Man, she's something else!

OK I can't believe we are down to our last four performances. We had a lot of New Line Family there last night, New Liners that have done shows with us in the past, and it was a great audience. I also had some fellow community theatre friends there, and they are also great laughers and helped keep the show flowing by keeping the laughing up.

This continues to be a great experience. Scott was telling me the other day that during one of the last couple of shows he leaned over to Alison and said "Would you ever thought Joel would be such a great part of not only one comedy team, but two comedy tems in the last couple of shows?" and Alison replied"Nope, and I don't think Joel did either". That is true, I never thought I was that funny. I remember during the Wild Party Blog I gave praises to Mike Dowdy who is amazing to work with, and this show I am having a blast working with Troy. Troy and I have been friends for a long time, and this is the first time we have really had to act opposite each other and it is very comfortable. I know I stressed him out when I didn't know the lyrics for the longest time, and now we have a ritual of going through each song in the dressing rooms before we go out to sing it. I know I give him crap about cinching his coveralls, and spraying his hair EVERY time we go off stage it is great working with him.

This whole cast is great working with. If you haven't seen the show, like I said you only have tonight and next weekend to see it. Then THis mop of a hairstyle is coming off. I can't wait to get a hair cut.

Til next time.

Stanley

Holy Jeez!

I can't believe that we are already getting ready to start our second week of performances. Last weekend went pretty well. Preview and Saturday night were pretty low key, but Saturday nights sudience was off the wall. They were laughing at everything. The reviews have been coming in and for the most part they like us, they really like us. Except for a few negative comments about our wigs, but hey do you really remember the 70's? Most of the women had frosted blonde hair, and bowl cuts. Oh well to each their own. Even us boys of the "Greek Chorus" have gotten mentioned in most of the reviews, and I actually got some praise for my performance in "Everybody Today is Turning on", in which I just laugh through the whole song, being that I have never been high (yes, I know it is hard to believe), it has been hard for me to figure out what to do during the song. One night I messed up and just started laughing, and Scott said it was hilarious and to keep it, so I did.
Tomorrow we start it all over again only this time we go with out not rehearsing or seeing each other for three days. I started going through the lyrics again last night, just to make sure I rememered them all, cause that is the hardest part of this show.

Well time to get back to work......

See you in the 70's
Peace!

Stanley

The Four of them are pairing up and having a threesome

OK so we had our preview night on Thursday. Not too exciting, if you are judging from the audiences reactions. It took them a while to start appreciating our work and reward us with claps. That night it felt more like a final dress than it did a preview night, but it was a good warm up to what we got on last night for an audience. WHAT A GREAT AUDIENCE. They laughed, and we got the rerassurance that this show really is funny.
AND we got most of the lyrics right. If people messed up it wasn't noticeable.

Thecostume fiasco is all taken care of and Todd did a great job with the set. The band sounded great, and they sound like they are having good time. The only thing we can do is get better and better. I am just exhausted. didn't get much sleep last nightand then left for work this mornng.

Well so our first weekend is almost finished.

I hope you all come to see the show.

Joel a.k.a. Stanley

HOLY HELL WEEK!!!!!

OK so we had a wonderful weekend getting ready for our show. We had our cue-to-cue for the light designer on Saturday, and that could not have gone smoother. We started at 1:00 and we were out of there by 3:30, so some of us mosied on down to Karen's Pizzeria, a place I had never been and had some great pizza, and wonderful socializing with most of the cast. Then on sunday we had our Sitzprobe, in which the cast sings through the show with the orchestra for the first time. It was wonderful! The orchestra of 5 is amazing. THey came in there and knew there stuff, besides a couple of tempo issues, very few, we breezed right through the score.

Then came last night, our first run through with costumes and lights. Well the lights looked great from what I could see of them. Then we get to the costumes. We really won't get into that, because then I just get tense, and I can't get tense anymore this week. Needless to say most of us didn't have costumes last night. Luckily the only costumes I am in are coveralls and a santa suit. But then we are also to do a very tricky number on roller skates. Guess what no roller skates either. That is what makes me a little nervous, I mean this fat ass hasn't gotten up on roller skates in YEARS! Plus not to have them until tech week? Oh my gosh.

All in all though some wonderful things happened last night. I thought the three guys in the "chorus" we really nailed most of our songs. More lyrics were sung correctly, and we just started having fun onstage. The hard part of the show for me, Troy and Zak, is that originally our characters were the musicians in the band, so they would play the whole show, and sing a little. I don't know how these guys sang these songs, with these lyrics and played instruments at the same time. But there is no time to develop our characters that we have started to create, but I think it is starting to come along. I am just out there having as much fun as I can.....DAMMIT!!!!

So I hope you all come to see our show.

Later

Joel

Holy Jeez!

I can't believe we go into hell week next week! This weekend is Cue-to-Cue for the lights and then Sunday is our sitzprobe, where we sit down and sing with the pit orch. I can sure tell I am getting older in this show. First of all I am the oldest cast member, so that makes me feel super old, and as I have talked about before I can't remember these freaking lyrics. With this show especially it is driving me crazy, cause since there are only 7 of us in the show, I feel like I am letting everyone down, because I don't know the lyrics.

I just read Scotts blog, and he seems very happy with the show so far, being about 70% there. I don't feel quite that good, but maybe it doesn't show onstage. Monday after rehearsal Scott sent out an e-mail to me, troy and Zak about our three charaters, the three Greek chorus boys. We do have names, but we are really only in the first seen where we get introduced, and then the rest of the show we just "appear", so it is hard to come up with a character with that. Scott gave us some amazing ideas, and last night we sort of played with them. Being the first night we were adding things to our characters it was a little awkward, but I think it will get there, and will be funny.

Now for my last worry, the freaking roller skates. Yes, Roller skates. My fat ass on some skates, at least I'll have some padding if I fall. Tohmmy ordered some skates three months ago and they first came in in children's sizes, and then he just kept getting the run around, so now he is trying to rent some from some local skating rinks.

This show is turning into a truely great show, and I hope all of you come out to see it.

Talk to you soon

Joel

Everybody today is Turning On!

Ok so it's been a while since I posted, so I thought that I would put in my two cents here as to how the rehearsals are going. SO far in the rehearsal process, things seem to be zooming past. It seems like we just started rehearsals and bam, we are almost done blocking. It is nice to be working in a cast with only 7 people in the cast, I love these small intimate shows, but you just have to pray that no one gets sick during rehearsal, because it is hard to rehearse most of these scenes with some people gont. Last night we just sang through some of the music because we were missing three of the cast members.

OK I thought Wild Party was a very wordy show, but I think this one is too. Harmony is definately easier in I love My Wife compared to Wild Party, but it's all these damn words, and then all this Miller-ography. OH my gosh Scott never choreograph while stoned again. "It worked when I was stoned" Hmmmmm....I wonder why? That is another thing with this show I have to pretend to be stoned. Honestly, I have never been stoned in my life. I lived with a stoner for two years, but never smoked it first hand. Maybe I was high on the second hand smoke, but I don't remember, that was too many years ago, I guess I'll have to work on this.

Well, I shall write more later.

Get moving~
Stanley

A new notch in my New Line History!

Ok so this week we finished our second week of rehearsals for I Love my Wife, in which I am playing Stanley, one of the friends of Alvin and Wally the male leads. Actually the male chorus (all three of us) only had to be there this week, so we finished our first week of rehearsals, while the four leads finished their 2nd week of rehearsals. I have to tell you, this cast seems so small compared to the 14-16 people in the last two shows that New Line has done. We only have 7 people in I Love My Wife. Last night we read and sang through the whole show. Yes we have leared all the music and read through to get a feel for the show, and guess what? Did you guess yet? Well you should have......the show only took like an hour and a half. How great is that. This will be one of the shortest shows I have done in a while.

We have a great cast. Jeff Wright and Todd Schaeffer, are playing the male leads Wally and Alvin, and Emily Berry and Sarah Armstrong are playing Cleo and Monica. And Zac Farmer, Troy Turnipseed and I are the three male chorus. We sort of play the greek chorus, narrator types. If you don't know the show, it is basically about wife swapping. The show is very funny, as we found out last night when we read through all of it. It will be fun to start to bring the show to life with some blocking. Especially the bedroom scene, You will just have to come and see it, to see what I am talking about.

The music isn't really that hard, not like Wild Party and all the funky chords we had to sing, it is just very wordy. I mean Wild Party was Wordy, but this is also and it goes quite fast.

Well the next chapter of my theatrical journey is underway. Check back in to see how it is going!

Later, Joel "Stanley"