CollisionWorks

Hey mothers, hey others, Happy Mothers' Day to you and yours.

Well, it's been a calm Sunday morning. As always, I began my day uneasily, waking up early without enough sleep and immediately wondering what the hell I was behind on and what I had to rush and get done, and eventually realized that there was nothing to do right now.

The rehearsal schedule is worked out, the first run of press releases have gone out, all emails to people I needed to email have happened, we've done what we can at this point on sets/props, and there was nothing to do until after noon (to call the parents) or when Berit got up (to set the tunes for the two Ophelia mad scene songs, which we have to teach Jessi today).

So, I got to play around online for a bit. Not much happening. Added more songs to the iPod (bringing it to 21,280 songs), then started dropping them (got to 21,170). Tried to deal with a ridiculously needy cat - Hooker has become more and more attached to me and won't leave me alone, which is nice sometimes but not ALL the time. He gets yowly and bitey and clawey as he demands for me to hug and hold him. Not pleasant. Eventually he gives up and plops down on top on sleeping Berit and is happy again.

After a few hours, Berit got up and we just spent the last hour working on the songs, finally settling on the tunes. Called the parents for Mothers' Day, left messages, got a call back from Mom. Rehearsal tonight at 6, leave here at 5 or so . . .


Ian W. Hill's Hamlet is moving right along. Friday we staggered through all of Act I, then blocked the finale. We started late, and worked long - in a very muggy rehearsal studio. It was tiring but good to see. Beginning to feel out the whole show. Saw what I have to work on more and more.

Almost everyone still has scripts in hand at least some of the time, but more and more it seems that people are in the same boat as I, holding the script and knowing 80% of the lines, just having to look down to catch a word here and there. I've asked everyone to be off book by the 19th, and should be there myself. As it is, being still partly on-book is wreaking havoc on cues and pacing - I have to keep on top of that and make sure no bad habits stick. Act I felt basically good, but didn't feel like it got GOING until the Hamlet/Ophelia scene. Of course, we really hadn't worked a number of the scenes prior to that yet.

So I figured out what to work the next few days late Friday night (well, early Saturday) and we did the Gravedigger and Osric scenes last night. About 90 minutes on the first and 45 on the second, and both wound up in excellent shape by the end, though I will keep refining them.

Tonight we work Ophelia's mad scene, Claudius' first entrance and talks with Laertes and Hamlet, and Polonius and Voltimand talking to Claudius and Gertrude. One big scene and some fragments that need work and focus.

Not exactly drudgery, getting through this part of the process, but close. Things that have to be done and dealt with now that are still unformed and almost painful to watch now which will be correct in a couple of weeks' work.

So, work tonight, a movie or IntarWeb surfing after -- maybe another night of YouTubing, link-to-link.

Tomorrow I'll deal with things that have gone a bit by the wayside as show work has been going on -- doing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the catbox, returning books and videos to the library -- and write up the second press release. Gaby at Q1: The Bad Hamlet has made the excellent suggestion that we do a joint release apart from our own ones, promoting both Hamlets together, so I'm making up the basic release, leaving space for Gaby to fill in about their show.

Oh, I guess I should look over the part of the Ophelia mad scene that I cut, since I've added in part of it happening silently upstage, and want to be ready with it tonight. OK, that's something productive to do with the afternoon . . .


Oh, and here's a video I found on YouTube last night that I remembered to look for, which I had never seen in full, and only that many years ago -- Wall of Voodoo (with their second lead singer Andy Prieboy) covering the Beach Boys' "Do It Again," in a video featuring Mr. Brian Wilson himself (not entirely at a great point in his psychological health). Enjoy: