Perfect Days Pic

Ain't this a cool pic? It was either at final dress or one of the tech rehearsals, cause Chris Bloch (the catcher) is down on the deck rather than up above, where he ended up. - - I'm back in Chicago and chilling with the family. (My daughter is a PIECE OF WORK!!) Missing all my Doe-Nuts. I'll be back soon, y'all!!!

We're open!

The relieved writers.

A break from schmoozing

Eric Schaeffer, Eleasha Gamble, Alejo Viletti, Heidi Blickenstaff and James Moye at the opening night party at Old Ebbett's Grill.

The after-party

Okay, it was just in a different part of the same restaurant, but it >felt< special.
(Joel Blum, Guy Paul, me, Patrick Ryan Sullivan)

Decompressing

It's been a while since my last post (happy April!), but it's been a much-needed break from the intensity of the past 6 weeks. I looked in on the show last night for the first time in about a week, and it's in great shape! Performances have really crystallized, some actors are making some great new choices and continuing to explore their characters and keeping the material fresh. And audiences continue to respond enthusiastically, which is what I love. (Although I overheard an older gentleman last night saying that he "was NOT having a good time"; turns out, he wanted to be back in his hotel room watching Final Four action. Guess he's not a baseball fan.)

The icing on the cake for us has been some very nice reviews in local papers and online. Check them out here: Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Theatremania, DCist, and PotomacStages.com.

We may keep checking back for more comments, but if not, thanks for coming with us on our journey, and if you see the show, tell us what you think!

Podcast Interview with Andrew and Eddie

Joel Markowitz of DC Theatre Scene was nice enough to interview us for this podcast. Listen all the way through and you can hear Andrew and I belting out "Money Talks" from the score!

http://dctheatrereviews.com/review/2007/03/20/meet-john-doe/

I know it's corny, but...

Here's a great blog on the Huffington about the film MJD. This writer finds the need to say "I know it's corny, but...", which is something I find myself saying all the time when I talk about how passionately I feel about MJD's message. We're all oh so sophisticated and edgy that we need to make excuses for our simple sentiments? Maybe, but we still have them and they have great power; that's where the "but" comes from. Read it.

"Stick a fork in us, Ma, we're done."

(That being a line from our last version of the show.)

Today is our last preview, which means our last rehearsal. Which means our last chance to tinker. Eddie and I were up till 1AM IM'ing back and forth different versions of three important lines, and basically losing our minds. I can't write any more music because yesterday I ran out of staff paper when I was revoicing four brass/wind chords in "Bigger Than Baseball".

All of which is a VERY GOOD THING.

Last night, I was having dinner at the Tex/Mex place in the building where we live, and the last five months, since starting rehearsals at Goodspeed, kind of hit me in the stomach. Ann has a line in one of her new songs: "Gave it a go and killed a forest"; I can't imagine how many reams of paper we've gone through, when you consider that just at Goodspeed we handed out 37 sets of new pages, and have since written four new songs, rewritten several others, and added and cut a few scenes and a few characters. I'm burnt to a crisp.

Is the show perfect? I don't think there is such a thing. Is it the absolute best we can make it? Yes. Is it ready for audiences? Definitely. Do we desperately need to not be writing this show any more? Oh yes. Now the theatergoers will tell us what they think of it, and if they're like our preview audiences, I think they'll enjoy the ride we're taking them on.

I have to go write 200 thank you notes now.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

So it was the second preview. Solid show with some of those 2nd show wonkies sprinkled in. The sold-out crowd was eating out of Uncle Jokey's hand and falling in love with the Heidster and all the rest of the junk that goes on during the show. I slipped over to Hard Rock at intermission for a Heineken (Hey, I don't have a problem, YOU'VE got a problem, man!) And the second act cruised right along.

Now the last scene in the show has a fog effect that is super cool and we've been trying to get just right. Well...that night I was thinking it was pretty darn cool...sort of like a cemetery scene in Buffy when, at the worst possible moment, the theatre's fire alarm goes off. Halogen lights flashed as a pre-recorded voice instructed everyone to clear the theatre.

No one could believe it.

The actors, absolute pros, held their positions and tried to continue the show, but the voice kept on droning and the LAW, of course, required that the building be cleared.

Picture 600 people milling around in front of the theatre wondering what to do. Picture 3 fire trucks rolling up and the fire marshal striding into the theatre. Picture my Aunt Jane and Uncle Louie showing up in the crowd. Here's how it went down:

EDDIE: Aunt Jane?
AUNT JANE: Oh, hello, Eddie. What are you doing here?
EDDIE: My musical is playing here.
AUNT JANE: Oh this is the Ford's theatre. How nice.
EDDIE: What are you doing here?
AUNT JANE: Well you know how Uncle Louie likes fire engines...

The show went on, most of the audience filed back in to see the end of the show and Aunt Jane and Uncle Louie made it safely back to Ohio two days later. Love you two!!

"8,000 Doe-Nuts Stand In The Rain!"

Our first paying audience suffers through freezing rain and wind.

"We got the picture, and damn, it's good!"

Front Page News!

Okay, so it's front page of the Washington Post Style section, but still! Writer Nelson Pressley talked with us for over an hour and wrote a terrific piece. The photo credit got us mixed up, but that's okay, so did Eric for the first few weeks!

Read it here.

A Tale of Three Runs

Apologies for the lengthy absence of posts, but this past week has been one long haul. Tuesday was the third "ten-out-of-twelve" (that's hours long) tech day with a stumble through with the band in the evening, then Wednesday was another tech-fix day and another sort of run. Our first real run was Thursday night, the invited dress rehearsal, with a crowd of about a hundred friends, supporters, volunteers, ushers, park employees (Ford's is a National Park, after all), and producers from Ford's and Goodspeed, as well as a friend and supporter of the show, Ted Shen.

It was a great, great show, everything coming together finally, tech snafus clearing up, the cast getting used to the lights and their costume changes and the raked stage and the band, etc., and I had a great time. After, the producers all met to confer and gave their thoughts to Eric. The report back was that they adored the second act but had a general note of slight concern about the first; this, of course, was exactly the opposite to Eddie's and my reaction. Between all of us, we joked, we have a hit!

We really couldn't imagine what they were hearing when they told us their concern, but during the first paid preview on Friday, I gave it a hard listen and I saw exactly what they were talking about. As a result, I didn't enjoy that performance too much, I was too busy trying to figure out what we could do to fix the issue. I should say I didn't enjoy it until the curtain calls — the audience was largely groups of high school students, who I was worried would find the piece too dark or old-fashioned or whatever, but they were the first to jump to their feet when Jim and Heidi came downstage for their bows. Some were crying. I went and spoke to one of their chaperones (I could spot them from their bright red "MHS" varsity jackets). "Where are you from," I asked. "We're from Marion, Iowa," she said, "and we've brought about 150 band and chorus students, most of whom have never seen a professional theater production." I tentatively asked her their reaction, and she told me they all loved it.

I felt pretty great that MJD was the first show these kids saw and it really seemed to speak to them. But we were still left with the first act issue. The only solution seemed to be to cut a number of John's, a song that was one of the first ones we ever wrote for the show, and a real favorite, not just with us but the producers, as well. Nevertheless, everyone agreed they wanted to try cutting it, and we reluctantly said okay, expecting it to be terrible and so obviously necessary to the show that it would go right back in. Well, second preview came, minus the song, and we had to agree the act plays better without it. Ah well, another for the trunk.

That was a nice surprise; what wasn't such a nice surprise was:

Washington Post Article Number 2!

I'll let Eddie tell you about this one, truly a moment for the scrapbooks.

John in light

John in light, originally uploaded by sugarpaw.

Ann in light

Ann in light, originally uploaded by sugarpaw.

Bowin' the Vibe!

Bowin' the Vibe!, originally uploaded by sugarpaw.

Okay, first of all, flickr is super cool. Much better than Google's on-line galleries (sorry Alexander!).

This picture shows our vibe player showing Andrew a great effect he can get by bowing a vibe "key" with the bow of a string bass. It's used during "He Speaks to Me".

Just click the pic to see a slideshow from the Sitzprobe a while back.

Noir, anyone?

Ann's typewriter finds its light.

"Page Eight, At the Top!"

A touch of color

Tech: Day 1

This was just a first look at some of the very sexy lights they've brought in; I can't wait to see it when everything's cued!

Sitz is done!

Jamie, Eric, Jonathan and me— you can tell by our faces how it went!

Jonathan jams

At every break, Jonathan would sidle up to the piano and entertain the troops.

Jamie opens his toys

Jamie enjoying our terrific band.

The Sitz!

I’m sitting here at the sitzprobe for Meet John Doe. So much to say. First of all, we have the honor and luxury of having Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar-winner Jonathan Tunick orchestrating. The rehearsal is over in Virginia at the beautiful new Signature Theatre (our director Eric Schaeffer is artistic director there, of course) in the Shen Rehearsal room, named after Ted Shen, a very good friend of Signature’s and of Meet John Doe, so there’s a lot of love in the room!

10 players including Music Director Jamie Schmidt at the piano. The entire cast waiting to sing their tunes, sound dudes, music contractor, Andrew and Jonathan sitting together pouring over the scores editing a part here, correcting a note there. That’s the scene.

Observations throughout the day:

- Overture: hearing the trombone bust out with the “Lighthouses” theme to kick off the overture was tremendously exciting. And something I think is particularly neato is that two of the latest songs we wrote made the cut to be featured in the overture. Makes me think we’re writing strong songs late in the game…well, we better be! Guy Paul, who sings “Lighthouses”, perked right up when he heard his theme kick off the show.

- In the opening sequence, when Ann first sings, the brass really kicks in and tells us a lot about who this character is. Rockin’!

- Jonathan came over at one point and we talked a little bit about orchestrating. He said that he prides himself on reading the lyrics (Yeah, baby!), and that he does to the music what lighting does to the physical production; his orchestrations highlight, color and warm.

- “I Hope You Can See This” is glorious.

- “Perfect Days” there’s all this trombone in it that strikes me as very MALE (the song’s sung by John). I’m sure there’s all sorts of other fancy-dancy stuff going on that gives this song’s orchestration it’s particular flavor, but to my ear, it’s the ‘bone that puts the backbone in it.

- Wow! The orchestration on “Be More” is so hot my ears are blistering up! Honestly, the entire room just sat up straight in their seats and started bobbing their heads and tapping their feet and looking around at each other as if to say “Whoa, that’s what this number is all about!” And that’s one thing I’m getting from today, the orchestrations to a certain extent tell our ear “Hey! This is the kind of song this is! Get ready to [fill in emotion here]!” I’ll bet that when Andrew composes the song, he hears a fully expressed palette of sound in his head that a piano, though very expressive, cannot hope to get across entirely. Well we’re all hearing the score in Technicolor today!

- “Money Talks”: Here’s comedy, folks. After Joel’s line, “Syphilis”, a baritone saxophone kicks in with this ompha sort of thing. That’s some funny stuff right there.

- Hey, a lyricist does have something to do at the sitz! There was one little section of the beautifully orchestrated song “He Threw Me” that had a hot brass lick that covered the end of a rhymed line I couldn’t hear. I humbly approached the music table for some help there, and they just taceted those measures so the sung lines were completely in the clear. Yay!

- I never knew that brass could be so warm sounding. I always just think of them as big blasting horns, but they’re so versatile! Makes me want to study trumpet.

OK, I’m going to stop typing and just enjoy the rest of this coolness.

Bowing the Vibe!

Wedding Bells for a former Doe-Nut!

Congrats to Jed Cohen and his lovely bride Kate Dawson, who were married on Feb 25th!!! Way to go, Jed!!! Here's a great article in the NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/fashion/weddings/04VOWS.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Keeping it light

Tomorrow is our first orchestra rehearsal. As a musical theater composer, this would inevitably be one of the top thrills of the whole rehearsal process, if not my entire year. But when the orchestrations are by Jonathan Tunick, not only does it become potentially the highlight of my career, but given neurotic tendencies (as any theater professional worth his salt will admit to), it brings into focus a lot of what I've been struggling with during this process but have spackled over with Enthusiasm and Optimism and, most exhausting of all, Hope.

We've known that Ford's would be the Big One for a year now. All our developmental steps along the way, from a writers' retreat to a workshop to a student production to a workshop production, have been important, but there was always the thought in the back of my mind, "Well, if we don't get it perfect here, that's okay, we'll fix it next time," or "It's only a workshop, it doesn't have to make theater history." Not to diminish in any way the importance of all those stops --truly the piece would not be anywhere near its current level of polish had we skipped even one of them -- but as a writer, you do tend to cut yourself a little slack, especially when you sense some sections are not as perfect as you'd like.

At the Ford's however, that slack is no longer an option. We certainly hope that Meet John Doe will have a long, healthy life after this production, but with this business, there are no guarantees. What if this is the last time we ever see the show and this is our last chance to get it right? What if subsequent productions lack the budget to build towering multi-level sets with uplights sunk into the deck or to hire a ten-piece band? If we haven't done absolutely, no-excuses, 100% everything we can to make this show perfect this time around, we may not get a do-over. So with all the excitement and jubilation about this spectacular opportunity, there comes a strange weight as well, a sense of responsibility to ourselves and to the show, a timer running out that for me is omnipresent, providing a touch of anxiety running under all the thrills.

So as I go into the orchestra rehearsal tomorrow, I tell myself that if I don't allow myself to enjoy it, I will take myself out into the middle of the street and kick my own ass. But on top of that come the voices, wondering if I did everything I could to make the score fun, moving, layered, surprising, catchy, original, etc. etc. etc., not knowing the dynamics of an orchestra rehearsal with new orchestrations, with a conductor and an orchestrator and a composer all having things to say, trying to be at peace with the fact that in the end, I have little control left, not being a drummer/trumpeter/sax player/vibraphone player, and that I'm rapidly becoming an audience member.

On the writing side, even though our remaining tweaks are at the word-choice level, they still feel to us as life-and-death as cutting a whole number. Is that the nature of the beast? Have we lived for so long with that level of decision that it's become like oxygen and we must now inflate the most minor of concerns to maintain the familiar feeling that we're making important decisions? Probably. I don't know if all these thoughts are interesting or even constructive, whether a young(ish) composer with such a blessing as a major regional premiere is even entitled to anything less than constant ecstasy, but there you go.

The Artistic Director just walked into rehearsal for our first designer run-through. I'm probably more nervous than I will be on opening, even though our run two days ago was the best version of the show I've ever seen, hardly a moment where I wasn't giddy with seeing everything clicking as we've imagined it for so long. Maybe I just need to make the choice to relax and celebrate, and trust that that won't mean I've stopped being critical, or am giving up for the last 500 yards of the marathon.

I'll let you know how that goes.

The set with Lincoln's box

The set!

They've loaded in much of the main structure of the set, and it's really amazing. For a sense of just how big it is, bottom center of the picture is a person.

We're in!

The beautiful poster just went up outside the theater, so I guess it's really happening!

"The New American Times!"

Norton buys a paper. And renames it.

Awaiting instructions

Amy McWilliams, Michael Bunce, Patrick Ryan Sullivan and Heidi Blickenstaff

Ann sets things in motion

Heidi brandishes the fateful letter

Scene rehearsal

Music director Jamie Schmidt takes a well-deserved break

"Out!"

Beany escorts Ann out of the office

"The Mayor!"

Stephen Gregory Smith mans the switchboard

Connell juggles the phones

Guy Paul rehearsing his patter number

The letter hits the papers

Channez McQuay leads the ensemble in literacy

"ANN!"

Heidi sneaks up on Guy

A new stage

After doing a terrific stumble-through at the end of last week, Eric decided to use this week and into next week to start layering detail on our rough sketch. Yesterday and today were about Act I, fixing, redoing, and polishing, with great results. Of course, it ends up meaning that I need to write new underscoring and reprises where we find we need them, or when the old versions no longer fit the new staging. But that's pretty much what we're down to, at this point, since all the major numbers needed to be sent to Jonathan Tunick by the weekend.

On that note, the preliminary full scores keep arriving in the email, and if they sound half as hot as they look, watch out! I can't wait for Monday, our first orchestra reheasal. My last remaining assignments: underscoring for a bit of stage business in Act I, and sketching out the structure for the Entr'acte, Curtain Call and Exit Music (what the band plays as the audience is leaving). Though I'm sure as we go through Act II, we'll discover other things for me to do...

A light moment

Heidi and Jim doing something that's not in the script

Karma and Eric

...working their magic

Conference

Eric and Jim discuss something important. Possibly beer.

The Colonel shines it on

Joel Blum and his patented razzle-dazzle

"You're the fake. We believe in what we're doing."

Jim Moye and Patrick Ryan Sullivan get serious

Dance lesson

Karma shows Eddie a step or two

Doing the work

Yesterday was very intense for me. We finished blocking the show and ran the second act. During the morning (blocking sections of the middle and the end of the second act) we got to a section of the story where Ann, our leading lady, does something very naughty, downright despicable actually. Prior to yesterday, that action happened off-stage, so we needed to, in the next scene, use little tricks of dialogue and intention to let the audience know what had been done. This ultimately bothered us because it felt like exactly what we were doing, which is avoiding dealing with the issue as writers.

It's a very tricky moment though, balancing exactly how she comes to do this deed. As an audience, we HATE that she does it, but we understand why she does it and know that we very likely would do the same thing.

So Andrew and I had come up with this concept for what amounted to a dream sequence that showed images in Ann's head that, we thought, added up to an explanation of the emotions that drive her to do this thing (I know I'm being cryptic, but you gotta come see the show to really see what I'm talking about...) Andrew sketched out music and it looked very compelling on paper.

Then we all got into the room and it didn't feel right. I won't bore you with all the details of why, but I do want to share what happened next, which was rare in my experience. We all just stood around and talked it through: Andrew and I, Eric and Karma, our wonderful smart actors, we stood there in the rehearsal hall for an hour and just talked through what everyone was seeing and feeling at this moment in the show: what came before it, what comes after, who these people are, the theatrical tone that has been set, and on and on.

Now this may sound like what you'd expect to happen on the first day of rehearsal as we all sit around in our turtlenecks and sip Italian coffees, but not so much. These are the talks, I'm finding, that are impossible to schedule and can only come about when enough groundwork has been laid that the story's arc is hanging out there in the room for everyone to see. This is something that you just cannot see on the page or hear in a table read. This is theatre in 3 dimensions and I truly believe that that hour was the first time that I really understood what everyone means when they speak of theatre as the most collaborative of art forms.

Honestly, it was an excruciating hour for me. It's tough for me to look someone in the face and say "Nope, I don't agree with that and here's why." or to throw a bizarre image out into the group that I know I don't understand but that's been sticking in my head. It's the kind of hour that can only happen when a level of trust and respect has been built in the room upon which real dialogue and collaboration can occur. It was a wonderful, magical hour I will never forget.

Man, I hope we're not all wrong.

The Rise and Fall of a Fantasy Sequence

[OK, here's my version!]

This past week has been spent staging all(!) of Act II, culminating in a stumble-through yesterday afternoon. During the course of the staging, Eddie and I had the bright idea that we needed an opportunity, at Ann's moment of moral crisis, to see inside her head, in order to understand what she's going through and the painful choice she must make. So, like any good musical theater writers, we cooked up a fantasy sequence for her. It would be Bold! Theatrical! An Opportunity for Movement! Great for the band! I spent many hours sketching out cool re-arrangements of some of her songs to go along with her imagined exploits, and we came to rehearsal yesterday with an outline, a few pages of music, and big IDEAS.

Then we started to try to stage it. Questions of tone arose, the monster under the bed of every show I've ever worked on. How can we make this fantasy a) clear, so people don't ask "Is she really waltzing through the White House?" and b) fit with the style of the rest of the show? Some of the principals wandered over and got in on the discussion. What is she really going through? Isn't that information already laid out in the two previous scenes? Yes, say Eddie and I, but we need a minute to feel her reaction to the moment. But, says Eric, the minute she stops and thinks, we lose the momentum of the story. What if it's just a visual? Will it be enough?, say Eddie and I. By this time, we've used all the allotted rehearsal slot, and it's time to run the act.

Turns out everyone was right. The changes we've made in the scenes leading up to her moment tell us all we need to know about her reasoning, and all we need is a brief, underscored moment to see her making the fateful choice to understand how a human being who's not perfect, just like the rest of us, could do what she does.

Today we run the whole show (I can't believe it), and we'll really see how her track is holding together. More insights to come...

Golden pig!

In case you missed it, yesterday was the Chinese new year, specifically, the year of the Golden Pig, a year that comes around once every 600 years. Anything born in this auspicious year is guaranteed success, wealth, prosperity and health. Of course, with DC's Chinatown only three blocks from our apartments, several of us Doe nuts had to be in attendance to get some of that mojo for ourselves; for a little of your own, just click here for some photos I snapped!

Opening number

The cast rehearses our new opening number, "Yesterday's News".

The first one!

The last page of Jonathan Tunick's first completed orchestration ("Perfect Days").

Progress

Yesterday, I returned to rehearsals after being in NYC for a few days, and the amount of work everyone has been doing is truly amazing. We did an entire run-through of Act I, with the cast 90% off-book already. When did they have time to learn it all? It was very helpful for Eddie, Eric, Karma and me to see the flow of Act I and start thinking about big-picture questions like flow, pace, and tracking the clarity of story beats through the act. Questions that can't be answered in isolation, like "Do we want applause here, or do we want to push through and leave everyone breathless?", were suddenly a lot clearer.

I was also able to send four more songs off to Jonathan Tunick; he was clamoring for more, as he's already finished the first six numbers I gave him last week! I'm finding it a real balancing act, needing to wait until numbers are staged and I've had a chance to adjust them to fit this production, but also needing to get them to Jonathan to orchestrate and then send on to the copyist to get back in time for our first orchestra rehearsal, two weeks from Monday!

We also had our first production meeting since we started, where the heads of all the departments (sets, lights, costumes, props, stage management, music, sound, etc.) meet to discuss any questions and problems that have come up as they've started working. Sample topics: is the giant map of the U.S. we need for Act II too big to get up onto the second story of the set? ( No, with adjustments.) Will the terrific carved wooden desk they found for Norton fit onto the moving pallet? (No, keep looking.) Which way do the doors open? (Upstage.) Do the period cameras have to have working flahses? (Yes.) Do the phones really need to ring? (Yes, but only three of them.) How many copies of the "New American Times" do we need, and what should be on the front page? (Fourteen, with backups; it doesn't matter.) When will we record the radio jingle with the band and singers? (A few days before the first preview.)

I always feel a little guilty: all I have to do is sit at my computer and type "John is blinded by a sea of FLASHBULBS", or "A jazzy jingle plays on the RADIO"; other people have to do the real work of making it happen!

Sold Out!!

Got your attention, right? I actually have no idea how ticket sales are, but that was fun to write.

Andrew and I were in NYC yesterday attending the Larson Award luncheon at the swanky 21 Club. We had the wonderful Mark Sanders lined up to sing "Perfect Days" from the score (the previous year's winners present songs as entertainment for the event), but he got stuck in Florida. So a TERRIFIED Andrew pulled a major Billy Joel and played and sung the song WONDERFULLY. Our table of donors and upper-crusters applauded wildly.

Yay Andrew!

Rolling right along

Things are rolling right along here at MJD rehearsals. 24 more pages to block till we're through Act 1, whoo-hoo! There seems to be a little bit of a bug working its way through the cast, but everyone is struggling on and Evan got his voice back!

Yesterday, Heidi and Eric sang and blocked through one of Ann's new songs "I Hope You Can See This" causing ensemble member Channez McQuay to burst into tears: Mission Accomplished!

It's been fascinating to watch Eric and Karma work together. Peas and Carrots as Forrest would say. If I told you all their secrets, they'd come after me, but let's just say layer after layer after layer. Great stuff happening.

In other news, the score now has its first imperfect rhyme. Listen closely for it. First audience member to tell me what it is gets a free Snickers bar! Seriously. It's in the first act.

VIDEO - Heidi B's Breakfast

Heidi B (Ann Mitchell) discussing her breakfast before rehearsal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEVkFV5opcs

Staging!

It's only day four of rehearsal, day one-and-a-half of staging, and we're already putting the second brand-new ensemble number on its feet. The new opening number, "Yesterday's News", Eric and Karma breezed through yesterday, with, remarkably, only one musical change requested, a terrific 2-bar cut. Now they're working on "Fast Talking", a relentless patter song for Guy Paul, who plays editor Richard Connell, who juggles multiple phones as the ensemble performs intricate newspaper-ography while echoing his patter. Eric asked me for a new ending, which I wrote downstairs in my "office", the church nursery, seated between a crib and a small wooden stove. We're about to teach it; we'll see if sounds like I hope it does!

Eric Schaeffer and choreographer Karma Camp in front of the costume wall

Heidi Blickenstaff (Ann Mitchell)

Orchestrator Jonathan Tunick and director Eric Schaeffer

Joel Blum (The Colonel)

Cast member Eleasha Gamble and her hat

Andrew plays for the read/sing-through

Eddie enjoys the catering

Jim Moye (John Doe), Heidi Blickenstaff (Ann Mitchell), and Guy Paul (Richard Connell) acting up a storm, to costume designer Alejo Vietti's enjoyment.

Andrew and Eric, with Eddie and company in the mirror

Tony-nominated set designer Derek McLane and our model

Eric with Ford's Artistic Director Paul Tetreault

Director Eric Schaeffer and sound designer David Budries