3 Penny Schemes

So there’s a rain storm every morning. Now I get it. I ran out to zip up the windows in my jeep at 8 am when I saw menacing grey bottomed cumulus clouds lumber towards the house from the east. Conveniently on the top of a hill, I could track the rain line, and thus knew just when it would hit.

Today, Saturday, Alex is having friends over for paintball. Last night, while Nikki and Brian were at a dinner party, we ate dinner, watched a smattering of horrible television, played monopoly, which always brings out the best in people (ha) and finally settled in to watch Pirates of the Caribbean .

Yesterday, Steve, Denny and I went through the script, scene by scene and song by song to make sure that “if we had any assumptions about the show, at least we shared them.” We discussed different design elements and orientations of the playing space. Denny wants to have the actors shift around 100 degrees from the stage to play in the back of the house, using the spiral staircase that the stage manager and light-board operator use to access the booth as a main set piece. The set will likely be no more than 2 sets of painters’ scaffolding 4 x 6 ft. and 6 ft tall.

For costumes, Denny wants 19th century London, but as scraggly and using as much “found” material as possible. We want to reflect the characters’ avenues for acquiring clothes. And since we’re not going to steal anyone’s clothes off the clothesline, which is what most in 3Penny would do, “found” clothing will suffice.

Denny is leaving after the opening weekend, whereas I’ll be staying for the run of the show. Discovering this made Denny’s eyes widen with excitement, because now she can use me in the show. Woohoo.

We have a plan to gather as many odd instruments as possible to include in the show. Listening to the CD and seeing the mix of sounds and textures in the music, I want more than the piano, which is the only instrument we had planned on using. So we’re asking people in auditions if they play any of the following:

Accordion
Slide whistle
Kazoo
Clarinet
Fiddle
Auto Harp
Ukulele
Snare Drum
Horn of any kind

That should spice things up.

Ooo, Eggnog French Toast. That will spice things up, too. Yum. So with breakfast in my stomach, I'm off to the beach, or the roof, as far as I get.