The Freshman Experiment

I culled all of ChristineCoke’s posts about the weekend that will make up Last Week’s Alcohol and I made something of a poem out of them. I took out some of the less singable words and more specific details that make it her life instead of the life of every college kid in the country. Then, I started changing the tense and the person. As much as Wishy is out of the picture - this is the weekend about them getting back together. That’s one of the cool things about the post - we begin with her telling us that they are trying to be friends, and the tension builds and the barriers break until finally they find each other again. It’s something every one of us have done - for better or worse.

But without really adding anything, I’ve edited down the details that CC wrote that I’m interested in trying to use. The only thing I drastically changed is the part in italics. It was originally: “This is how I felt when I began falling in love with The Ex. The first time it reminded me of those moments in movies when someone’s riding in the back of an ambulance holding the hand of her boyfriend or daughter or mother. It’s that mixture of sadness and affection and urgency that was swarming in my stomach.” I don’t know know if I can get that image of the ambulance into this song as well but I’d like to. It’s a hard thing to make work in a song because each word takes on such potency - I feel like the literal-ness of an ambulance could confuse the point but if it doesn’t, then it could be coo.

Here are CC’s details:

Making assholes of ourselves.

Drunks passing by just couldn’t catch our vibe

“Let me see your fingers.”

“I like your military hair.”

You come closer and we both forget that night when I yelled.

And we both forget about the girl from home.

It was just me and you in your small twin bed, your computer humming gently against my lap.

Angry, bitter tears fill up the bottom of my eyes

Slipping a mini skirt over tights

Give me a call and we’ll find each other.

As shots are being passed around, I draft a text.

“Sorry, I’m about to go to bed. Let’s get dinner tomorrow night?”

I wanted to send it to you later tonight.

We’re drinking last week’s alcohol.

It’s warm and sears our throats on the way down.

German techno

Their voices pound against my ears.

We are stumbling, laughing.

Our cell phones keep falling out of our hands onto the wet ground.

I’m happy drunk.

We catch up, both of us holding Natty’s in our hands.

Vodka paired with any juice you can find.

No one cares.

No one will remember but her.

She uses the wall to balance herself.

CALL FROM YOU blinks up at me.

I press ignore and feel his hand on my waist.

We don’t hook up because he stopped calling.

My lips brushing against his ear

I give him my cheek when he comes in for the kiss.

The alcohol is making my brain careen from side to side against my skull.

So we could stay, have fun, be happy drunk.

She wanted to make him jealous, I think.

Prying her off the lips of the random guy once again.

But I like you, the random guy says. I fucked things up, didn’t I?

I shake my head in disbelief.

I know his name, of course.

But we’d never spoken before.

I feel my phone vibrate again.

I flip it open to see CALL FROM YOU.

This time I pick up.

Yes, it is partly because of the Smirnoff and Bacardi we drank that I’m playing connect-the-dots with the freckles on your arms and ignoring the butterflies.

The feeling makes me suffocate.

But when I finally leave your room and climb into my own bed, I cry because I know I was willing.

This is how I feel when I begin falling in love.
A mixture of sadness, affection,
Of urgency swarming.

Turns out a week in the rehearsal room is exactly what was prescribed for carpal tunnel. My hands do not hurt and I’m more excited than I am nervous. Today is our private reading of The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown for “the suits” as well as our student reading. We have a group of 16-18 year olds coming to see it from one of the local performing arts school - something that many of our friends have scoffed at: “You mean we can’t come but a bunch of teenagers you don’t know can?” Yeah.

Personally, I’m glad that these teenagers probably know what a reading means. It means that we spent 4 days drilling actors on the score and like twenty minutes preparing for the performance. Our actors, of course, are all rockstar veterans but that doesn’t mean that Brian’s rhythms don’t kick their asses. So it’s been a long week of plunked out notes and head bobbing and toe stamping - not always in the same meter. But as long as the teenagers know what they’re in for, I think they might just like it.

And I’ve never felt so excited about a draft of a script. For the first time, Brian and I really feel like we’ve landed the show where we want it. This doesn’t meant the rewrites will halt completely (this is where all the opinions start getting thrown in - if my understanding is correct) but THIS is the draft we want to be working from. This is what we’re going to use as our base upon which to build. No more restructuring. It’s really exciting to be at this stage. We like all the songs in the show and it all just flies by so quickly - as well it should… it’s only 90 minutes.

I’m really proud of this. It’s been a really long several weeks as we agonized over the opening number (which I think works like gangbusters - gangbusters? Did I really just use that cheesy showbizzy word? Really?) and this week has been so fruitful. Our actress playing Kelly (Sam’s best friend) accidentally said “I’m not your spiritual guider, Sam. Say whatever you want.”  Not surprisingly, the linehad been “spiritual advisor” but this was just too silly and hilarious so it’s now changed. I love when little things like that happen in rehearsal. I love crossing out extraneous words and sentences. I love adding malpropisms. I love honing the grammar and making it feel more like people. And I love watching actors really connect with the character - and having them be surprised by how real a musical theater character can be (when we’ve done our jobs right).

To use the overused (especially in our show!) metaphor of a roadtrip. It’s like we’ve stopped at one of those lookout points on the highway and we can see the canyon we’re driving into for a moment. We weren’t exactly sure where we were going when we pointed randomly on the map and said “Let’s go there.” But as there sits before us - still miles off but finally visible - we realize that this was the place we were looking for all along. And that it’s so beautiful.

We have some designers and orchestrators coming to see the show and I cannot wait to see what this could someday look like. The show is at moments heartbreaking and and others totally silly. We’ve done so much work to dig deep at the emotional core of this character and really push her to her breaking point but in this draft we were able to gloss over all the hard work we did. It’s been such a strange and unrepeatable process. It isn’t over but we’re hitting a new stretch of proverbial highway. The green and white road sign ahead names our destination for the first time. Unless we fall asleep at the wheel, we’re going to get there. I think. I hope.  And there (with fingers very much crossed, wood knocked on, and turning around three times and throwing salt over my shoulder while holding a rabbit’s foot) includes a dizzying combinations of beaches, coastal highways, costumes, Mexican food, dry ice, and a real live car on stage.

Send good thoughts!!