A&OL: The First Rehearsal

The last few days here in L.A. have been hellish, with temperatures toying with 100 degrees. Today a lovely wind has blown in from the ocean and everything is cooling off. Here in mid-Wilshire, where I work, it's in the 70s with a light breeze. Still lots of smog around, though.

But this is not my tale for today: I am here to chronicle the first rehearsal of "Arsenic & Old Lace," which took place at the moms' house in Arroyo Grande last Saturday. It's taken me this long to get a slot of time to write this, and I wanted to wait for Evan, Cousin Robin's husband, to e-mail some of the pictures he took of the event. I'm sure you'll agree that it was well worth the short wait.

Steve and I started in Pasadena, leaving about 9:30 in the morning. The drive up to Arroyo Grande was pleasant and, except for nearly getting creamed from behind by a speeding BMW just south of Summerland, things went well. There was the one point when we stopped for lunch and got delayed by several wrong turns in Goleta, but the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we arrived at the moms' at about 1:30.

My sister Kittie is stage-managing and I am directing. The moms, of course, are playing the two sisters. We didn't have a Mortimer for the first rehearsal (he was auditioning for something else, I believe), and one or two of the smaller roles are cast with folks who also weren't present, so Kittie read those parts. (She has me down to play Officer Klein, but as I was busy taking notes, Deb Star read that part.) Kittie is also the narrator I've added to our reader's theater version: between filling in for folks absent and reading the narrator, she was busy. At one point, she read over a page of the script all by herself!

In the overall shot we have, clockwise from far left, Steve Burtner (Teddy), yours truly, Teddy McDougal (Dr. Harper/Mr. Witherspoon), Mike Suddarth (Dr. Einstein), Kittie Vicars (narrator), Pete Star (Jonathan), Deb Star (groupie and my designated reader), Phililp McDougal (Mr. Gibbs/Officer O'Hara), Robin Riker (Elaine), Paula-mom (Abby) and Kit-mom (Martha).

When we first gathered to begin the read-through, Goldie, the moms' dog, thought everyone was there to see her and, hopefully, give her walkies and/or treats. She went around and around in the middle of the circle of people until it became clear we were there for something more important. Once she had realized that, she grabbed her pig ear, sat in the center of things and chewed it until she dozed off.

It was odd having a read through that was also a rehearsal. Some of the folks were getting their scripts for the first time, but things went amazingly well for what was essentially a cold read. There weren't a whole lot of notes to make, since everyone had a pretty good idea of the parts and how they wanted to play them. Also, with no staging required, we were a little freer to play around with it.

It's been over a decade since I directed my last show but it didn't take long to get the creative juices flowing. Over the course of the rehearsal we came up with numerous ideas to keep the piece reader's theater and yet add a little visual punch to it and give the actors more latitude to get creative themselves.

This was a "ninja run" for Steve and me (a phrase coined by Robin which means drive up in the morning and drive back in the late afternoon), so we were headed out the door by 5 o'clock. Still, there was enough time to have a sandwich (which the moms had thoughtfully provided after rehearsal) and do a tiny bit of visiting before we took off.

We have another rehearsal scheduled for this Saturday (the 25th), then a third rehearsal on May 9th (which I will be missing since I'm going to Wisconsin to visit brother Steve and his family), and then on May 16th we will be performing for an invited audience in a chapel in Shell Beach.

The first rehearsal excited me; the second one will be even more fun, since we'll be driving up Friday afternoon and will get some of the visiting time we missed out on last weekend. After that, for me, it's show time!

And thanks again to Evan for providing these great shots. Cousin Sandy sent me a saying in an e-mail and it's so true: "A picture is worth a thousand words, but it takes up three thousands times the memory."