The Oe4K blog

We have some new song clips and production photos on the website. Click away.


More photos will be put up this weekend.

DF

I promised that I'd be candid in this blog, and admit the bad stuff in addition to the shilling over the good stuff, because how can you track a new production with just the good? And so, I'll now say something negative...

Um... the production costs more than one imagines an "Oedipus for Kids!" should cost. No more $1.50 Path Train to work. From now, on, it's swimming across the Hudson.

Also, I'll say that we've cut some of my favorite lines, so I'll put some here for you:

                               LAURA
       Oh come on.  Have you taken a look around?  This is like the
       second crappiest theatre I have ever worked in.  The Hoboken
       Public Library was better!  The stage lighting is way...
                     (looks out towards house)
       Waaaaay out in the house.  And not even a self respecting
       community theatre would use that board.  Is it even
       programmable--

                              GAVIN
       But look at all the great technology we have.

                              LAURA
       Like what?

                              The disco ball lights up and revolves.

                              GAVIN
       We have a disco ball!

                              REED
                     (confused)
       Agh!  Everything got shiny!

It was a scene that had to go much, much faster, so we got rid of this bit. The reason I liked it is that it's one of the three or so in-jokes in the show. This entire bit is pretty much a verbatim e-mail from one of our team members after his/her first visit to the theatre that NYMF booked us in.

The Sage's disco ball that would have been used in this scene (and may still be used for the Oracle number) is the "smaller one" pictured to the right, but we were also consideing trying to make use of the "larger one". I don't have a picture, but because the Sage used to be a Strip Joint it has this other, really huge, heavy, mammoth, almost-as-tall-as-you-are Disco Ball left over from its glory days. Apparently the reason it's there has nothing to do with sentimentality; when they sealed off the space, the case became that the stairs down and the doorway out were just too small to fit this giant disco ball. And so, it's been left backstage ever since.

and what Jessica has done is hilarious. For the opening number, which came off as an absurd version of a children's "happiness" song before, it's now ten levels more absurd. We've got people waddling around and throwing giant plush ducks around and I can't really explain it without these two quotes:

• "No, you throw the duck high, and I throw this duck low! Get it right!"
• "You see, during this part, you're holding a duck, so you don't have to walk like one."

I love watching people attempt to figure out the logic to children's theatre...

We also did the photo shoot tonight. The pictures are hilarious. Will post as soon as Bobby's done doing his editing magic.

Because we have such great actors, we've been finding ourselves removing lines every so often. Best example is where actor 1 says something, and actor 2 could really just respond with a look rather than having to say anything at all. Often it's funnier with just a look.

Each time one of these moments is found, Dan turns to us (me/Kim/Bobby) and asks, "so can we cut that line?" And then in a straight, teeth-gritted face, I keep saying "NO."

For some reason, people laugh at it every time... I guess you gotta kinda be there...

And then, I found five dollars!

And I quote:
We had a little insect "situation" in the middle of rehearsal when we started to move stuff around. I found a wayward can of RAID in the boiler room and took care of business, but I'm going to try and have someone from the facility call the exterminator. FUN. I guess that's what you get when you are assigned a theatre that used to be a house of pornography.

I would like to clarify on that remark. The Sage used to be a strip club, not a house of pornography. Strip clubs don't show movies.