"Into The Woods" Tech Week Begins

Caption: Monday night at the New Theater. Performers on stage, orchestra in the pit, dust on the floor, and expectation in the air! On the extreme right, Robert maneuvers our (my precious!) brand-new 'Little Giant' ladder, in the company of Lauren Miller and Michael McElroy. On the extreme left, the 'Narrator' (Steve Isaacson) narrates. In the middle, only God and Stephen Sondheim understands what is going on.

Tonight, I went over to the New Theater: Steve said they needed a bit of help there. "Into The Woods" tech week started on Sunday, and I knew they would be rehearsing there.

With "Victor/Victoria" going, I hadn't had a chance to get over to the New Theater for the last couple of weeks. Instead, I was worried whether I could muscle the Chez Lui bar on and off the 24th Street stage without spilling gel-laden drinks, or whether I would get entombed by the stage wagons instead, and, if so, what my epitaph should be.

What a bizarre sight there in Davis! On one side of the orchestra pit, costumed people wandered through the seats, and on the other side people sang eerie Sondheim tunes, with music filling the hall from the depths below! People I didn't recognize at first came up and said hello. I didn't recognize smiling Jason Hammond at first, given his lush and ornate costume, and I didn't recognize Steve in costume either, with his beard, at least, until he said "the contractor needs a check for $35,000" (this theater doesn't come cheap, and, as Treasurer, I need to keep the cash moving)!

After hellos, I busied myself with trying to do some cleaning - there is a prodigious amount of construction dust in the place. Tonight, the theater is still only half a theater: the other half is still a construction zone. As befits a construction zone AND a stage, people have been twisting ankles and banging feet: Steve and Monique both suffered tonight.

They've been putting on some sort of gypsum-based interior wall finish that leaves spots on the floor - spots that will crumble, in time, into gypsum dust. Hercules and the Augean Stables come to mind when I think of the dust, or Sisyphus and his boulder. Supposedly there will be carpet on the seating risers soon.

People are scrambling to make sure the theater is ready for opening. Ribbon-cutting is Wednesday, the Preview is Thursday, and the Opening Show is Friday!