Buffalo men DO go all the way!

My apologies to my readers, this week has been insane. As I mentioned before I am the Assistant Director of The Full Monty that opened last night. Tech week (also known as Hell Week in theatre lingo) started Sunday, August 27th and continued until we opened. That meant a LOT of loooooong nights for the crew and actors. Most nights the rehearsals went until the wee hours of the morning. So I had to put my blog aside in order to remain functional at work.

Last night was sooooo stressful to me. In addition to the stress of opening- you're never sure if your audience is going to see the same show you've been seeing these past two months.- we had some major technical hurdles.Our poor Master Carpenter had a tough time. He is 17 and started out wanting to assist with our sets. But no one else volunteered to assist him so he was promoted. We were kind of disappointed that some of our former guys didn't help him. But we had to carry on with what we had.... well this poor kid started school this week and only had about 4 hours a day to get these set's built. Needless to say last night we made do without some of the things we wanted but what WAS built looked awesome!

To add to the stress, our Lighting Designer was also the Stage manager and he was pushed to get the lights done...so the light board operator and follow spot crew didn't get a rehearsal before opening. So last night we did have some technical issues- but the crew was AMAZING and really worked their asses off!!! AND the audience fell in love with our actors who didn't let the technical issues stop them from giving their all.. .

In fact.. the audience GAVE OUR GUYS A STANDING OVATION at the end of the night!!! It was sooo heartwarming it gave me tears in my eyes. I am sooo proud of my actors!!! Not only are they doing material that hasn't been seen in Sacramento before (unless you count the Broadway Tour)..but the 6 leads are average looking guys (although they are cute as hell) STRIPPING in front of a live audience!!! That alone takes (pardon the pun) balls!!
Congrats to my cast.... they deserved every laugh, applause, and heartfelt moment their audience gave them. They especially deserved the standing ovation!!
I am off to go pass out into a COMA....