Rehearsals are moving along with the Main Street Theater production of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon).  In the first week, we have managed to block the entire show and are working through each act to find the relationships and the overall arc of the character development.  Actors are off book for one act and learning their lines for the second. The ladies are beginning to work in corsets and a pregnancy pad, and the men in their boots. Having accomplished so much, the pictures I snapped on a break may seem deceptively relaxed, but they’ve earned every ten-minute break believe me.

Tuesday, October 24th, 2017, we added two new faces to our number. SHSU students Adonis and Sara are interning with us for this show and will be costumed as servants to facilitate changes.  So, we went back and blocked the transition intermezzos between scenes, where we need to move furniture, establish a change of time or retrieve props before the next scene.

That same day, we were surprised to see that parts of the set had been delivered and were being installed.  Once the palladium windows and built-in bookcases are in place, it will start to look really impressive. Still working on our ‘do-fer’ furniture for the moment. If you are not familiar with this highly technical theater term, it means ‘it will do for now’.

Thursday, we have a stumble through for the designers to make notes for set changes, lighting and music cues, and to track props. Unfortunately, one of my very busy actors has a conflict and will be out, so my stage manager will undoubtedly walk the blocking and read in the lines. This makes giving acting notes difficult.  But the next night, two actors are missing and we are relegated to the rehearsal room in the annex, so I should not complain.

Out of this chaos, it will all come together beautifully. As the Geoffrey Rush character says in Shakespeare in Love, “It’s the magic of the theater.”