The Freshman Experiment

Not that I have carpal tunnel… but I might have carpal tunnel. Exactly one week ago, the day after our concert, I began rewrites on the book of Samantha Brown. We had been working on the opening ten minutes of the show for approximately 2 months and I’d rewritten basically all of the lyrics to “The Girl Who Drove Away” and was trucking along with our new group opening number (This has to be the 13th group opening we’ve tried . Hopefully, 13 is the unexpected charm.) so it was time to start the book. SB is always about 90 pages and about 50-60 of those pages are sung so that leaves 30-40 pages to do all the remaining book work. This, the continuing effort to finish our thirteenth opening number, and a recently developed obsession with Minesweeper is why my hands are crampy and tired and ready to rest up for a week.

Instead, we start our workshop today. Actually, I’m really excited. We’ve got a wonderful cast and our good friend Danny is directing. He and I read through the script on Saturday afternoon over a couple of Pacifico beers on his rooftop. I was skeptical of this process. I secretly believed it might be a waste of time but it was fun and illuminating. We just read all the parts and talked through it as we went. I came home with a great sense of relief that the show was moving in the right direction and a clear idea of what transitions and questions still remained to be dealt with.

So, experimenters, I’m very sorry that we haven’t been working on Brian’s epic mini-opera of ChristineCoke’s debauched weekend. I know he’s done a little bit of further work on it – he hasn’t shown it to me yet either… but we will come back and write more very soon and while we’re in rehearsal (if I have an internet connection) I’ll try to do a little blogging on the inner workings of our fancy private 29-hr reading. There are invitations. That’s what it’s called – a “private reading”. Doesn’t it sound like it should be taking place at the New York Public Library instead of a loud sweaty rehearsal studio surrounded by dance calls? Do I kind of wish it was? Maybe. If only for the reason that fewer women find it necessary to change in and out of their dancing tights and touch up their fake eyelashes in the restrooms of the NYPL.