I went to the Guild about 1600 to let the substitute pianist in. He’s never seen the score and he’s scheduled to play tonight. I hope he’s a good sight-reader.
I went back to the Guild around 1730 for the show. I had to scrounge up some ushers and one of the ones on my list didn’t show and we had a pretty good house. I greeted until it was time for notes.
Harold Jurkiewicz wasn’t there, so Bob Jones, the production’s Angel, and I did them. We changed the opening of the Act II. The Main had been going up at the beginning of the Entr’acte. Meanwhile, the cast was frozen behind the scrim and couldn’t break until the Entr’acte and the Liebeslieder music was over. Now the Main doesn’t open until the Entr’acte is finished.
When the notes were over, I went back to greeting until the show started.
I took care of Fredrik’s wet clothes in the Desirée’s Digs scene. I made them dripping wet. When the scene change took place, several of the girls went on stage and mopped up the drips. The dripping clothes play pretty well.
I also took care of the doorbell in the Egerman scene. When that scene was over, I left. I was really tired. It’s been a long, hard haul getting to this point. Stressful and tiring. It was nice to be able to go home early.
While I was there I had the impression that we were dealing with a tough audience. We didn’t seem to be getting the laughs we got on Friday night. Audiences are different. Sometimes they need a “cheer leader” or two to get them laughing.
John Sczomak, President of the Players Guild, texted me and said we had people leaving at intermission. I’m guessing it’s because of not being able to hear. I don’t know what we’re going to do about that, but we have to do something.
The show must have gone fairly well. Here’s what Harold posted on FaceBook. “As the director of A Little Night Music – Saturday evening’s performance was perfection. From a directorial aspect it is everything I wanted. Wish the audience who saw Friday 1st performance could have seen this one. Every tech element was right on. The performances were great and the music. The show cut down on its running time. Thank you all for making me VERY HAPPY.”
Ten more chances to get it right.