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Performance 200
Jun. 17th, 2005 12:10 pmTonight the tour of “Evita” reached another milestone, performance 200. It would have come sooner in our schedule, but we had a slew of layoff weeks in January. Still, it’s nice to reach this number with substantially the same cast that we opened with last November in Boston.
The cast changes are starting to add up. In addition to the two replacements in San Francisco and the two in Toronto, we are adding a new female singer this week. Angela DiCicco is exiting and Laurie Mitchell is replacing Angela in her chorus track. Laurie isn’t going to be an Eva cover as Angela was. Eileen Kaden, our female swing, auditioned to be an Eva understudy when the powers-that-be held auditions in Los Angeles in February. Eileen succeeded and will now be an Eva cover.
There are negotiations going on in New York between the union and our producer as to whether we will add a full time alternate Eva and a new female swing. They’ll have to make a decision soon. Our principals' contracts are up at the end of July and the decision concerning an alternate could be part of whether producers are able to re-sign Kathy as Eva. Next week, we get a new male dancer who will replace Austin Eyre. In addition to the cast changes, two of our traveling crew members are leaving in July to take new jobs with The Blue Man Group’s sit-down show in Las Vegas.
As we’re rehearsing a lot this week, folding Laurie into the show, I haven’t done much here in Richmond. The first few days of this week set near record temperatures, with the heat index registering 115 degrees. I don’t have much desire to sight-see and stroll in this kind of heat and humidity. My priority has been to rest and get well.
The theater is an old Shriners Temple with a very wide, semi-circular seating area. The changing area is in a separate room which is not air-conditioned and a garage type door that would allow air-conditioning into the space has to be closed off during the show. It feels like we’re changing clothes in a wet sauna.
The hall was designed for acoustic voices, long before the advent of microphones. The sound echos in the hall and it has been nearly impossible for our sound man to make effective adjustments. Our newspaper review wasn’t good and the negative comments were all about sound. There’s nothing the performers can do about it, other than enunciate our lyrics as best as we can. We don’t control the levels of our mics or how the sound is mixed.
I have a bit of a tour update. It’s a ways off, but we’ve been booked Christmas week. We’ll play December 17-24 in Newark, NJ. We’ll have a day and half off and open in Washington, DC the Tuesday after Christmas. It appears that I’ll have to forgo Christmas day with my family. The short time off between performance dates makes it too difficult to fly to Texas for less than two days. You can’t count on the weather. I’m not happy about the addition; I don’t want to spend a Christmas alone in a hotel in Newark!
Finally, I want to thank everyone for their words of support and concern following my emergency on Tuesday. It really helped hearing from my live journal friends. My antibiotics are taking care of the sinus infection; I have trouble swallowing where the pill was lodged; but otherwise, I’m feeling a lot better! Despite the accident, I’ve been able to perform all week and have been singing really well the past couple of shows. It looks like this difficult month is coming to an end.
The cast changes are starting to add up. In addition to the two replacements in San Francisco and the two in Toronto, we are adding a new female singer this week. Angela DiCicco is exiting and Laurie Mitchell is replacing Angela in her chorus track. Laurie isn’t going to be an Eva cover as Angela was. Eileen Kaden, our female swing, auditioned to be an Eva understudy when the powers-that-be held auditions in Los Angeles in February. Eileen succeeded and will now be an Eva cover.
There are negotiations going on in New York between the union and our producer as to whether we will add a full time alternate Eva and a new female swing. They’ll have to make a decision soon. Our principals' contracts are up at the end of July and the decision concerning an alternate could be part of whether producers are able to re-sign Kathy as Eva. Next week, we get a new male dancer who will replace Austin Eyre. In addition to the cast changes, two of our traveling crew members are leaving in July to take new jobs with The Blue Man Group’s sit-down show in Las Vegas.
As we’re rehearsing a lot this week, folding Laurie into the show, I haven’t done much here in Richmond. The first few days of this week set near record temperatures, with the heat index registering 115 degrees. I don’t have much desire to sight-see and stroll in this kind of heat and humidity. My priority has been to rest and get well.
The theater is an old Shriners Temple with a very wide, semi-circular seating area. The changing area is in a separate room which is not air-conditioned and a garage type door that would allow air-conditioning into the space has to be closed off during the show. It feels like we’re changing clothes in a wet sauna.
The hall was designed for acoustic voices, long before the advent of microphones. The sound echos in the hall and it has been nearly impossible for our sound man to make effective adjustments. Our newspaper review wasn’t good and the negative comments were all about sound. There’s nothing the performers can do about it, other than enunciate our lyrics as best as we can. We don’t control the levels of our mics or how the sound is mixed.
I have a bit of a tour update. It’s a ways off, but we’ve been booked Christmas week. We’ll play December 17-24 in Newark, NJ. We’ll have a day and half off and open in Washington, DC the Tuesday after Christmas. It appears that I’ll have to forgo Christmas day with my family. The short time off between performance dates makes it too difficult to fly to Texas for less than two days. You can’t count on the weather. I’m not happy about the addition; I don’t want to spend a Christmas alone in a hotel in Newark!
Finally, I want to thank everyone for their words of support and concern following my emergency on Tuesday. It really helped hearing from my live journal friends. My antibiotics are taking care of the sinus infection; I have trouble swallowing where the pill was lodged; but otherwise, I’m feeling a lot better! Despite the accident, I’ve been able to perform all week and have been singing really well the past couple of shows. It looks like this difficult month is coming to an end.
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