First Production Meeting

In attendance at the first production meeting were:

• Sean Harrington, director
• Jerry Oshinsky, producer
• Liz Martinez, stage manager
• Bob Decker, technical director
• Leanna Bowman, Elite BOD president

We first discussed the production schedule. At issue was whether or not our Saturday rehearsals would conflict with Teatro's performances, and if we needed to find an alternate space. Teatro only performs in the evenings, so there will be no conflict. Minor conflict might occur on 10/24 if Teatro waits until that Monday evening to strike, but we'll adapt as necessary.

I presented a tentative audition form which is more detailed than the traditional form used at Elite. It shows a condensed rehearsal schedule in calendar form on the right side of the sheet so that auditioners can quickly mark conflicts. Also at question was the appropriateness of the legal disclaimer at the bottom of the form. Jerry (a lawyer) suggested that it was not technically correct, but altering it would make it seem excessively "legal" and might scare some off. Decision was to leave as is.

Audition dates are still as mentioned in previous posts on this blog. Jerry would like to attend, but will likely be traveling on business. He will likely be available for callbacks. Liz is available for one of the audition dates, but not both. I will, of course, be there for all of them.

Tentatively, we will be rehearsing Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings, and Saturday mornings. If there are excessive conflicts with folks we want to cast, we will determine a change at that point. Total number of rehearsals are only 24, so on the calendar, I politely labeled the days leading up to the readthrough as "Self Rehearsals". I will make sure the scripts, librettos, and CDs are available by then.

Jerry posed the question as to how to go about the announcements for auditions. Leanna offered him her contact information for each of the local papers for the "free" announcements, and we agreed to go ahead and foot the $20 bill for a BackStage West announcement. Jerry also asked for the list of local universities I wanted to target, and I rattled them off again for him. Bob suggested that CalArts and the SF Valley colleges might be too far, but I mentioned that I was already traveling at least that far, and that we should go ahead.

Next up was a discussion surrounding Bob's availability for scenic elements. His courseload at Oxnard High will allow him to focus more on theatre, and he wants to give his tech theatre kids some good projects to work on. I agreed that I'd do a set breakdown and design and get it to him as early as possible to focus them on it. I also asked if they'd be available for some of the prop construction, and he responded enthusiastically in the positive.

We also began to discuss the importance of costumes in this production. With at least five full nun's habits required, we needed to get a handle on them as soon as possible. I told Bob that my plan was to minimize the set budget as much as possible and redirect it into Connie's costume budget. Jerry suggested we ask the local parishes to see if any of them have habits we could borrow. "The answer is always 'no' if you don't ask..." he reminded.

I brought up the suggestion that I'd like to audition men for the role of mother superior, and someone suggested that might offend any parishes if we were able to borrow habits. I mentioned Tom Eubanks' (our Artistic Director) interest in the role, and everyone got a kick out of that notion. "We can bill him simply as S.T. Eubanks..." (Samuel Thomas).

Back on the subject of costumes, we will likely need to find a good pattern and just make them ourselves. I will update my measurement form and possibly take measurements at callbacks to get a jump on it for Connie. We will also need habits for Agnes of God, so we should go ahead and make them if possible.

I also suggested that Liz might make a cameo as Sister Mary Leo and that she would likely need a habit as well. We'll see how this develops. If we go with understudies, this might be covered, allowing Liz to focus on her stage management tasks.

Next order of business was the accompanist. Bob rattled off several names and suggested that Linda Steigler (the original director) would have a list of available musicians if we were short. Jerry will need to confirm with Tom who we will be using. Bob gave us Linda's phone number in case we needed it.

I passed out scripts and music to all who attended. We talked a bit about the 2006 season, and then closed the meeting at around 7:15 PM.

One thing I didn't get to ask was the specifics of the holiday benefit performance. I have put two dates on the production schedule, letting potential cast members know that they will need to make themselves available. Hopefully, we can find and confirm these dates before the next meeting.

All in all, it was fairly productive evening. I look forward to future meetings as we get closer to production.


- Sean