#8: The Gentlemen's Ploy, Slow Progress

This week I had another meeting with the director for The Gentlemen’s Ploy. The problem with these meetings is that I come in with a load of questions and go away with a load of questions. It would be nice to go away with no questions, but that doesn’t seem to happen.

Also it would be nice if I didn’t leave with more things to do.

I did finish the song I was working on, “Keep It Clean,” and took it to my monthly songwriting workshop a week ago. It was well received. I got a few comments and made some changes as a result. And with that, I have now finished all the songs for the show. I do, however, have a bunch of other music stuff to do: intros and endings, incidental music, sheet music details, and such.

It also seems that I am the props department. Just me. So once we figure out whether we will have real swords or fake swords then the director can tell me what the other props should look like and I can get started on procuring or making them. Most of them shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m sure some will be. Just how large a potted palm do we need?

In my last blog, I wrote that this would be a “semi-staged, off-book reading.” As a result, many people have asked me what a “semi-staged, off-booking reading” is. (And when I say “many” people, I mean a good 50 percent of the people on my mailing list.) Not to side-step the issue, but we have decided not to call it a “semi-staged, off-booking reading” and instead call it a “semi-staged musical.”

What this means is that in most respects it is a regular production of the musical—the actors will not be running around holding scripts, for instance—but that there will be no scenery, the lighting will be simple, the costumes won’t be extravagant, and there will be less choreography than there would be otherwise. Hopefully, though, you will become so absorbed in the story and the music that you won’t miss the scenery, the lighting will seem glorious, the costumes sumptuous, and the choreography delightful. That’s the hope at any rate.

I also got a first look at the rehearsal schedule.I don’t see how we can possibly do everything that needs to be done in that amount of time.The show is more than eight months away and already I’m getting nervous.I wonder what the odds of my surviving this are.