Town Mouse, Country Mouse

We begin rehearsals for Town Mouse, Country Mouse on Monday, with our director, Roderick. We worked with him for A Christmas Carol not three months ago, and we are excited to have him back.

Jen, our director for Tom Sawyer: An Original Musical is wonderful and fun, very open to suggestions and enthusiastic about getting as much of "the funny" as possible out of every joke. Because of her excellent guidance, our dress rehearsal for the staff of TCTC went very well on Thursday--so well, in fact, that rehearsals were called off for Friday, due to lack of needing them. It is a testament to Jen's directing capabilities and a compliment to us actors, and we all enjoyed our separate days off yesterday (probably sleeping in and catching up on TV...and memorizing lines for the next show, of course).

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The break is a welcome one. This three-day weekend is a luxury we rarely enjoy in the thick of a touring season, as is the convenience of working always close to home. It is a grind still, but a lesser grind, a loosened tie, a release of pressure.

It seems, too, that this last leg of the season will be a light one, in terms of our set. The last time we toured two shows simultaneously (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and An Algonquin Cinderella) was back in the fall, and the van was unbelievably packed. So, also, with A Christmas Carol, a show whose set pieces were much larger than any others we've transported. The set for Tom Sawyer uses the same amount of space as did the Coretta Scott King set, though prop-wise it is more advanced: two standing gravestones that can be disassembled and stacked, a white picket fence piece that folds in the middle but is still about a yard square, a large wooden bench, and a slew of props and costumes.

From what we've seen so far, the TM, CM set will be similarly small. Two blocks from Cinderella have been repainted and can be turned upside-down to serve as containers. What will go in them, though, has yet to be seen.

And we won't find out until next week. For now, there are hours of scripts and words, and plenty of imaginings. Everything solidifies on Monday.