The Greek Play

In a week we’ll have seen our first auditioners! It is getting increasingly hard to concentrate on anything besides the play, and we’re not even close to rehearsing yet.

More great crew news: Olivia Vescovo has agreed to stage manage, and Raquel Cruz is pulling together a design team for the set. Brandi Bowling, from the Cloud Chorus, is leading off the Groupie Crew until she graduates, when she’ll leave it in the good hands of Brandon Morgan, Caleb Moxley, and Ashley Haugh (also a Cloud!).

Melissa showed us some great first drawings of the costumes (purples, browns, and greens . . .), and I think there’s going to be some actual spring sewing after dance concert finishes up.

Look for strange activity in the dining hall this week as we encourage people to try out.

And let me know what you would like to see posted here. What should I blog about?

Cast coming soon . . .

Two copies of Elektra are now on reserve for those who want to prepare for auditions and don’t have a copy of the play.

I’m pleased to announce that Sarah Blane has agreed to be our Choreographer and that Melissa Gibson, finding out that we have ridiculously early auditions, will be our Costume Designer (even though she’s going to Reading!). Please welcome them aboard when you see them.

They join Lauren Reding (assistant director); Johna Strickland and Natalie Fort (producers), Dariana Fitzgerald (master carpenter); Naomi Fritts, Brittany Stallings, and Verity Ste. Marie (mask masters); and Ashley Haugh (chief groupie). The rest of the crew, creative and technical, are forming right now.

I seem to have a *remarkably* long to-do list for 7 months before the play, but that always seems to be the way of things. I’ll do the new Melpomene update tonight, and the script will be in the library tomorrow (thank you, typing fairies).

I met a great prospective today (hey, Elizabeth!), who’s definitely coming, and I suspect we’ll see her at first-year auditions on September 1.

Which reminds me: one request I had today was a list of *hard* dates. So here they are:

• April 13, 14 (4:30)–general auditions
• April 15–cast list, sign up for mask and costume fittings
• April 15 to May 15–as much mask and costume construction as possible
• April 27–cast and crew cookout
• Summer–learn lines, lyrics, as much mask, costume, and set construction as possible
• August 25 to 31–3 Actors rehearse during orientation
• September 1–first-year and latecomer auditions
• September 2–first readthrough and cast and crew dinner
• September 3 to October 9–regular rehearsals
• October 10, 11, 12 (4pm)–performances

I hope that helps.

Off to hear about Thracian horses.

Auditions are four weeks from Sunday, and I’ll try to start keeping you updated on our progress on this blog. Today was happy in a video way: I put a DVD of the Clouds on reserve in Lipscomb Library, and we’re on YouTube.