Tuesday, March 20, 2007

"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.

5 comments:

Eddie Sugarman said...

How can you hate that line, Kara. It's a baked potato reference!

Infidel said...

I was at the show tonight and it was fantastic; great acting, catchy yet meaningful songs and an excellent story.

Hope you can bring this to Columbus, Ohio soon.

Eddie Sugarman said...

Thanks, "Foreigner"! We actually had a staged-reading of Meet John Doe last February at the excellent Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, Ohio. Be sure to check out their shows.

Infidel said...

Akron's a bit far, but I'll be on the lookout for other shows like yours.

Any plans for a CD? I got three of the songs from the downloads page but the others were good too.

DCTRpodcaster said...

Hi Eddie and Andrew!

Congrats on opening night! Thanks for podcasting with me and Lorraine from DCTR! I had a great time. Your fans can hear the podcast at www.dctheatrereviews.com by clicking on "PODCASTS" on the left side buttons OR by clicking on the Meet John Doe picture on our homepage, located in the middle of the top line of pictures.

Best of luck! Joel Markowitz