Opening night tonight. I ran off thirty five copies of the programme. At about seven ten, the kids were all begging me to tell them what time it was and how many people were in the audience. I told them they still had twenty minutes to sit quietly and as far away from the curtains as possible, and that there were six people in the audience.
"Well, how many were we expecting?" "About six." How wrong I was. We ran out of programmes, and that considers the fact that anyone under the age of about twelve wasn't handed one. So, that's good. I hope we do at least that well tomorrow, but I think most of the parents came tonight, so I don't know whether they'll just come both nights, or if we'll have a different audience.
The girl who has been sick all week and the girl who hasn't been to more than two rehearsals in the last week and a half both learned enough of their lines that I only had to whisper to one of them once, and the other (Beautiful Iranian Girl- who, incidently, was- her costume was all out of her own wardrobe) was slightly mortified because Little Miss Additude messed up one of her lines and then stood there like it wasn't her fault.
LMA is the only one I can't stand, and the only one I won't miss when it's over. All the parents agree that she was appropriately cast as the villian, which is nice. Actually, they are impressed beyond belief, which is fantastic, considering what we've been working with. When I post the picture of the dragon, you'll all see what I mean.
I need to stop calling Extremely Shy Girl that, because she is, but she isn't. She came out before the show and told me that I was a great director, "because no one had told me that yet and she thought I needed to know it." Pretty awesome coming from an eleven year old. I am incredibly proud of her, because in the short amount of time she's had to work on it, she's the strongest one in the show. I never would've guessed it was possible.
The boy playing the prince decided to try some acting at the last minute, which was wonderful to watch. I always knew he was capable of it, but couldn't actually get him to do it. The only problem was that the only people who got the benefit of it were the first two rows, because he decided to lose all his volume.
Actually, most of them did. Talk loud? In front of an audience? No way! Before the show, I was unwilling even to mic them based on the fact that during the last week of rehearsals they could all be understood clearly from the back of the house, but they all got nervous and got quieter, except one, who got louder, which means that the woman in the booth couldn't find a level.
The parents that talked to me all seemed to like it. Rabbit-Teeth-Boy's grandfather said it was the best musical he'd ever been to. (I said beforehand it had started out a musical, and this is what it turned into.)
There were even only three or four screw ups, which, compared to what we had yesterday is something of a miracle. Like I told them before the show, if something goes wrong tonight, you have tomorrow to fix it, and if it goes wrong tomorrow too, well, no one really cares.
The one slight problem with that is that tomorrow is the day it's being taped, so if they do mess up, it'll be made permenant for all time, but as I told them, when they bring their first love intrest to meet their parents, and their parents drag out the baby pictures and the DVD's of school plays, concerts, sports events, etc., it'll just make said love intrest think you're that much cuter.
They hated me for that, of course.