On Friday June 22nd, our schedule was moved from
the usual 10am-6pm slot to 1:30-8:30pm to accommodate Bob Moss’s Thursday night
speaking engagement in Boston. I worked the cast on some numbers that needed
some help (“Gauguin’s Shoes”, “Follow Your Star”, and two reprises of “Light On
My Feet” and “Don’t Do It Again”).
As we rehearsed, Bob decided that the end of Act One needed
to be reconfigured. Here’s what happens in the libretto: Ed is given a chance
to write additional lyrics for a revival of “Irene” starring Debbie Reynolds
and directed by Sir John Gielgud. (How about that for a mismatch?) Ed proves to
be very difficult to work with and is ultimately banned from going backstage. Before
the end of the act, Sophie tries to cheer him by reminding him of one of his
songs: the uplifting gospel-tinged “Follow Your Star”. Ed has a fast turnaround
in mood that does not seem realistic enough. And then Bobby comes with a note
from Sir John: Ed is fired. (Ed would have the last laugh in real life because Sir John himself is
eventually fired and Gower Champion takes over the reins.) It’s a cliffhanger
that librettist Lonnie Price thought would get the audience to come back after
intermission. However, Bob did not like it and thought it was too much of a
downer. Ed is actually happy at the top of Act Two so there was a bit of a
disconnect between the two acts.
The amazing thing about Bob’s direction is that it is always
intention driven, and if the intention is not there in the book, he will seek a
rewrite. He called Linda Kline (the other librettist of the show, as well as a
former girlfriend of Ed’s) to get her permission to shake things up, and she
gave it.
It was very important for us to get it right because Ed has
an important monologue about his hopes for his musical legacy that is echoed in
the second act. I reworked the music so that the awful news of Ed’s firing
stops the song (which began in C major) in mid-phrase. Sophie makes an effort
to cheer him up as the song begins again, this time in the brighter key of D
major. A vamp with a feeling of hope occurs while Ed does his monologue. Then
suddenly, the key modulates to Eb and the Company sings background ‘oohs and ahhs’ while Sophie
gets Ed to sing with her. These changes appeared to work much better. We’ll
have to live with it for a bit to see if it proves to be the best solution.
The bulk of the rest of the day’s action was in staging
“Gauguin” as well as reviewing three of the group numbers that Michael Callahan
choreographed: “Light”, “Fridays at Four” and “Charm Song”.
Saturday June 23rd began with a tour of the
Unicorn Theatre so the cast could see the space in which we will eventually be
performing. We even traveled in the tunnel underneath the seating area but we realized it would be
ridiculous to have any actors use this crossover since it terminated at a dead
end (where my piano would be located). We then made our way back up Route 7 to
the Levan Campus to begin our day’s rehearsal schedule. I continued working the
actors on “Follow Your Star”.
We then ran the chunk of “Under Separate Cover”, “Don’t Do It Again” and “Gauguin’s Shoes”. After lunch, Michael and Bob finished staging the last twelve pages of Act One. At 4pm we did a stumble through of Act One. It felt pretty nice to have covered all aspects of the act in six days, and morale was very high going into the first Sunday off. Lastly, Bob received a FedEx package from Linda Kline, that contained a pair of red suspenders that belonged to Ed. We all felt like we had received a lucky charm!
