in the heights

during this entire caesar process, a part of my heart has been in new york, with so many of my friends, rehearsing and opening the BROADWAY show, 'in the heights!'

8 or so years ago, johnny mailer and i watched a one-act performance of 'in the heights' at wesleyan, written by lin-manuel miranda. he was a KID at the time. a prodigy, yes, but a kid! after we started back house in new york, we invited him to come workshop the show with us, and he accepted. tommy kail, who started the company with me, really identified with the project and dedicated his considerable brain to the effort. what followed were years of readings, presentations, and workshops, 30+ new songs, most gone shortly after they came, and a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears from many people to keep the train going forward.

fast forward to today, it's in previews on broadway, opening officially next month. it's unreal. tommy is the director, lin, of course, is still the composer and now the star, and so many more of my friends are involved intimately in the show- in the cast, or doing arrangements, etc... i am no longer officially involved (not for about 3 years now), but my heart and tear ducts are as twisted up in that beautiful play as anything else in my life.

'yahoo! broadway' has two really fun short documentaries about the show now. you can see a lot of tommy and lin, and hear some music from the show. it's so exciting, i can't get over it.

www.broadway.yahoo.com, follow links for 'in the heights.'

sea of screens

the show's going great- still have the general ratio of two people who love the play to one who didn't like it or "doesn't get it."

our director left today, so it will be interesting to see if the play changes now that everyone knows he's not watching.

next week i'm looking forward to a ten AM student matinee! yay, audience of kids! we had a high school group filling half the house earlier this week and our stage manager said the view from the booth was breathtaking: a sea of cell phone screens as they text-messaged away during the show! i love it.

there are some fun pics of the production up at amrep.org/caesar.

review

there's a HUGE review in the boston globe today- finds the production pretty but that it overshadows the text itself- but more exciting to me (because i like simple pleasures) is the series of pictures- including one of the conspirators converging on caesar, including yours truly.

if this link doesn't work, search the terms "boston globe" "julius caesar" and "wrath" in google.

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/02/15/the_wrath_pack?p1=email_to_a_friend

opened!

the show opened last night and boy are my arms tired. it's been a long, wacky month+ of rehearsals and it will be an equally long and wacky run of performances. the show is three hours and change, but it is terribly fun to do.

there's been some fun press about the show so far, and there are some pics up on the website, amrep.org/caesar. if you search 'boston globe' and 'julius caesar' you can read a fairly tame teaser article about the show. i'm looking forward to reviews, because if they are anything like the audience response, they will be widely mixed.

fake public service announcement

in tonight's post we harken back to the spring of '07.

i'll grant that my last production while studying at a.r.t., killing game, was a bit of a mess, thanks to some seriously out of control class drama that went down. (hey, it IS called drama school.)

the best thing about the production was the fake public service announcements that a few classmates and i made with the sound designer. they played in the house as people arrived to watch the play.

below find a link to the announcements: the one to listen to is the fully compiled psa, at the top of the list, labeled "psa 052907." it is a little repetitive, as it was meant to be heard in bursts, between smatches of conversation, etc... as people arrived in the theatre. in fact, it looped three times before our show.

i voice all the guys, and it is a little long, but play it as background while you check your email or something, and i think you will slowly find yourself more than a little disquieted! i think it's lots of fun.

http://www.blaseur.com/killgame/