So this last week was the first full week of rehearsal. And did we get some major stuff done! First off, I cannot say how professional this cast is! And on top of it all, they are such great sports and are a dream to work with! After a week of rehearsal, the cast is off book on most of the show! BRAVO! 

Our fantastic Drill Sargent of a director Shelly Feldman has a beautiful baby boy who is only 2 months old. She has great stamina for a woman with a baby that does nothing but eat, sleep, poop and repeats it again. But she has had to bring him to rehearsal because he is so young. He has been such a trouper and doesn't fuss unless he needs to eat or be changed. It's also nice for the actors to know that he finds them as fascinating as they find him.

Personally my favorite rehearsal was one morning with the men of the cast being brash and rude, as the script occasionally dictates, and in a split second, they are putty in that baby's cute little hand. But enough about the baby, or assistant director, as cute as he is. 

It has been an adventure finding wheelchairs for the actors to use, since two of them are stuck in them for the entire show, it's kinda important for them to have to rehearse with. And it is a most satisfying, and offsetting, feeling walking into rehearsal with a wheelchair and get a great round of applause for doing what seemed somewhat impossible at the time. And now after a few more trip ups we have 2 wheelchairs and places to store them! We're now working on getting all of the set pieces and the rest of the props but with those monumental pieces found, I think we'll find it a little easier to find what we need. 

I for one am looking forward to another fantastic week of rehearsal and can't wait to see if the cast can out do themselves! I wouldn't be surprised if they did. They are fantastic people and I personally love to see them every chance I get.

I leave you with a slideshow of the troupes in rehearsal when "Cinnamon" arrives to visit his "brother". Pardon the quality as it was taken with my phone.
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Till next time,

London in Rehab

And into the trenches we go...

This second production meeting was much more explosive and productive than the last one. Fires were started and stoked and we now have the makings of a real production on our hands!

We faced several complications, including the fact that the budget for the set was more than what we were given for the entire show! Not to worry, everyone helped out in brainstorming up solutions of how to get more money and how to change the set so we could keep it under budget. Luckily, we came up with a new design, which is just as FANTASTIC in my opinion and that will fit within the budget. Kudos to us!!

After a long and stressful meeting on Monday, we started searching for, and finding props that are desperately needed to rehearse with, such as the 2 wheelchairs that 2 of our actors live in for the entire show. Luckily, we found, not one but TWO wheelchairs, before the first rehearsal (That's MTWorks' mascot "Bosie" demonstrating the second wheelchair below). Go prop finding team!! With people like this, we'll have the show ready to go in a matter of days.

And on we plug to Sunday for our first Rehearsal, where I get to meet some our actors for the first time; Peter Cappello, who plays Davis, and Nicholas Urda who plays Wheeler. Both of these men were not only sharp, and easy on the eyes, they were on top of their game! Both were well on their way to being off book (a request by the director due to our lack of rehearsal time) and 100% game for playing around with their roles and the script in every way. And then the ladies showed up (Louise Flory and Sarah Chaney) and totally kept the expectations up there by doing the exact same thing! 

I can't tell you how excited I am to be working with so many amazing people! Life is good! And I can only hope that this production keeps going the way it is, and blows everyone else away!!

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Also a little birdie told me individual tickets go on sale tomorrow... don't tell them I told you.

Till next time,

London in Rehab

All right troops, move out!!

We had our first ever production meeting on September 16, 2011 for Costa Rehab, and it was an experience to say the least. For starters, Shelly Feldman our FANTABULOUS director has a beautiful baby boy who was kind enough to sleep through the entire 2 hour meeting. What a trooper! Especially since we scheduled the meeting around his feedings. I have a feeling rehearsals will probably get a little bit hairier but for now, he is an angel. 

Probably the worst part of the night was the fact that we had a production meeting sans any producers, managing director, artistic director, or marketing guru. Well I take that back, Martha Goode, our managing director/producer for this piece called in via Skype to the meeting. We had this all worked out and planned and then when I show up at Shelly's apartment... we have to steal wireless from one of her neighbors in order to get Martha in on the conversation. 

Well, everyone knows that when you steal wireless from your neighbors, you never get good service and then Martha was very touch and go. So we decided that we would call without the video, and that didn't work either. So despite our best intentions, Martha got passed around like a cheap whore to all of us through my phone so we could all tell her what we wanted and discuss what we needed to before shutting her off and getting down to the nitty gritty. Plus, she was calling in from Key West, FL so I'm sure she wanted to get back to her beach, and we really didn't need to be annoyed by that at the moment. However, it turns out she was down in Key West trying to get a reading set up with a company down there, so we really can't hold the whole beach thing against her. Especially since it isn't true.

But the award for being the best prepared was a tie going to our lighting designer, Dan Gallagher, and costume/set designer, Craig Napoliello. Both gentlemen are fantastic and were so totally prepared for a night of hard work with plenty of research and sketches. Kudos to Craig for being soooo prepared. I was expecting a few photos and maybe a general idea of where he was hoping to go, but ooohhh noooo! He had full sketches of every costume and the set. Granted, some changes are going to be made but talk about being prepared!

At the end of the night, despite that fact that we were short half of the production crew, we got a lot done and we are now planning our second meeting for Monday, Sept. 26th!  All designs and sketches have to be finalized and set so we can bulldoze our way to rehearsals starting at the first of October!!

Till next time,

London in Rehab