And Here....We....Go!

Day one of rehearsal is done and in the record books!

After starting this snowball rolling back in December, it felt great to finally be in the rehearsal room and get these characters on their feet. The show is going to be nothing but intense, high-stakes energy, so I found it pretty fitting that the very first thing we covered was stage combat. Beau laid the foundation for all the crazy conflicts he is planning for the show, plus the cast had a great time beating each other up.

Bryan is about to let Derek have it. Ashley is in awe.

Carla gave Eli a piece of her mind, Ashley's thinking about doing the same to Danelle.

Thanks to some quick camera skills, I was able to capture the most epic moment of the night on video. I believe Josh's description of it was "magical":

And Josh's reaction.

After Beau slogged through his teaching with a killer toothache but a great attitude, scripts were distributed along with highlighters and we began our first read-through of the script since the beginning of February. Instead of the standard table read, Josh had the cast do a standing read. There were lots of great ideas and moments that came out of it and I'm thrilled to see the characters I've been staring at on paper come to life.

Stay tuned for tonight's rehearsal blog!

Oh, oh! Wait! Before you go...since you're on the internet anyway, our lovely webmistress Breahan has updated the Hobo Junction website and you should check it out!

The Calm Between The Storms

Patty McHobo's has come and gone, and rehearsals are imminent!

Wednesday evening kicked off with something I personally have never done before - having headshots taken. Official Sister of the Junction, Sarahflo obliged me in snapping some photos so I could have a pretty one for the new Hobo Junction website design. You will soon be able to find the entire creative team's photos and bios on the site, courtesy of Ms. Breahan Pautsch, the lovely webmistress of HJ.

After our mini-photo shoot, it was off to pick up the lovely Vallery Dolls and her fancy keyboard to transport to The Spot. Val did a fantastic job opening the show and was soon joined by the one and only Chad from "CRASH PAD" (see YouTube link in the sidebar). Chad and Vallery were our MCs for the evening's talent show, which was filled with everything from dollars inside of lemons to Storytime with Beau to dances with pillows. Needless to say, a good time was had by all, and many of us stayed for some karaoke. (Val - thanks for pulling me up onstage for dancing!)

With the FUNdraiser done, we now look forward to the meat of the process....rehearsals! Spent a good chunk of time at Office Max this evening copying Draft 6 of the script, which will be our working version, and re-stocking my supply of pencils, highlighters, etc. I am truly a nerd, because a trip to Office Max for me is like a trip to Toys R Us for a three year old. I was able to contain myself for the most part. I couldn't resist the scented highlighters.

Look for more to come, as well as more frequent posts, after Sunday! On the agenda is Stage Combat Sunday with Beau Forbes. He gave me some more insights into his ideas when we chatted on Wednesday at the benefit and I am excited to see these visions become reality. This Sunday will be laying the basic skills/ground rules/techniques so in the following weeks things can get crazy! Once Beau has worked his magic for the week, we will have our first cast reading since February 11 and the first reading of this version of the script. Stay tuned!

Finding the Corner Pieces

Well, Pre-Production as "officially" begun! We've had our designer meeting, much excitement came from that. And yesterday, the cast received Act 1 as well as all the songs for the show. It feels like I've been working on things for this show for quite a while now and still have a ways to go. That was until I sat down and started working on the rehearsal schedule today. Not so much time left now! We begin rehearsals March 21. Yes, there was a long break between casting and rehearsals, but never fear there is still much work being done! Josh is plugging away having amazing character meetings with each actor. So far (correct me if I'm wrong folks), he's met with Bryan about "Simon", Maddy about "Autumn", Danelle about "Molly", and Ashley about "Sunny." Everyone else should be meeting with Herr Director in the next week or so. Also heard from Beau Forbes, our esteemed Fight Choreographer today and he's got some amazingness in the works for this production. But then again, what fight using restaurant equipment isn't amazing?

So I have begun work on the rehearsal schedule now that everyone has submitted their conflicts to me and we have a working draft of the script. It's like one big jigsaw puzzle, fitting in people when they're available, using up all the time we have (and sometimes more).

Again, off-topic of The Regulars, I attended The Chicago Fringe Fest's Lottery on Sunday night. It was pretty amazing, you should feel bad about missing it. I took Bryan and Maddy along with me to see what we could see. Met some great folks, drank some delicious hot cocoa with homemade blue marshmallows (sorry they weren't pink, Bry), and was entertained by the one and only VALLERY DOLLZ who we all know and love. Luke, you organized a fabulous event. Wish the three of us could have made it to the after-lottery events, but IHOP late night pancakes were just too darn tempting, as was a warm and cozy bed. Once I returned home to my cozy bed in Joliet on Monday morning (thank you, Casimir Pulaski), I didn't do much to move out of it. I think I'm finally on the downhill end of this cold, and will once again be able to use my full brainpower, un-addled by Day-Quil and other such cold medicines. Until then, this is Hopper-Chopper signing off.