Auditions seemingly successful

I am very excited to report that our two nights of auditions for "Conversations in a Cafe," just completed, went very well, maybe even better than expected. We had more folks, especially men, than we anticipated, which made for some very difficult decisions about who might be right for which part. But ultimately, we were able to cast four of the five remaining roles at the end of the second evening, and we hope to do callbacks for the remaining male role soon. First read-through is a week from today, so we gotta get that finished!

Anyway, we saw and cast a good Don, Joshua and Carl from the first night's attendees, and found (to my great relief because, even though this is an ensemble show and everybody's important, I think of her as the glue that holds it all together), a fine Meredith on the second night. So we only need to nail down Brad at this point.

What was a great revelation and a lot of fun for me was seeing our pre-cast ladies reading with the candidates and starting to figure out that there is more humor and laughter in the show than I ever imagined. I've always said that yes, there are some funny moments, but we were coming across more in the short side segments than I thought could be found in the whole script. Seeing these characters spring to life after living in my head for four years is just more exciting than I could imagine. And having such a great group of dedicated people -- especially Myla, our director, who has already done a ton of work and not only understands the show as I see it but is already bringing new thoughts I never had to it -- is making for a collaborative effort that just thrills. Playwrights who have had a production have probably already been there. For me, it is new food for inspiration.

We begin the rehearsal process next Wednesday, and then we're off and running. Should be a fascinating but also hopefully reasonably painless process if we can make it that way.

We've done a bunch of the shopping for set items and more -- now have a base to connect with a small round top for our "bar height" table, and an order has been placed for the other two tables we need. A magazine rack and a chalkboard to hang; lots of discussions on set design/construction, technical matters ... it's all good. And it's all moving along. We hope!

Not much time for playgoing lately, but we did catch Stained Glass Playhouse's "Evita" a few days back. It was a reasonably good production with some stand-out performances, but I fear the show itself is not one that's destined to become a favorite. On the ALW front, I'll say "yes" to "Joseph" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar" and "no thanks" to "Evita," "Cats" and "Phantom."