Well, and tomorrow is Opening Night, but tonight is a Special Open Dress Rehearsal Senior Night Event, with Extra Upper-Case Letters, which means that we will have an audience. And my guess is that we will have as big an audience tonight as any we’ll have in the run; the Special Dress Rehearsal Reduced Prices for Elderly Folk are a big draw (as are those big initial letters, I’m sure), and I suspect for many of these theatergoers, the idea of whole houseful of alte kockers is not a bug but a feature.
I tend to joke that it’s good to have an audience for the first performance that can neither see nor hear us, just in case. This is a joke because it is false; we need to be at our peak for this performance, not only because these blind, deaf, lame and disoriented citizens are the most sharp-eyed, knowledgeable and vocal critics but because if they tell their friends to come, we will sell tickets, and if they tell their friends to stay away, we will not. No newspaper review will carry the weight of the opinions of Phyllis and her friends Phyllis and Phyllis, when it comes to Phyllis buying a ticket.
On the other hand, this show is drastically under-rehearsed. We did sound and lights all of twice, and more than one of the cues went badly awry both times. It’s not just that we have never had a perfect run-through, which rarely happens—it’s that there are certain parts of certain scenes that have never worked, and that is a problem. Still, it’ll probably be all right on the night. Which is in about two and a half hours.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Break a leg!
I hope it went well!! Good luck!!