bits - I'm not interested in doing a show where I tell them exactly what to do as they'll get nothing out of it. It won't be personal to them.

We also talked over auditions, the extra scoring, how to pick up a upright piano that's been offered to us, where to get a specialist item that I can't mention here (non-sexual before you make anything up) - and the answer surprisingly was a retired vicar.

John Gayler has been building things as well. I told him not to just yet. But he hasn't listened. He's been emailling me to say he's found stuff that'd be useful in skips (I dread to think). He's currently building an old box camera. I've said fine as long as it's a certain size, isn't heavy and looks right....so I'll post a picture of it when I see it. I do get the feeling it's going to be oversized and heavy though.....(joking John, joking)

Next stop is a production meeting with John Gayler (set), Jon Hall (genius animator) and Jen (costumes) hopefully after auditions to discuss their particular fields of expertise.

I think I'm now only about a month behind schedule....

Neil