It's gonna be legen...wait for it...dary.

Last night we had our first "official" rehearsal. Well, technically, it wasn't a rehearsal at all - just a meet and greet and a read-thru of the play. I think that the director was concerned that since rehearsals don't actually start for FIVE MONTHS, that everyone would go their separate ways and forget about the fact that they'd been cast in a show. It is a good idea to get everyone excited about the project, so that they don't find something else "better" to do. (I'm all about "quotations" these days, even when they're not really necessary...).

They were going to schedule it for 7pm. I was like, uh, NO, I have an 8mth old baby who won't take a bottle and that is exactly the time that he wants to go to bed. In fact, "bedtime" (those damned quotations again) usually is a drawn out process that lasts until 8:30pm. They told me to bring him, but, yeah.....NO. I don't want a screaming baby at the rehearsal, and I doubt that anyone else did either. So they agreed to move the rehearsal to 8pm. Good! I thought. So, when I roll in at 8:15pm, I won't be too late. THEN they had the BRILLIANT (apparently, I'm liking CAPS too) idea to make everyone else come for 7:30pm, so that we would be ready to go at exactly 8pm. Of course, I was late. The read-thru didn't start till 8:27pm. I know, I looked at the stage manager's notes.

It went pretty well, all told. I think that it's going to be a strong show. Knock on wood. The girl who plays the lead is much better than I thought at the audition. Her only downside that I can see is that she is very real. Normally, that's the best thing that you can be, in my opinion, but on stage you need to compromise a tiny bit of the reality to make it dynamic and interesting. All told, though, it's not a bad fault to have and hopefully one that she can overcome easily. I bet she's awesome on film.

The dad is interesting. GREAT look. At times, I almost thought he looked like Anthony Hopkins, who played his role in the movie. He read the lines rather slower than I would like (I'm sleep deprived, and I really wanted to get home to my bed), but I think it's because he was really trying to invest some meaning in them, even at such a preliminary rehearsal.

The guy who plays Hal was quite good at first impression. I'd like to see what he does with the role to improve it.

As for me, well, I realized just how much of the play that I'm NOT in. Read-thrus are tough for the smaller characters. I have some great scenes, though, that I'm really excited to do. AND, when we start rehearsing for realz, I'll just be back at work with two small kids at home. I think a role that doesn't require me to be at every rehearsal will fit just perfectly into my life, and give me a chance to get my acting chops back up to snuff.