On the Air – The Industry Reading

Hiya!

Remember me?  I’m that girl who writes this blog….

I know, I’ve been MIA but my excuse is I was kinda doing that little thing with my musical, On the Air.  Nothing much–just producing, starring in, and writing  it.

I thought I would do a recap of what the whole experience was like (now that I finally caught up on sleep/Outlander episodes<–very important).

Day One: Music Rehearsals

The first day of rehearsal was dedicated to teaching everyone the music.  Most of the ensemble knew it since they had recorded the demo for us, but that was almost a year ago! Also Jonathan, Ruth, and Ryan were all joining the project for the first time and had never heard any of it.

Robby, Hunter, Greg (Assistant Director), and I all met outside the rehearsal room for a couple of hours to plow through the script and discuss any rewrites or changes that were needed.  I’ll say it here and I’ll probably say it again, but the weekend was the equivalent of a writer’s boot camp.  A lot of hard work, but it made the show so much better!

It was so great being able to hear everybody sing the music live.  Robby and I never had before.  When we recorded the demo, we did it by individual tracks so we never had everybody in one room at the same time.  I’m not biased or anything, but it really sounded awesome.  At one point, the ensemble was singing “Like Her” (the opening number) and Hunter paused what he was about to say and asked,

“Is that us?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, they sound great!”

::beaming::

We broke for lunch and then Robby and I ran through our songs with Paul.  Paul Masse our Musical Director was fantastic.  Throughout the entire weekend, he was able to come up with different arrangements and suggestions to make the score sound even better.  He was also tasked with the job of deciphering our ghetto Musescore score.  We will now be investing in Finale or Sibelius.

After rehearsal, we ran home to send out more invites and respond to emails.  Along with going over the changes we spoke with Hunter and Greg about.  At that point, I’d had enough and decided to bake cause I needed a mental break so I made Pumpkin streusel muffins for everybody.  Baking makes the world better. Duh.

Day Two: Run through

This was the first time we heard the show in its entirety–live.  Every time we had done a table read, we always played the demo.  The run through was extremely helpful in figuring out what worked and what didn’t.  After the run through, we sat down with Hunter and the rest of the creative team and proceeded to stream down the script.

There was a bunch of material that was redundant or transitions that could be smoothed over.  Every step of the way, Hunter and everybody else asked,

“Are you doing ok? We know this is a lot.”
“We’re fine! Bring it on!”

Robby and I decided WAY early in the process, before Hunter or anybody else was on board, that we had to be open to changes and constructive criticism.  Otherwise, how else would we learn and grow as writers?  We knew the show would never go any further if we refused to change anything.  Paul and Hunter were fantastic with that.

“Guys, this is your musical.  If you’re not happy with this suggestion, we don’t have to do it.”

9.99/10 we always went with their suggestion.  For one thing, it usually made the book/score even better and for another this was not their first rodeo.  When presenting a piece as a stage reading, some things work and some things don’t.  Paul and Hunter had a knack for knowing what would translate for this presentation and what wouldn’t.

Robby and I went home that day with tons of rewrites and suggestions.

Day Three: “Day Off” aka Rewrites

The rest of the cast had the day off.  The bro and I did not.  We woke up early to respond to some more invites and e-mails then started working through the script to incorporate the changes from the previous day.  We ended up cutting 10 pages from the script! Woot, woot!

I ran to OfficeDepot where Antonio once again made copies for me before heading back to the city to meet with Hunter and Greg to go over the new changes in the script.  They were really happy with them and during the meeting, we were able to fix the ending of the show, which had been a problem for a while.

We ran home to tweak the script some more, answer some more e-mails and then crash.

Day Four: Run Through/Staging

This was the day when we implemented all the changes and “staged” the piece.

First thing, we handed out all the new scripts, plus any additional add-in pages we did that morning (yes, that morning).  Staging it went really well and we felt great with how we were going to present it.

By lunch time, I was dead on my feet though.  I’m sure Robby felt the same.  Ruth actually came up to me during a break and asked,

“How you holding up?”
“Honestly Ruth?  The acting and writing/rewriting part I can handle; it’s really not that bad–it’s the producing aspect on top of it that’s kind of pushed me over the edge.”

Robby and I never had a break because of that.  If we weren’t going over rewrites, we’d be answering e-mails or typing up programs or press releases.  If we have another reading, I will most likely be hiring somebody to handle all that so I can focus more on the acting and writing part of the process (which is the part I really enjoy!).

Day Five: The Presentations

The day of the reading(s).  Of course I could barely sleep.  (I mean would you?)  I wasn’t the only one.  My dad was apparently up at 2am!

We loaded up the car with food, wine (Hunter said this was the first reading he’s been to where they served wine.  “Liquor them up! They’ll enjoy it better!“), music, instruments, and what was left of my sanity.

The presentations went really well and we were very happy with the response we received.  We’re still in the process of getting all the feedback, but so far it’s been very positive.  I thought I’d leave you with some pictures from that day.  We couldn’t take any during the actual presentations because of Union restrictions, but here are a few from notes, breaks, and afterwards.

Giving out notes:

Going over notes and implementing some last minute changes:

In between presentations, checking our e-mail and responding to last minute RSVP’s, while drinking tea (pretty much what we looked like throughout this whole process).

Chilling out in between presentations with some of the awesome cast 🙂

The audience after our second presentation.

Here we are thanking Hunter and discussing some possible avenues to explore with the show after the reading.  We really can’t rave about him enough.  What a joy to work with.  He just “got” this piece from the very beginning.

This whole process was one of the most exhausting, exhilarating, challenging, and wonderful experiences.  We have some more changes to implement, but we feel really happy with where we are right now.

There are a few opportunities that have presented themselves because of this so we’ll keep you posted on any new developments.  Stick around here to find out!

Oh, in case you’re wondering what I did after the readings that night, I thought I would document it with a photo: