Well, that’s it. Dickens is over. It was a thrilling run; we sold out most of the houses, and left a lot of people singing and feeling good when they left the theater. We’re all currently recovering from New Years; I played six shows over the course the day yesterday, and somehow still had energy to go to a party afterwards. Today is a day of recuperation… until I have to go to a tech rehearsal tonight for another show starting up on Friday.
TC and I both learned a ton from this show, and we can apply plenty of it to Ladley & Craig. TC can lay out what he learned for himself.
The one biggest lesson I learned: Sheet music. I know this may seem obvious to just about every veteran out there. When I wrote my first musical back in Cleveland, the entire cast was made up entirely of improvisers (not that our Dickens cast didn’t have a fair share of them as well), so for that Cleveland show, the melodies were generated mostly by the actors themselves, and we just solidified it after so many repetitions (just another example of improv becoming formalized) The melodies were never written down. This time around, I tried to do the same thing, but the music was more complex and intricate, both melodically and harmonically. We started rehearsing in October, and after a couple of weeks, people starting saying “It would really be helpful if we had some sheet music.” It was a huge “duh” realization that fortunately, I only need to make once.
Everything else that happened during the process, while new and sometimes difficult, felt very natural. It all leads me to believe that I’m heading down the right road professionally.
Soon enough, the process for Ladley & Craig will begin. And this chapter promises to be just as exciting and adventurous as the first.
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