Room Service Rehearsal, Day Six

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
Day 5 - Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast

Friday, 4 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Eric Silvertree here with another behind-the-scenes report on life in the world of regional summer stock theater, as we prepare to present Room Service at the Tibbits Opera House.

My daily routine is pretty familiar to you by now: rehearsal for The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop in the morning, Room Service in the afternoon, and the evening off to study my lines and run my errands - not actually part of the schedule, you understand. I only have evenings off because I'm not in the current mainstage production of Little Women.

Today would have been different if it weren't a holiday weekend. Aesop is part of the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for young audiences, and Popcorn shows have their opening "nights" every other Friday morning - but families' plans for the Fourth of July usually don't include dropping the kids off for an hour. It's not cost-effective to burn electricity to light a show when everyone's out of town or at the lake. Therefore, Aesop will open on Saturday instead, and we used the time to get in another round of rehearsal. For the same reason, there's no performance of Little Women tonight. We figure everybody in Coldwater will be at the fireworks show instead - and since Tibbits is giving everyone in the company the evening off, that includes most of us!

So, in a roundabout way, the fact that it's a holiday means my workday worked out to be exactly what it's been all week. At 2pm, I and my fellow cast members were in the gym at Jefferson Elementary School for another run-through of Room Service. Each run-through gets smoother and sharper as we gain confidence in our lines and refine our acting choices under the watchful eye of our director, Charles Burr.

Enough about the schedule - let's talk about the rest of the cast. Some scripts are written with one or two dominant characters, called the leads, while others are written as ensemble pieces, in which the entire cast has roughly equal stage time. Because farces depend so much on multiple relationships and interactions among wildly different characters, even a farce with an identifiable lead (in Room Service, that would be the role of Gordon Miller) has a strong ensemble feel, and needs strong actors in every part.

To the left is Ken Washburn, who plays Senator Blake, president of the company which owns the White Way Hotel. This feisty Southern gentleman has a strong opinion on every topic, from the right amount of credit to extend a guest, to the kind of message a proper American stage play should present - and from his position of power, nobody else's opinion matters at all.

In the center is Kevin McDaniel, playing Simon Jenkins. Jenkins is an investing agent who represents a man so wealthy he can afford to bankroll an entire Broadway production just to give his stage-struck mistress a little something to occupy her time - as long as nobody knows the money came from him. Jenkins handles his business with the utmost discretion, and his job has never caused his heart condition the least bit of stress - until he met Gordon Miller.

To the right is Robert Dozzi, as a messenger from the bank that handles the hotel's finances. With the Great Depression in full swing, high-powered executives are just as nervous about money as any group of starving actors - if not more so. In that kind of atmosphere, whole fortunes depend on the messengers, and this young man doesn't do his job halfway. If he can't find you in your office, he'll track you down, and one piece of paper in his hand can spell the difference between success and ruin.

And finally, our cast is rounded out with the presence of George Spelvin. No authentic photographs of Mr. Spelvin exist - and who am I to buck tradition? His name has appeared in literally hundreds of stage programs, in a career that has spanned decades. He's a legend in the American theatrical tradition, with roles in comedies, tragedies, and musicals - there's nobody better to portray Timothy Hogarth, the representative of a collection agency called We Never Sleep.

Now you've met the cast - in my next report, you'll meet the designers, as they attend a run-through held specifically for them. Stay tuned!