Curtain Call for SHREK

Well, this is it. My journey with SHREK: The Musical at NPS has finally reached its conclusion. What a bittersweet final performance. Not only did all three shows receive standing ovations, but they were also completely sold out. What an honor! 

As usual, the highlights of the performance:

The Dragon, Dragonettes, Knights and Donkey in  "Donkey Pot Pie." Notice the awesome purple lighting!

Me communicating with the backstage crew through my head set.

Donkey singing "Don't Let Me Go." He brought the house down!

Lord Farquaad proposing to Fiona

adjusting mic volumes during "Freak Flag"

Beautiful gifts from the cast! I was so touched.

I stayed after the performance to collect props, organize costumes, and get everything ready to be returned to RIYT or to Hendricken, where we rented  most of them from. The process required laying out all of the costumes that went together (i.e. Dulocians, Guards, fairy tale creatures, etc.), figuring out whether they belonged to Hendricken or to Ann, and packing them into labeled bins to be delivered to their respective homes.

A shot of me and my wonderful associate and mentor, Vanessa Miller! (Notice the set has already been taken down...only an hour after the curtain closed) 

Lord Farquaad is at it again...for the last time!

My sister and I after the show. We worked together on the sound board today!

Final bows

Gingy: "God bless us, everyone!"

 What an amazing way to end a spectacular production. I could not be more proud of these students. I want to thank my mentor, Ms. Miller, Jimmy, Chelsea, Lila, the parent volunteers, the crew, and the entire cast of SHREK for making this such an incredible experience for me! I am so happy that I chose SHREK as my senior project. I learned so much about producing a musical - from fundraising to tickets to microphones - and I feel prepared to take on any challenge theatre has in store for me. Congratulations to all on an unbeliavable performance! That's a wrap!

Another Sold-Out Show

By the time people started arriving to buy tickets, we only had 20 available seats because so many tickets had already been reserved online. Like last night, I set up extra chairs at the ends of aisles and in the back to accommodate the overflow. What a thrill it is knowing that our theater is not even big enough for all of the people who want to see SHREK!

A clip of a typical pre-show "warm-up," which we use to calm nerves but increase energy and focus. Tongue-twisters like this one are an excellent way to get the actors thinking about diction and enunciation:

Here are some highlights from tonight's performance:

Shrek trying to convince the fairy tale creatures to leave his swamp

The Dulocians performing "What's Up Duloc"

Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey's first meeting

Pinocchio: "Sometimes, being a fairy tale creature sucks pine sap!"

Gigi, who played the bishop in this scene, filled in for a student who could not make tonight's performance. Another student, Paige, also got sick today and we had to prepare an understudy to go on for her at the last minute. Anything can happen, so you need to know how to roll with the punches!

Johnny (playing Grumpy, Lord Farquaad's father) was one of our high school additions to the middle school cast.

The wedding scene, when Shrek finally confesses his love for Fiona and prevents her marriage to Lord Farquaad.

Representatives from the Moss Hart Award Foundation came to review tonight's performance. One of the parents spoke to them afterward and definitely received positive feedback. The judges were very impressed by how talented and well-developed the students were at such a young age, as was I! Hopefully, they will consider us for the Moss Hart Award for Best Youth Production.

I sat in the first row of the house with Rachel (sound board) and Matt (sound effects). I observed and took over the sound board for a couple of scenes. I practiced the cues for the sound effects as well as switching mics on and off because I'll need to help Rachel tomorrow when my cousin, Matt, is not there. I have gotten all of the timing down for the dragon roar and Shrek's...err...fart. In addition, I've practiced adjusting microphone levels and turning them on at the right time, so I feel confident about doing it without Matt's help at Sunday's performance.

A couple of microphones were not working, which made the actors' voices too soft for the audience to hear. I realized that the batteries had probably died in the mic packs, so I snuck backstage with new batteries so the mic crew could replace the old ones. That did the trick!

In addition, I e-mailed customers the form to order DVDs so that everyone has the opportunity to buy a copy. 

Only one more performance of SHREK to go. I am devastated that this journey is about to come to an end, but I cannot wait for the cast to impress another audience tomorrow afternoon!

Opening Night!

Congrats to the cast and crew on a fantastic opening night! SHREK was completely sold out and we even had to add folding chairs in the back and aisles of the auditorium to make room for the overflow!

Unfortunately, I did not get to watch the show tonight because I was busy selling tickets, Ogre Ears, and posters. We had a slight issue keeping up with the flood of people pouring in. Most had purchased tickets ahead of time, but many were planning on buying them at the door. We only had about 40 tickets left to start with, and they went so fast that we had to turn people away and tell them that we were sold out. Thankfully, we dealt with the overflow using extra tickets donated by parents and folding chairs that we placed in the back and along the ends of the rows. It was such a thrill to see the first performance completely sold out! My friend Matt also came to record the show and he will be selling copies of it on DVD.

Tomorrow, I know we need to fix a few things to make the ticket sales run more smoothly:
1) have two people stationed closer to the doors to check prepaid tickets as they come in and allow the line to move along faster
2) print out the list of prepaid customers ahead of time so that we don't need to go on showtix4u.com to look up their ticket orders (we needed to verify that they had bought tickets online if they did not bring the printed ticket receipt to the show).
3) make sure that we have more $1 bills...So many people paid with $20 bills and there were never enough $1 bills to give them change!

I learned a lot tonight about how to keep the ticket table running efficiently. We need two people chekcing prepaid tickets, at least one selling tickets, and at least one more selling Ogre Ears and posters exclusively. Tomorrow night, I plan to sit with my sister at the sound board and help her with microphones, but will still help manage ticket sales before the show.

I cannot wait for the second performance of SHREK tomorrow. The students did such an amazing job tonight and should be so proud of themselves!

The Home Stretch!

Today was our last official rehearsal. Now we have three performances tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday to show Gansett what these kids have been working so hard on since September! A poster was created with photos from yesterday's rehearsal. The plan is to sell these large, glossy posters at the performances with the Ogre Ears. They will be $3 each or both for $5. My name even made it onto the poster at the bottom!

We got Fiona's green makeup and ogre ears on in time for "Who I'd Be," the Act 1 finale when she laments the curse that turns her into an ogre every night. With a little paint and some swift brush strokes, she was transformed from a princess into an ogre in a matter of minutes! When she becomes an ogre in the second act, however, Fiona has barely thirty seconds, which is not enough time to paint her green. To solve this dilemma, we came up with the idea to shine a green spotlight on her to create the illusion that her skin is green. A very simple but effective theater trick!

A great shot of one of our middle school volunteers working the spotlight at the rear of the auditorium. It is amazing how skilled these students are at such a young age. He rarely misses a cue!

This is the mic chart that we use both at the front of the house and backstage. It breaks down the show scene by scene and indicates which characters have mics and their mic numbers for that scene. In Act 1, Scene 1, for example, King Harold wears Mic 5 but then gives it to the Big Bad Wolf in Scene 2, who gives it to Gingy in Scene 4. With only eight microphones and 70+ students, most kids share except for Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey.We use this at the sound board to turn the correct numbers on and off or adjust the volume as well as backstage to know who needs to switch mic packs and when.

Finally, here's a clip of "What's Up Duloc?", one of the best numbers in the show. This was their last chance to perfect it before opening night and I thought their performance was excellent, save for some missing shoes. 

We have had an issue with small costume pieces, particularly gloves, tails, and tights, getting stolen or mixed up. I am hoping that the students who are missing pieces will find them tomorrow or will replace them with something from home. I have learned that, with so many actors and countless costumes, some items are bound to get lost. We will just have to make do with what we have and leave the rest to the audience's imagination.

Tomorrow, all of our hard work over the past six months will culminate in a real performance with an audience! I can't wait!

Wednesday Was a Winner

Major highlights from today:
1. a professional photographer came in and took pictures during the run
2. the ogres got their green makeup fixed
3. we've found/replaced almost all missing costumes
4. students had full hair and makeup done
5. all quick-changes were made in time

Amidst helping students backstage with quick-changes and clipping on microphones, I also gave Lord Farquaad's royal "bathtub" a much-needed lift with an air pump. No job is too weird when it comes to theater!

 In full costumes and makeup, the actors really bring the story to life.

For part of the show, I ran the sound board with my sister, Rachel, who reminded me how to turn the wireless mics on or off and increase or decrease the volume using the switches and knobs. The headset I wore allowed me to communicate with the backstage crew, which told me who was wearing a microphone and when they were coming onstage.

There are eight mics that correspond to the eight gauges on the sound board. It was challenging to anticipate which ones needed to be on for the scene depending on the characters with lines in that scene. Also, some students give their microphones to another actor after a scene and so the owner of Mic 4 or Mic 6 may change several times throughout the show. Luckily, I have a chart with the scenes listed on it and who wears the mics in each.
                           

















At the end of rehearsal, we got the entire cast together for a group picture. Some students are missing from the photo because I had to crop it, but it demonstrates the unbeliavable costume/makeup design as well as the enthusiasm the kids have for performing.

LAST DAY OF REHEARSAL TOMORROW! The biggest challenge now is to increase the fluency of the performance. We want to pick up the pace of the dialogue and transitions between scenes so the audience is never waiting for something to happen.

Putting the Pieces Together

We wanted to get ahead of the game and decided to add sound, lighting, costumes, and makeup today! So it was really a full dress rehearsal, and we have two more days to pull everything together. The biggest challenge today was costume changes. Some students have to go from a "guard" to a "mouse" or a "fairy tale creature" to a "Dragonette" in a matter of seconds, so I stayed backstage to help them out of their previous outfits and into their new ones so they'd be ready for the next scene. Also, several costume pieces have gone missing. Some had to be borrowed for use in Alice in Wonderland in another company, but some have just been lost by the students. I've told them that they have to replace anything that's missing, but I am hoping that pieces will turn up.

 Here I am with the cast right before we started the run-through!

In addition to helping with costume changes, I also changed batteries in the microphones, put them on the actors (attached with tape or bobby pins), and pinned on head pieces like the Mad Hatter's and Mama Bear's.

Makeup also went well, thanks to our great team that has set up shop outside the auditorium. However, we've realized that we need to buy many more tubes of green paint for Shrek and Fiona because we've already run out!

Here's a picture of Shrek and Fiona during their duet, and you can clearly see the great makeup and costume work on both of them! We are staying true to the movie whenever possible.

Another day, another rehearsal. Two more until the curtain goes up on a real audience!

And the Race to the Finish Line Begins...

We focused on lighting and props and put costumes, makeup, sound, etc. aside. We ran the entire show from front to back, adding lighting cues (i.e. spotlights on Shrek and Fiona during "Who I'd Be") for the volunteers in the lighting booth and props (i.e. canes for the Three Blind Mice). No costumes or makeup yet, considering many costumes are still being altered and we did not have a full makeup crew.

I helped in several different ways. I walked the chorus students over from the Pier School at 3:30 and stayed out in the hallway to call actors to their places when it was time for them to go on. For the second act, I worked the CD player (we did not have the pianist today) and followed along in the script so I did not miss the music cues. I also made a list of all the songs and which numbers they corresponded to on the CD.

Lines, lyrics, blocking, and choreography are very strong now! There is still much "fine tuning" to do, though.

Here's a clip of the ensemble performing the finale number!

Tomorrow, we will probably add some costumes and sound, but Wednesday and Thursday will definitely be full dress rehearsals with costumes, hair, makeup, microphones, etc. Only three more rehearsals until opening night!