Room Service Rehearsal, Day Four

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

Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast

Hi there! Time for another report from your behind-the-scenes reporter, Eric Silvertree, as Tibbits Summer Theatre gets ready to present a classic farce about making it big on Broadway, Room Service.

Wednesday's schedule was a little unusual, because the musical Little Women started the second half of its run with a matinee performance at 2pm. Everybody in the acting company had the morning off to get ready for the afternoon curtain, except for those of us rehearsing the children's show The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop, which opens on Saturday. And, of course, since the afternoon work period also starts at 2pm, there was no rehearsal then, either.

So, the only part of today's schedule devoted to Room Service was the evening session, which we spent working Act 2. As I described yesterday, working an act is a three-steps-forward, two-steps-back process by which we make our way gradually through the act, repeating small sections of the script over and over again. It sounds slow, but it goes faster than you might think - especially when you have a sharp, experienced director like our Charles Burr, and a focused, dedicated group of actors like my fellow cast members.

Since you know what working a script is like now, this would be a good time to start introducing you to the other actors in Room Service and tell you more about the characters they play in the show. Room Service is a send-up of the trials and tribulations involved in mounting a brand-new play on Broadway in the midst of the Great Depression with no money, no time, and - most importantly - no food!

The handsome gentleman second from the right who shaves the top half of his head instead of the bottom is Brian Sage. Brian is playing Gordon Miller, producer of a long line of low-budget flops, who is absolutely convinced that his next show, Godspeed, will be the hit he's always worked for. Of course, that's what he thought about his last show.

All the way to the left is Steve Moore, who plays Harry Binion, director of Godspeed. Binion and Miller go way back, and when it comes to the art of mounting a production against impossible odds, the two of them are an unstoppable team - which means that anybody who gets within fifty feet of either one of them had better keep his hand on his wallet and his eye on the door.

The man on the right whose shirt proclaims that "Romeo Was A Whiner" is Mark Kelley. He probably got that shirt from his character, Faker Englund. Faker is Miller's general assistant, a streetwise native of the Big Apple who is, if possible, an even more energetic con-man than Miller and Binion put together. He has more bad ideas before 9am than most people have all day.

The lovely lady in the center is Melissa McKim, playing Christine Marlowe. Christine works in the office of a rival Broadway producer. Her boss may be richer and more successful, but her heart belongs to Gordon Miller - and her face and voice belong on the stage, not behind a desk. She's an actress in Miller's shows, and she's certain that he's destined for great things. If only his methods were a little more honest…

And finally, second from the left, is Beau Hutchings. He's playing Leo Davis, the innocent young man from Oswego, New York, who wrote Godspeed, that fantastic play that Miller is eager to produce. Davis is just dying to get out of the small town onto the Great White Way, and he's hopped a train to New York City with a pocketful of change, a head full of dreams, and his mother's picture in a silver frame. What could possibly go wrong?

I'll introduce you to more of our cast of characters tomorrow, after Thursday's rehearsals. See you then!