Hi Fi, High Gear

Well, almost another week has come and gone since my last post. The title says it all - we've definitely shifted into high gear...

Last night we ran Act I for the first time completely off-book. Before we started, our primo photographer, Michael Daft, took some extremely cool PR photos. Many thanks to our fantastic costumer, Amy Kelly, for providing the perfect costume pieces for this.

Tonight we ran Act II twice, again off-book. Both nights actually went quite well. Everyone is doing a great job getting into character, and recalling lyrics/lines/choreography/etc. I feel fairly good about where I'm at with the lines. I know I'm paraphrasing here and there, but most of 'em are fairly locked in, I think. Still more work to do on that for sure, though...

On Sunday, Robin put her magic touch on the choreography for "Number Five With a Bullet" and "Crying in the Rain." All the dance numbers are set and awesome, with some room for cleaning and fine-tuning of course. Really cool stuff...

On Saturday, some of the guys made a field trip to the Record Exchange, as sort of a character study. I live about 2 blocks from there, so several of us (Zak, Todd, Joel, Scott and me) met at my house, had a couple of beers, then walked down to the store. We spent at least an hour in there, checking out all of the fantastic stuff available. We found some great LP's and 45's to use as props, as well as some other really cool stuff. Then we came back to my pad, sat outside in the beautiful weather, and grilled out, listened to music, laughed a lot, etc. It was really cool. We missed the rest of the cast, though. Next time...

I'm actually going to be away from the next couple of rehearsals. I had Thursday 5/22 and Sunday 5/25 down as schedule conflicts at auditions, so it's nothing new, but it still feels strange. Hopefully none of the momentum we've gained will go away. I'm sure it won't. The reasons for the conflicts are kinda cool, though. On Thursday, I'm joining about 10 other local singers to perform in the St. Louis Singers' Showcase at Savor (www.cabaretatsavor.com). One of the songs I'm singing is "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. As it turns out, this song is one of the source/inspiration songs for "Laura, Laura" from our show. That's kinda cool... This weekend, I'll be on a Florida getaway for Memorial Day weekend. I'm really looking forward to that. I will have lots of time away from distractions to concentrate on completely memorizing everything too, so the show will be front and center in my mind. It's been a long time since I've studied lines while laying on the beach. I'll let you know how that goes. I can't wait...

Sunday evening, soon after I get back to St. Louis, we are to shoot some promo video at the Record Exchange. Sounds like a lot of fun. Michael Daft is continuing to take some great photography of individual cast members several times a week. St. Louis Magazine did an interview with Scott Miller and me for their June edition which should come out any day now. Even a photo shoot to go with it. So there is a lot of cool publicity surrounding the show as well. To say I'm getting excited would be a huge understatement.

Happy Memorial Day to all. Be safe and have fun. More next week...

Rock on,
Jeff