(7) Tech Rehearsals and Performances

Sunday, September 29th- Wednesday, October 1st: Technical rehearsals, technical rehearsal and more technical rehearsals! All day, every day, from 9am-10pm (more or less) we’ve been spending in the Atlas Theatre perfecting the show to take it on the road. It’s been a long few days, but things are coming together well and there haven’t been any major bumps. We also had an invited dress rehearsal and three performances. They all went over very well with no issues. After our last performance, we had a champagne toast with Norton Juster and Sheldon Harnick. Norton Juster wrote the book that this show is based off of and Sheldon Harnick wrote the music. Sheldon Harnick also wrote the music to “Fiddler on the Roof” the popular musical. I got a chance to meet both of them. The whole cast, crew and design staff got a party bag of gifts including a copy of the book “The Phantom Tollbooth”, a Kennedy Center t-shirt and some other small toys for us to play with on the road. A lot of the cast and crew (including myself) got our books signed by Norton and Sheldon. Now that’s something to hold on to! Darrell Ayers, Vice President of Education for the Kennedy Center, was there and gave a short speech. In it he said we’d be visiting “29 states, 58 cities, 128 performances.” Norton asked “Aren’t there 50 states?” Darrell responded “ Yes. We’re working on Alaska.” Norton said “Yah know, you can see the Kennedy Center from Alaska!” If you don’t get the joke, you obviously haven’t been following national politics! I just about fell over from laughing. I should also note that the other show that is touring from the Kennedy Center this season, “Blues Journey” is going to Hawaii for a week!

Hope all is well!

Brian