Room Service Rehearsal, Day Five

Prior Reports:
Day 1 - Sunday, 29 June: Read-Through and Act One Blocking
Day 2 - Monday, 30 June: Act Two and Act Three Blocking
Day 3 - Tuesday, 1 July: Act Three Blocking, Publicity, and Working Act One
Day 4 - Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast

Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast

Hello again! I'm Eric Silvertree, back with another report on the rehearsals for Room Service, part of Tibbits Summer Theatre's forty-fifth season. Many thanks to my fellow cast member Tiffany Weisend and director Charles Burr for snapping the photos for today's post.

As we get closer to opening the show on July 10, the rehearsal process is gradually shifting from memorizing and working individual sections of the script toward integrating all of our work into a smooth, unified show. We're becoming more confident with our lines, and some of us are starting to put our books down. I'm not ready to do that - not yet. Since I'm also appearing in The Tortoise and The Hare and Other Fables by Aesop, which opens Saturday morning, I've been spending more study time with that script than this one. After the holiday weekend, though, all my focus will be on Room Service.


My time on Thursday was once again split between the two shows. I spent the morning session with Aesop, but in the afternoon I was there for a complete run-through of Room Service. A run-through is just what you'd think: we do the whole show from the beginning to the end, stopping as few times as we can - although we do go back and work on problem spots when they pop up.

Speaking of problems, farces are built on them. There are many different types of comedy, and in a farce, the emphasis is on an ever-increasing level of frenzy as competing characters with opposite goals keep out-maneuvering each other. All the action of Room Service happens in one place: Room 920 at the White Way Hotel in Times Square, New York City. All the characters you met yesterday (except for Christine) are living in this one room, the bill is hopelessly past due, and they're desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the hotel staff. Let's meet the opposing team!

Seated on the bed is Dennis McKeen, who plays Joe Gribble, the hotel manager. The only reason Gordon Miller has been able to put off the bill for feeding and lodging the twenty-two people in his company as long as he has is that Gribble is married to his sister Flossie. We never meet Flossie, but judging from Gribble's nerves, it's a fair bet that she's about the same size, shape, and disposition as her brother.

The perky lass to the right is Tiffany Weisend, in the role of Hilda Manney, Mr. Gribble's secretary. She's got a heart of gold and a taste for chocolate. She'd love to help the theatre troupe any way she can (especially that cute young playwright) but anyone thinking of breaking a promise to her had better think twice.

All the way to the left is John Marsh. He's playing Sasha Smirnoff, a waiter in the hotel and friend of Miss Manney. Sasha's from Russia, where he spent seven years working under Stanislavsky in the Moscow Art Theatre. Here in New York, however, he supports his wife and kids on a waiter's salary - all the while yearning to get back on the stage.

Second from the right is J.R. Colbeck, who plays Doctor Glass, the hotel's staff physician. He's a respectable man, focused on his job, which he performs with (uncomfortable) thoroughness. He does his best to brush off frustrations of his efforts and assaults on his dignity, but the herd of jokers and con-men in Room 920 are going to test the far limits of his patience.

Finally, there in the middle is me - Eric Silvertree. I'm playing Gregory Wagner, supervising director of the firm that owns the White Way Hotel. Wagner's a bully who answers to nobody but the board of directors, and he was sent here personally by Senator Blake, president of the company, to remake this failing flop-house into a money-making operation - and on the very first day, he discovers a twelve-hundred-dollar unpaid bill. Guess who's going to be the theatre company's biggest problem!

But wait - that's not everyone yet. You'll meet the rest of the cast in the report on Day Six. More to come!