The vultures are circling.

There has been a lot of media attention regarding Matthew's death. All of it has been really tasteful and well-done so far, but a lot of the reporters themselves have been really insensitive regarding the fact that our friend, our boss, and the director of this show just died. Stuff like they want to come film our dress rehearsals (which they can't legally do anyway) and want to talk to the kids about Matthew and want to schedule times to come talk to people with no regard for the fact that we are not only mourning, we are also scrambling to pick up the slack on top of normal summer-stock tech week and we don't really care what time is best for you to come talk to us. Also, a group of people who worked with Matthew on a community theatre show wanted to come to the theatre to grieve in our lobby before a show. I know that he was loved by the community and impacted a lot of people, but we still have a show to do- not only would a group of people crying in the lobby be terrible for the other patrons, it would also be so saddening for us who are trying to keep working without breaking down in tears.

We made it through tech last night, with Brice & Erika, the two artistic associates, running it. It went really smoothly, which was a pleasant surprise for everyone. If we can make it through this tech process, we'll be ok.

The show must go on.

Matthew Trombetta, the Managing Artistic Director here at Weathervane, passed away at 3:30am today following a head-on collision with a drunk driver, on his way home from the My Fair Lady strike.

He was the heart and soul of Weathervane, and he had such an impact on so many people. I've only worked with him for 4 weeks, and I already cannot imagine what my career is going to be like without him in it.

We start tech for Miracle Worker tomorrow. He directed the show, so this is going to be an absolutely heartbreaking process. This theatre was his life's work, though, and I know from the brief time that I was able to work with him that cancelling anything is the opposite of what he would want.

Here's the story in the Columbus Dispatch. There was a nice piece on the local news as well.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/06/15/troupe-mourns-loss-of-artistic-director.html

Kansas! Also, blind kids!

So tech at Weathervane is NUTS. We have 3 days of tech- one day of spacing, scene changes, etc. (it's the first rehearsal on the actual stage) and then 2 days of dress rehearsal.

The thing about My Fair Lady that made this whole process even more intense is that because of the renovation, our second dress rehearsal was also the grand-opening-ribbon-cutting-gala-ceremony-extravaganza with like 250 donors, season ticket holders, etc. Too bad we didn't make it all the way through the end of the show in the first dress! Wahoo!

So for the gala, they got everything ready and all fancy and made a bunch of speeches that we didn't hear because we were rehearsing, and we start the show, and halfway through the Overture we hear a siren outside, and then the Artistic Director yelling "HOLD! HOLD! HOLD!" There was a tornado warning (watch? warning? whichever one is the one where there's actually a tornado). So the actors are all in the dressing rooms, and the audience is chillin in the seats for about 10 minutes. One of our donors is the county fire marshall, so he had his radio and was getting all of the updates on the situation, which quickly progressed to a tornado moving in our general direction, so we evacuated everyone into the Children's Theatre, which is the safer building- no windows, lower ceiling, etc. So then we had about 300 people in the Children's Theatre, which isn't completely finished being constructed yet, so the crew was frantically carrying in chairs for the old people (most of the audience was old) and flashlights in case we lost power and it was a MADHOUSE. At one point the Artistic Director started serving cake from the gala, and then the cast was singing to try and keep people from panicking. All of the crew and the theatre staff were remarkably calm and composed during the whole ordeal, thank God.

My SM & I decided that if the theatre is actually hit by a tornado, at any point in the summer, really, we will be getting matching tornado tattoos. We thought we were all going to get blown away, the weather was absolutely terrifying outside! Also, wouldn't it just be beautiful irony for the brand-new building to get blown away by a tornado during the ribbon-cutting ceremony?

Anyway, we finally got to resume the show, we got started around 9:15. A lot of the audience left, understandably, but we had a fairly large number who stayed all the way through. And when I say all the way through, I mean we skipped large sections of the show that we had run in the first dress so that we could make it through the end of the show before midnight, which we barely achieved. The result of all of this was that we opened the show without ever running it from start to finish on the stage in one sitting.

We opened last night, and it actually went very well, considering. The other crazy thing is that the first day of performance for one show is simultaneously the first day of rehearsal for the next one, so we rehearsed Miracle Worker from 10:00-5:00 and then went to open My Fair Lady.

Miracle Worker is one of my favorite plays, I really like it. I wish I could see it performed in Tuscumbia, they do it every summer in Helen Keller's actual house. The character of James is such a great part, the actor who's playing it is doing a fantastic job. I really just think James is so funny, poor guy.

We have two girls playing Helen- the main Helen and then her understudy. Her understudy is one of those obnoxious Broadway babies. Also a very bossy child. Helen is fantastic, though. We played a lot of blindfolded games with the kids and the girl playing Annie, which of course resulted in us being groped by blindfolded 10-year-old girls, because they put their arms straight out and up, which is right at boob height. Classy.

We're rehearsing at a Lutheran church in downtown Newark right now- no more rehearsal in the abandoned elementary school/architectural firm gym! The irony of this situation is that the church also houses the Licking County Center for the Visually Impaired. We share a wall with them, and can hear them on the phone all the time. It's a little uncomfortable, actually.