Pig Farm week one!
The first week after a production opens is a strange beast. You get four days off to think about what you've done, to recuperate, to prepare to jump back in. There are a few things about this show that are pretty unique to my experience here at 1st Stage.
I'd be lying if I said that Pig Farm has been an easy show to produce. First of all in my mind is the unholy mess we make. After cleaning broken dishes in The Suicide and all that ungodly paper for The Violet Hour, I wasn't sure anything could shock me. Heck, in high school I cleaned eggs off a set after Cripple of Inishmaan. But no, this is 1st Stage. If we're making a mess, we're going to make the biggest mess you ever did see.
Those of you who've seen the show know all about the state of the stage at the end of the play. What you don't know is that shortly after you leave, we begin swarming across it with Clorox wipes and brooms and mops, collecting the detritus and trying to make the set back into a home. With Saturdays and Sundays, we have exactly 1.25 hours to do this between shows. And that doesn't even touch the mess we make backstage.
Second in my mind, though probably first in others, is the absurdity of the script. Every line in the show gets repeated at one point or another. One miss-step in dialogue can send us catapulting pages ahead in the script and cause cues to come late, early or not at all. This particular absurdity has caused us to institute "line-throughs" which are, as one might imagine, me sitting in a room with the actors as they say their lines and correcting them as they go. Of course, the magic of live theatre is that it is never the same twice. (Which, I suppose, is a way of saying that you should totally see the show again.)
Finally are the costumes. Cheryl and Andre have really outdone themselves this time. Every piece of clothing you see on stage has at least one duplicate piece in the dressing room, be it a dirty/clean set, a ripped/whole set, what have you. Tina has seven night gowns and six pairs of slippers to get her through one weekend. There are also three quick changes, which are strange in their own right. For those of you who aren't theatre people, a quick change is a complete costume change which takes place in under a minute and, in the case of this play, on a narrow platform 5' above the stage.
(The secret, if you're wondering, is having everything ready. A man can get into a mostly buttoned shirt, and do the last two buttons while someone ties his shoes. A woman get get out of a dress in 3 seconds, and into another one just as fast. I don't recommend trying it yourself, though. A second pair of hands is usually key.)
I suppose what I'm saying here is that these four days are a spectacular way to gain perspective on the show. It can be so hard, when one is in the middle of things, to keep the big picture in mind. I get caught in a line or a mess or a pair of pants, and forget to enjoy the adrenalin.
Thanks again to all of you who saw the show this past weekend, and I can't wait for the rest of you to come and play. Just remember to enjoy the rush.
I'd be lying if I said that Pig Farm has been an easy show to produce. First of all in my mind is the unholy mess we make. After cleaning broken dishes in The Suicide and all that ungodly paper for The Violet Hour, I wasn't sure anything could shock me. Heck, in high school I cleaned eggs off a set after Cripple of Inishmaan. But no, this is 1st Stage. If we're making a mess, we're going to make the biggest mess you ever did see.
Those of you who've seen the show know all about the state of the stage at the end of the play. What you don't know is that shortly after you leave, we begin swarming across it with Clorox wipes and brooms and mops, collecting the detritus and trying to make the set back into a home. With Saturdays and Sundays, we have exactly 1.25 hours to do this between shows. And that doesn't even touch the mess we make backstage.
Second in my mind, though probably first in others, is the absurdity of the script. Every line in the show gets repeated at one point or another. One miss-step in dialogue can send us catapulting pages ahead in the script and cause cues to come late, early or not at all. This particular absurdity has caused us to institute "line-throughs" which are, as one might imagine, me sitting in a room with the actors as they say their lines and correcting them as they go. Of course, the magic of live theatre is that it is never the same twice. (Which, I suppose, is a way of saying that you should totally see the show again.)
Finally are the costumes. Cheryl and Andre have really outdone themselves this time. Every piece of clothing you see on stage has at least one duplicate piece in the dressing room, be it a dirty/clean set, a ripped/whole set, what have you. Tina has seven night gowns and six pairs of slippers to get her through one weekend. There are also three quick changes, which are strange in their own right. For those of you who aren't theatre people, a quick change is a complete costume change which takes place in under a minute and, in the case of this play, on a narrow platform 5' above the stage.
(The secret, if you're wondering, is having everything ready. A man can get into a mostly buttoned shirt, and do the last two buttons while someone ties his shoes. A woman get get out of a dress in 3 seconds, and into another one just as fast. I don't recommend trying it yourself, though. A second pair of hands is usually key.)
I suppose what I'm saying here is that these four days are a spectacular way to gain perspective on the show. It can be so hard, when one is in the middle of things, to keep the big picture in mind. I get caught in a line or a mess or a pair of pants, and forget to enjoy the adrenalin.
Thanks again to all of you who saw the show this past weekend, and I can't wait for the rest of you to come and play. Just remember to enjoy the rush.
