A Day in the Life...

... of a Director

I do not get asked this ... well ever ... but I still am going to tell you what my day was like today as the director for The Curious Savage. My alarm went off today at 6:00, keep in mind today is Saturday. I showered and got dressed in my finest jeans and Captain Hammer shirt. I donned my Broadway Bares 14 hat and ran to the grocery store to get some things for lunch and a treat for the cast. I then loaded up Pop's truck, picked up the chairman of the Arts Council, and went to pick up the rest of our set pieces and lights. We were at the stage by 9 where the cast met us, helped us to carry in these items, and we started running the show at 9:30. We took a lunch break at 12:00 and while the cast went out to eat the Assistant Director and I taped off the prop table, chose music for the scene changes, vacuumed, and shoved down a pb&j sandwich. The cast came back and we had root beer floats for those few people who are not celebrating their birthday during the run of our show (about half of the cast have birthdays during the run or the rehearsals of our show, I miss it by 6 days!) then we sat down for notes and started the show again at 1:00. At 3 we had to be out of the theater since another group was coming in; well I had a real treat when I went with my Mom, Deb, and Co to see a movie! And all I have to say about that is Colin Firth better win the Oscar! When we got home I ran back to the theater to grab some props to wash so my cast can actually drink out of them, came home and washed them, then experimented with burnt paper for one prop and herbal tea for another scene. Here it is now 8:30 p.m. and with the exception of the wonderful movie break I have been "directing" all day. This is me not complaining, I love it! But it has been a busy day. We open in a week which means this week is tech week - we call it hell week because it describes it just perfectly - so I am fully expecting to get about 5 hours of sleep a night.

The best part about directing is not the long hours behind the scenes, it is watching the show come together. Four weeks ago our cast sat down for the first time to read through the script and now we have a really great finished product. This show has not been an easy one, usually we have eight weeks of rehearsal instead of five, but this cast really pulled it out. I have had a blast getting the set up and dressed (that is what we call all of the set decorations like our dart board and live gold fish, you heard me), it is the first time I have been able to pull a truly beautiful set together and have done so under my budget!

I think I have deserved a really nice early bed time tonight ... say in 25 minutes!