Notes Fom BACKSTAGE Parents

Notes from 5/20 dress rehearsal

I realize that this email is mostly reaching the parents of the back stage team. If possible, please share it with your kids before they leave for opening night of Into The Woods.

I do not want anyone to get disheartened by the following list, nor to take any item personally. It is the nature of the beast that rehearsal notes that are a list of "things gone wrong". When you think of the complexity of what we are achieving together many other things have gone right, we just don't talk about those things at this stage in the production. This list is to help us tighten up as a team and improve the audience experience. Thank you for all of your hard work on our production.

1. At times crew and cast have to hustle back stage. Hustling never means running. Running with all of the encumbrances back stage (including fellow cast and crew members) results in collisions and causes injuries. We need to make sure that everyone is reminded of this during circle up.
2. Cast with stage right entrances and exits need to be reminded how badly visible they are in this theatre. The are to be encouraged to wait in the upstage right wing, or just back stage for their entrances, and to walk back stage ASAP after exiting. This might require great team work for some scenes where the cast wait in single file in order of appearance in order to allow exiting cast room to leave. We need to make sure that everyone is reminded of this during circle up.
3. At times items were stored in the back corridor in such a way that they blocked the corridor. Remember that this corridor is part of the emergency exit system for the facility. We can store things there but we need to maintain a wide path to allow a lot of people to leave quickly in an emergency. We can only place things along one wall and we must never “double park” items nor block any doors in the corridor. Similarly we can never block the main backstage door, or access to the door.
4. We need more black drapes to hide the tall cabinet stage left. This was still visible from the audience.
5. Something went wrong opening the grand drapes A1S1. The drape did not open all of the way stage right. We may need a crew member to spot this and free it if it does not open all of the way.
6. Rupunzel’s tower got hung up on the legs coming off the first time. We need a parent to ensure that the legs are cleared by the exiting pieces.
7. Jack’s house was late on (P49). We need to make sure that it is pre positioned and starts moving with the Baker’s exit. Start moving on the Baker’s line “Thank you”
8. We missed putting the rope on the cow at P54 per these notes, see below. This meant that we could not pull the cow off and the cast had to push it off. Given that the cast is supposed to be reacting to the cow leaving without them this looked odd.
9. The cow’s stomach got lost during the dress rehearsal. We are making it a back stage responsibility to find a home for this stage right and to attach before the cow goes on P96. Kristen could you assign this please?
10. The fog barrel will be positioned in a different position for performances than for this dress rehearsal. The new position is behind the scrim and has been spiked. We will need to make sure that we get the houses well out of the way before we bring the barrel out. We need to leave room for Cinder's house to be pre-positioned during all of this activity. (It goes on immediately after the witch/fog scene). We will need to feed (a new longer) hose through under the scrim. The timing of the fog will be a 3 person job. Anna and Kristen are familiar with this. They need to dragoon a new helper (Eric)?
11. We missed the cue to get Cinder’s house off P104. The note below is correct. When Cinder’s Mom sings the line “FIT TO ATTEND A PRINCE”.
12. We have changed how the Beanstalk works. Kristen has been shown this. August has not yet. This change should allow us to raise it more quickly.
13. The Beanstalk was late on. The cast have been told to watch for it coming on and give the crew space. We need to be more assertive in getting it on.
14. We forgot to take Milky White off during 2^nd act. She was highly visible to audience in stage right wing. She is not needed for the entire act and should be dismissed accordingly.
15. We forgot to take Cinder’s Mom’s tree out for the 2^nd act. In fact we left it on stage :-(.
16. The limb is heavier and slower moving than we expected / planned for. We need to start moving it on stage at the start of Cinder’s song and not at its second stanza
17. For the same reason it we need to get it off stage faster. One of the crew to stay hidden behind the limb through the scene and one other to wait stage right so that we can get it moving faster upon the cue.
18. The limb can steer from the “ladder” end. The crew that are handling it may want to practice more steering it around.