"Christmas Creep"

You have probably heard this term before, especially if you are in retail. It refers to a phenomenon, starting over the last 30 years or so, or businesses decorating for and selling items pertaining to Christmas, slightly earlier in the year every few years. The idea being that people always spend more during the holidays, and that the earlier companies can comfortably get people into that Christmas buying mindset, the longer they will be able to enjoy the fruits of an extended purchasing season.

Some radio stations get into the act, by starting wall-to-wall Christmas music as early as the first day of November in some cases.

That is the general use of the term. But there is another, more theatrical use for "Christmas Creep". It refers to the notion of being cast in a Christmas themed play, scheduled to go on at Christmas time, thereby requiring rehearsals to begin in and around October in most cases. Though one isn't putting up a tree or playing the Nat King Cole album just yet, being in a Christmas play does, almost by force, incline one to give thoughts to the holiday earlier in the year than one otherwise might.

Tonight begins a small amount of theatrical Christmas Creep for me. For in addition to heading into the Full Circle Theater for a pick-up rehearsal of A Thurber Carnival, I will also be attending my first read through for Full Circle's A Christmas Carol. Well, at least I will be attending a part of the read-through.

I didn't audition for this show. But it would appear that the male audition numbers for it were very low this year, and I was asked if I would be willing to step in, if needed. Not wanting the show to have to be canceled, or any such extreme as that, I let the director know that if the chips were down and she couldn't find anybody, I would step in. The chips fell, and there I was.

This is the same version of A Christmas Carol that I appeared in back in 2008, when Full Circle first opened its current venue. (For more insight into that adventure, please go back into this blog's archives starting in October of 2008 or so.) I was within a stone's throw of playing the same role as two years ago, but I will no longer be doing so. I regret that a tiny bit, because I enjoyed the part(s), and to date I have never reprized a role. I was curious what it would feel like to come back to the exact same lines just a couple of years later.

This script opens at the home of Dickens himself, sharing the idea of a Christmas Carol at a party. The guests in turn play the various characters from the classic tale. (With the original lines from the novel left very much intact.) The last time around, I played Bob Cratchit, among other roles, such as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the small yet highly enjoyable role of Topper.

This time will not be a disappointment though, as I will still get to play several notable characters, including Fred, Young Scrooge, and Old Joe. (Assuming the schematics of who plays whom remain the same.) There may be one other character in there for this role, I cannot recall at the moment.) The "base" character is that of Charles Dicken's brother Frederick.

I have played Fred in staged readings here and there, but never in a full production. Yet I have always wanted to explore that particular personality. I will now have that chance.

Though I can't say for certain, I imagine my blog updates during this show will be more streamlined than those of two years ago, simply because I am already quite familiar with the script. Though I won't be playing the same character, and it is being directed by someone else this year, I already have a grasp on the tone of the piece, and therefore won't have much need to document my discovery of same. It may even allow me to be more specific in my comments as rehearsals go along, concentrating on more subtle things. (About which I love to write.) I won't know for sure until after a few weeks of rehearsal.

But until then, there are still three more Thurber Carnivals to get through. Four if you count tonight's rehearsal. I confess the holiday show will not have my full attention until after Thurber is complete. But it is sometimes nice to know exactly where one is going next in the community theatre world.

Halfway Point

When I arrived at the theatre on Sunday for the first matinee of A Thurber Carnival, I had a prediction. Sunday audiences for community theatre tend to skew towards older people. (These crowds are sometimes, without tact, referred to as "blue hairs" by actors and directors alike.) Since much of the humor in this show is obviously dated, I thought that perhaps a matinee crowd would be more likely to relate to the material. And while I can't prove this theory, I can say that that small crowd on Sunday afternoon was in fact more responsive.

It wasn't easy to see the audience for the lights and such, so I couldn't tell if they were older. But of the 15 or so people that showed up to watch us yesterday, a majority certainly sounded older. They laughed at both the obvious and the more obscure jokes throughout the production.

They even enjoyed the atrocious Word dance at the start of the play, but I also have a theory on that. Given that we never really were permitted to rehearse this dance front to back during the entire 6 week rehearsal period, (as I have often written about here), none of us were ever 100% sure of what the final dance was supposed to look like. So each person was trying to adhere to the strict perimeters of what they believed was what the choreographer had instructed. As I have said, the result was always a lumbering, awkward sort of feeling for the cast. (And we suspect, for the audience.) So yesterday we opted to just to what felt more natural onstage, and as a result, there was more life to the piece. The new experience of opening with energy carried into the rest if the act. I think the whole show was about 10 minutes leaner yesterday.

It still had its problems, but once we decided to just follow the broad strokes of the dance, and opt to naturally enjoy ourselves through chatter, toe tapping and other small things during the transition, it felt much more comfortable. Certainly more natural.

We didn't have a meeting about it. It wasn't a group thing. It was as though each of us as an individual decided to just go with our own flow on the day, at the same time. A much livelier number was the result. We are going to continue to approach it in this looser fashion for the remainder of the run.

We had some light problems here and there. Twice when I was on stage they went out in the middle of a scene. We covered well, and the outages were short. A bit distracting nonetheless.

The scene changes are still a bit rough at times, and certainly too slow, but that is frankly to be expected. the tech crew didn't have much time to rehearse them. A week ago this very moment, they had never run any of the scene changes. Given that fact, they have done an admirable job with their tasks.

My own tasks were accomplished yesterday. No mistakes that I recall. There are a few moments I would rather not perform at this point, just because of how emotionally heavy their rehearsal process was. I don't think I  will easily get over all of the alterations to script and blocking made in order to keep some people satisfied. But setting that  (and my lack of enjoyment in performing said scenes) aside, I am happy with my acting for Sunday. It seems pretty clear that out of all the things I am in, Mr. Preble Tries to Get Rid of His Wife is the most enjoyable for audiences. Every crowd is different, of course, and the very next audience could get nothing out of it. But one does notice trends, and the trend seems to be that that is the skit out of all the ones I appear in that audiences are enjoying the most. Even the smaller, quieter audiences. I suspect it will be that way for the second weekend as well.

Right or wrong, this first weekend was more like an extra set of rehearsals. Rehearsals with observers, but rehearsals nonetheless. There were not calamitous, but people who come to the first weekend deserve as much for their money as those that come the second weekend. I don't think the first half of the run was a disaster, but until Sunday it was lackluster. And Sunday could have been better. All three performances I feel would have been better if not for some of the chronic rehearsal problems we had throughout. But that is duly covered here in the blog. Suffice to say it could have been better, and hopefully next weekend will be. I'd like to see a few more people come see the show, and have those people be even more energetic, but at this point, I probably should be content to just get through each remaining performance without hitting any potholes.

There is a pick up rehearsal on Thursday, thank heavens. Very few shows I have been in have called a pick-up, though I feel it is always a good idea. Especially for shows that have struggled to get to a good place for the first weekend, such as this one. The last thing we want to do is lose our small amount of momentum.

I'll be doing something else theatre related on Thursday, but I will tell you about that in a future entry. Check back before then to learn more.

Finally, one of my cast mates told me  on Sunday that his friends very much enjoyed my performance on Saturday. It feels good to know that despite of a lot of the static and stress associated with this play, my hard work has paid off in an enjoyable performance.

"Keep Em' Comin'"

Saturday's show came at the end of a long day of both work and leisure for me. I was up earlier in the morning than I like to be for a writing assignment in the southern part of the county. After that I went to a large picnic hosted by friends about 45 minutes away. And with the back road I was going to take from there to the theatre being closed, I was ever so slightly late for call.

Not that anybody seemed to notice that. Everyone was in a pretty relaxed mood. As was I. As it turns out, so was the tiny audience.

There were in fact a few more people on Saturday than on Friday. And they were slightly more responsive. So that was an advantage. I can't say it was electricity out there, but it did help to have a few more laughs coming our way.

Except during the dance, which once again landed with an elongated, and awkward thud for the most part. Each time we do it the music seems a bit different, and nobody is enjoying it either on or off stage. More than one person wishes we could just do away with it. But of course that isn't possible. So we just get through it as fast as we can. (As in, as fast as the music will allow) and move on to the more enjoyable elements.

Energy for Act One was a bit higher than the previous night. Energy for Act Two was probably about the same as the previous night. I think it's because Act Two begins with two of the longest and most dated pieces in the entire production, and they tend to lull the audience. It's not the fault of the actor's; these pieces are just outside the reach of most people these days.

Preble was still the best thing I did on the evening, and probably the best received. The Unicorn in the Garden, short and silly as it is probably comes in second place. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, despite it's overall improvements and the work we put into it does not seem to be catching on with audiences, which surprises me a bit. I actually wonder if they understand that what is happening is a daydream...

So today is the matinee and of course attendance is generally a problem for any show on a Sunday afternoon. But will the oddness of this play's target audience mean we do better today than we did for the evening shows? Possible, but I won't hold my breath. Especially during the opening dance...