JToday’s Date: 7/4/2019

Show Title: Gallathea

Director: Finch

Assistant Directors: Lauren Carlton and Cortland Nesley

Production Intern: Spencer Cohen (Stage Manager) and Jules Talbot (Dramaturg)

Rehearsal Room: Deming Hall

What we did:

Today was Gallathea’s second-to-last rehearsal and an especially busy one. We began by gathering for Finch’s notes from last night’s dress, which ranged from actor-specific direction on lines and character beats to cast-wide directions on volume, diction and pacing. Next, we split into groups to fine-tune individual scenes; I watched Cortland, Alex (playing Melibeus) and Gabe (Tityrus) break down the set-ups and punch-lines in 4.1, while Finch and Lauren worked with other teams upstairs and downstairs. Afterward we reassembled to rehearse the show song, first focusing on the music itself and then on choreography, before concluding rehearsal with a line-through. A line-through is a run-through without blocking for memorization purposes: the actors just circled up, sat down, and said their lines as quickly as possible (without interruptions and with basic coherency). Our runtime is usually fifty-eight minutes, but the line-through clocked in at thirty-five, which may or may not have won Finch a bet with a certain local Shakespeare scholar who thought it would take at least forty.

Quick and Quotable

From the play:

“I will after him or her!” (4.1)

—Phillida (Mars) on Gallathea

From the director:

“I was in a boy band in a past life.”

From a cast member: 

“My life’s ambition is to become Brendon Urie.”

—Esme (Venus/Hebe)

Production Insights:

Our show song is an unabashedly anachronistic pop-punk song by Panic! At the Disco, hence all of today’s quotes on boy bands and Brendon Urie. Basically, it’s a rock concert in the Blackfriars—throwback to “anthemic joy.”