1st Preview Tonight

Yesterday we slept in late. When we got up I looked for a copy shop and found one on West Maitland. We went there and got 500 programs copied for £40. Then stopped at an internet place (they are all over) and checked email. Afterwards we went back and got some groceries.

At 7:30 the cast met to discuss assignments and Dave stressed the importance of everyone doing their job quickly. It was hectic. Most of the cast walked over to the venue and the show ahead of ours was running a little bit late. Trying to get the laptops booted and set up along with everything else was a real challenge.


Dave giving notes at a cast meeting. Note Jeff Whitt paying close attention. (©2005, Williams/Bacigalupo.)

The cast did a real good job during the runthrough. The tech was still problematic, however. It looks like we are just going to dump the mics and sing old school. There were some problems with the projector as well that Dave was going to iron out today.


Rhonda Keen as Calonice in "On Top." (©2005, Williams/Bacigalupo.) 

Tonight is our first preview with an audience, so that will be good to get the cast's energy up. Still waiting to get posters and flyers. Junel and I walked down the Royal Mile and did some shopping. She found some nice Christmas ornaments at a little shop there.

That's all for now.....

Dress Tonight

Last night was our tech rehearsal at the theatre at St Columba's by the Castle. It is actually a very cute venue, but the speaker system and lights leave a little to be desired. We had a lot of trouble with the mics cutting out and were only allowed 4 hrs to solve all of our technical problems.

Even though we didn't get to run through the entire show, we were fortunate that the staff let us stay about a half hour after we were supposed to finish. Of course that meant we didn't get home until about 4:30 in the morning, so we slept in quite late today.

I am waiting now for the copyshop to finish printing our programs and then tonight we'll have our dress rehearsal. Dave is going to organize the cast so that each member knows specifically what job they have to do in order for us to be able to get in and out. We basically have 95 minutes to get in and out and do a 78 minute show. Fun, huh....

Junel and I have been having fun walking around the city and seeing the sights. We should be able to do more of that after the show opens, though we went up to Rose St yesterday and walked through a real pretty park N of the castle.


Statue in the Park (©2005, Williams/Bacigalupo.)

More later......

Tech Tonight

Last night AIFS bought the cast dinner at the Blue Bar Cafe. Some of us went to a pub afterwords and had a dram of whisky. Then off to bed for some much needed shuteye.

I spent most of today working with the C Venues staff getting our program ready. After a couple of printovers for some typing and graphic errors, we got it done and it looks great.

Still waiting to find out about the posters and flyers at the printers. Hope the graphic is ok.

Chris and Pam Taylor, Nikki Niebauer and I then had lunch at a little cafe around the corner and then went to the Royal Museum. We are getting a lot of exercise walking around, so that is cool.

Tonight is our tech rehearsal for the show. Unfortunately our slot is from 11 pm to 3 am. Hopefully Dave and Kurt have all the tech stuff figured out. That's why I'm on program detail.

That's about all the news for now. More later from Edinburgh....

Got to EDINBURGH!!!

We are in Edinburgh after a long 10 hr flight. Had a 2 hr layover at Heathrow and flew into beautiful Edinburgh. We are enjoying walking around looking at the historic buildings and Edinburgh Castle is amazing. We are staying in flats at Napier University. Hope to do more sightseeing as time allows. Right now we are trying to get our posters and flyers put together as well as figure out the tech for the show.


Edinburgh Castle from Grassmarket St (© 2005 Williams/Bacigalupo.)

We had a look last night at the theatre where we will be performing and it should be real cool.

Players take their act to Scotland

The Tahoe Tribune had the following feature on us:

Players take their act to Scotland
William Ferchland
August 1, 2005

Dan Thrift / Tahoe Daily Tribune / Chelsea Callahan, Jessica Howell and Shannon Dolan, from left, are headed for Scotland to perform "Lysistrata's War," but first have to move out of their South Lake Tahoe home.

For roommates Shannon, Jessica and Chelsea last week was a whirlwind of packing, organizing and nerves.

Not only were the three preparing to move out of their place on Paradise Avenue, but also packing for a two-week trip to Edinburgh, Scotland to participate in the world's largest theater arts festival.

It will be the international debut of the musical rock opera "Lysistrata's War," written by two instructors at Lake Tahoe Community College and composed of nearly three dozen cast, crew and advisory members. Well, maybe three dozen.

"I am actually hoping to get my passport within the next couple of days," Jessica Howell said Thursday. "It's definitely cutting it pretty close." It's unknown if the passport reached her post office box in time.

The house was an exhibit in chaos but the women still flashed smiles and wore black shirts advertising the play.

Shannon Dolan auditioned a second time for the musical this year when she discovered it might be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She was again tapped for the lead. "I'm going to be talking about this for my whole life," she said.

Based upon the Greek play "Lysistrata," the musical is still set during the Peloponnesian War and describes the story of women in Athens and Sparta joining together to coerce men to end the war by refusing sex.

It debuted at the college last year. Theater teacher Dave Hamilton and music instructor Mark Williams wrote the play. Hamilton has attended the festival before but it will be his first time taking a production. While theater is the most popular art form, Hamilton thinks having a rock opera with an anti-war theme might lure audience members into the rented theater with 150 seats. The time slot of 8:50 p.m. is also a plus.

"Hopefully an anti-war play from America will be a selling point," Hamilton said.

Yet the spate of terrorist bombings, manhunts and arrests in nearby London made Williams cautious on how the play might actually sell. "I don't know," he said. "As you know kind of after 9/11 everyone in America was gung-ho supporting whatever our country decided to do. They might be not so supporting of antiwar (statements).

"The sheer size of the Fringe Festival is amazing. According the festival's Web site, last year's event was the biggest with 25,326 performances of 1,695 shows in 236 venues.

The 15,629 performers outnumbered athletes at the Athens Olympics. Seeing every show back-to-back would take five years and 53 days.

"It is just an amazing opportunity for performers to go to an international performance festival," said Pamela Taylor, a cast member in the musical. "I mean the town is going to be full of street performers and international actors, musicians, dancers. So you are going to be in a place that's your passion."

Williams hopes publicity of "Lysistrata's War" will reach producers who might take an interest in producing the musical at a a larger stage.

In minimizing baggage burden, instructions to cast members was to pack costumes. For the women, who have mostly one costume consisting of a dress and sandals, the task was easy. For men, who don fake helmets and shields, packing might be more of a hardship.

Taylor's husband, Chris, is also a cast member. Pamela's advice was to stuff underwear and socks in the helmet.

"Chris has a lot of costume changes so I guess I have to make a little room in my suitcase," Pamela said. "It's going to be interesting in airport security declaring swords and shields, she added. While studying in England, Pamela once took a solo trip to Edinburgh. She marveled the city anchored by Edinburgh Castle, itself perched on an extinct volcano.

In 2000, a United Nations estimate put the population of Scotland's capital at 443,600 people. Last year 1.3 million people bought tickets for the festival. With such a crowd, some of the cast members are hoping to travel outside the city for some sightseeing and some extended vacation time after the festival.

"I definitely want to check out some other shows," said Howell, the one with passport troubles. "I feel just so lucky to be able to go on a trip like this. I don't know how to explain it. I'm pretty stoked."

For more information on the Fringe Festival, visit edfringe.com. Go to Lysistrata's War for more information on the musical and possible blog updates from teacher Mark Williams.

Leave for San Francisco

This morning we are packing and will be driving together with Dave Hamilton and his wife, Teresa, to San Francisco. We're planning to leave about 1 p.m. Junel is pretty much packed. I had to wait because we have to pack our own costumes (including armor and helmets) and of course, we wore those for the performance last night. I also am taking the school's laptop (We'll be running the music for the show from it.) in its backpack as my carryon, so had to wait for that as well.

The show last night was quite successful. We had about 124 responsive and appreciative people in the audience. Several commented (including Lori Gaskin) that the show was better and tighter than last year. We had added a new trio for the soldiers in which they give their own perspective from the front and cut the "What are you talking about?" number which didn't really help the plot much anyway. We also trimmed the lovers' quartet and trimmed some other instrumental interludes and scene change music that wasn't necessary. Lysistrata's big scene and anthem "I am Athenian" was moved to a later position. I still wonder if it is too close to Calonice's ballad. We'll see what other input we get.

Developing...

Performance Tonight

8:00 tonight is our going away performance at LTCC. It's a benefit in that we are hoping to raise money to cover the renting of microphones over in Scotland. As it turns out, our wireless mics were the wrong frequency for over there. It will also be good for the cast to perform for an enthusiastic audience of friends and family. Last night's dress rehearsal went fairly well -- a couple of harmony glitches and a few technical problems with the Powerpoint images were about the only problems.

Some links to find out more about us:

Lake Tahoe Community College
Lysistrata's War - Cast
Edinburgh Festival Fringe - Show Details

UPDATE (8/7/2005): Hey, the Tahoe Tribune actually did have an article about us.

Lysistrata's War goes to Edinburgh for the Fringe 2005

I'll be trying to blog our trip as often as internet access is available. Right now we are just busy trying to get ready for our Thursday performance at the college.

DEVELOPING...