The Oe4K blog

As I write this blog entry, I'm on the way back to Hoboken in a bus. Have you even taken a bus to Hoboken? It's like a city bus, with an exit in the back, and you always feel like the bus is going to stop, open up its back exit, and let people off at the halfway mark inside of the Lincoln Tunnel.

Rehearsal today went great. We at first intended a run-through, but when we realized how much musical underscoring needed detailing we decided to do a walk-through. Got to see some of the stuff that I'd just never seen before... a Greek Dance Break where they get drunk and begin to brawl, the end of "My Lover is my Husband is my Son", and the very end of the play which just seems to get funnier every time we up the ante. By the time the show goes up on its feet, I'm going to have to repent for a nice chunk of sins.

What else is there to say? We open up in three days. There's still things to clean, dancing that needs tightening, possibly a line to cut here and there, maybe places that could use underscoring that never occurred to us, and possibly some edits in comedic timing. It's hard to remember that this is why it's only NYMF. And yet you want to treat it like it's a full opening of a show that has a run, because when you rehearse and spend that much time in it, you really want everything to be perfect.

But honestly, how often in theatre do you say to yourself, "yes, we've had too much time to rehearse. Let's go on vacation and come back opening night".

Everybody's working incredibly hard, and just for the joy of theatre. It's good that even with three days left, even on no sleep and getting sick one by one, we're still laughing. We're still having fun with the piece, we're still finding new moments and new places and God, does this cast make me laugh. Each time I see them go through it, they find a new way to make me laugh. They've really taken the text and songs and brought these characters to life, and make them frickin' hilarious. I don't imagine we could have a better group for a show like this. The egos pretty much left on day one. I haven't seen this much teamwork in awhile, and its refreshing.

I want to give a special shout-out to Jinay Reitze, our superb stage manager and a great friend, without whom this show would have never gotten up and running. The work she does is well beyond the job of stage manager, and I've never seen anybody work harder than Jinay does.

Only three days left. And once everybody comes, this may be the most hysterical thing, or this may fall flat on its face. But I think I can speak for everybody by saying that we're proud of what we're putting out there. And I can at least speak for myself when I say that I hope you like it.

On Tuesday, NYMF held its first Virgin Megastore concert at Times Square. The audience was staggering... pretty much consisting of people involved with each of the shows that were performing. That is until each show performed, at which that show's group seemed to rush out of there ASAP. But here's BroadwayWorld's pictures...




Onto final run-throughs!

Finally:

• Saturday 9/16 @ 4:30
• Friday 9/22 @ 11

First off, if you're having trouble getting to the extended performances, try again later. Not worth going into the details, but the new performances should be available for purchase today or tomorrow.

Second off, a little writeup in this week's Time Out New York:

NYMF errant
The New York Musical Theatre Festival goes in strange directions.
By Adam Feldman

Musicals just ain't what they used to be--and the 30 shows featured in this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) testify to the expanding range of the genre. Many do hew to the tried and true: a Shakespeare adaptation, a teenybopper romance. But others tackle subjects that defy expectations in potentially funny ways, hopefully demonstrating that musicals needn't just be what they were.

Keeping an eye out
Children are the victims, not the predators, in Oedipus for Kids!, which twistedly imagines a children's-theater troupe's misguided efforts to foist Sophocles' incest tragedy on unsuspecting tykes. (Among the company's previous efforts: Titus Andronicus Bakes a Cake.) "What you're watching is a real-time presentation," says librettist Gil Varod, who co-wrote the book with Kimberly Patterson (to music by Robert J. Saferstein). "The conceit is that the audience members are the kids and their mommies and daddies." But when the actors rebel against their artistic director's vision, things get blindingly ugly. "The play goes down a Charybdis-like whirlpool of suck," Varod notes. "It gets to the point where it's just tasteless--which you don't find in enough musicals these days."

Our new added dates:

• Saturday 9/16 @ 4:30
• Friday 9/22 @ 11

Don't bring grandma.

(My own grandmother is coming. Should I be worried?)

Wow!!! VISIBLE AREOLA: THE MUSICAL!!! I can't wait to start rehearsals on that one. (Although, my areola's are pretty visible already. Well, that's typecasting for ya!!) I just hope that VA:TM has an ensemble to back me up!! Cuz man, I am exhausted!!!

But it’s a good exhaustion. Overall, I am having a blast with Oe4K. But I don’t think I have worked this hard in my life. There's just the three of us (Gavin, Laura and myself) doing the work of what feels like thousands up there on that stage. There are times I'd trade one of my more treasured body parts for a "Dream Oeddy."

I have been trying to think of the last time I have been involved in the creation of a musical from the ground up; and that was almost 6 years ago with BARE in Los Angeles (technically it was 8 years ago since the initial concept recording of that show). But BARE had a cast of 18, and it's not a comedy -- so the structure seemed to be pretty solid. And BARE was almost entirely sung thru, so there wasn't a lot of rewriting jokes, one-liners, and just plain ol' conversations to keep a steady flow going. The music did that job.

But back to the show at hand... Gil has asked each of us to participate in a blog entry. And I can't think of a better time to actually write one than, oh, say, a week before we open – when all of us are exhausted, worn-down, frustrated (at times), doing our best to stay healthy, and trying to put the finesse into the vocals, choreography and the jokes.

However, that being said, I think we are in pretty good shape. Last Saturday - a whole 10 days before we open - we were able to do a complete (yet rough) run-thru of the show. I can't think of the last time I was involved in a production of any musical where we were ready to do a run-thru that far in advance. This proved to be extremely helpful as we got to feel how much running around we really are doing. It also seemed to be helpful to the director and writers, as big chunks were cut after seeing it all in context and on its feet (which means slightly less running around, and the addition of my half-nakedness.)

This whole creative experience has been incredibly valuable. As per the request of our director, Dan Fields, I rented the movie MOON OVER BROADWAY which documents the creation of the comedy MOON OVER BUFFALO. Man, compared to that, we have it good!!!

So, tell all your friends to buy tickets to OEDIUPS FOR KIDS!... Huh?.. What did you say??... Oh yeah!!! You can't, cuz we're all sold out!!!! But there are rumors of adding additional shows. And if you miss those, well, you'll just have to see us when we run Off Broadway!!!

(Note to Big Theatre Producers: I'd really like to work at New World Stages.)

First off, I'd like preface this entry by telling people that yesterday, we sold out the last of the six performances to "Oedipus for Kids!", which is insane considering the tickets have only been onsale for four days. The buzz has apparently been that big. But for those who didn't get their tickets, you should hear something about our extension today or tomorrow. More info on those dates/times once it is officially announced.

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!