One Week To Go
Second, we have some more press. Bobby was interviewed for the Sun and that article should be coming out soon. I'm told that AM New York, that wonderful trusty commuter newspaper, picked us as one of their top 5 NYMF shows. I haven't seen this and can't find the online version, here's the PDF. It's by Playbill.com's/AMNY's Matt Windman, page 18 in today's paper under "The Little Theater Fest that Could", and we're "#4". Also, flavorpill called us "conceptually promising"! Woooooo! CONCEPTUALLY PROMISING! Oh, this is the quote I've waited my whole life for!
Business aside, today marks the one-week-left mark for the opening night of Oe4k. As per normal, one week before opening night is when that feeling of self-doubt seeps in. For the director, the composer, the two writers, the stage manager, choreographer, the three actors and the rest, we do think this play is going to be funny and that the audience will enjoy it. But seriously, who knows? It's comedy, and sometimes comedy just falls flat. It may be funny to the dozen or so of us, but there's every possibility that as soon as the audience comes in it will feel less like general comedy and more like private jokes that "you had to be there" for. Maybe the one-liners don't hit right. You never know. No matter how much faith you have in your projects, you have to be aware that it may not work out 100%.
Just yesterday, as I was leaving the theatre, we ran into a bunch of guys from one of the other big NYMF shows. I won't name names as I'm going to see this particular show and I'm very much looking forward to it. But it was from one of the NYMF shows that seemed like it has a big team behind it and a lot of support. I overheard the story that this large musical got into NYMF and they weren't anywhere near ready for a stage production, nor did they really have any idea how some of the songs could even be staged, so they really had to scramble to get it together. And I thought to myself, wow, even the shows that 2 months ago seemed so far ahead of us were scrambling.
I spoke to a friend of a friend who's in another NYMF musical, and as of Saturday they apparently weren't even ready for a runthrough.
And that's the New York Musical Theatre Festival for ya. Even more insane than Fringe. Everybody scrambling to get a musical together in one to two months. Script changes, rewrites, new ideas at the eleventh hour. And shows are selling out besides ours, and extensions are being doled out slowly, but at the end of the day...At the end of the day, all that matters is that yesterday, in a quiet rehearsal room, there's one prize moment in the script where Reed Prescott takes off his shirt and it got the entire room cracking up. And it's moments like those you think, we're doing something right.
I promise I'll even out the score for us straight males, and for my two lesbian friends with my next show, Visible Areola: The Musical!
Oedipus for Kids! plays as part of the