Great First Blocking Night

I have to give this cast credit. They pushed hard last night, and we blocked everything in the first act, up to the Nutcracker ballet sequence. Awesome. Liz is doing a superb job at transcribing my ramblings, and for those who weren't able to join us last night, Liz will be their best friend if they want to get their blocking.

We found some surprisingly funny moments last night that I hadn't noticed in previous readings:

• After Virgil sings "Christmas Box" he and Amnesia have a moment where he tells her about how hard he had it growing up. We have her space out, followed by a pregnant pause and then she comments, almost apologetically "Oh, that's sad." Virgil's next line "Yeah..." is a perfect response.
• Missing three of the younger kids (and that's probably my fault), the two older kids REALLY jumped into their roles and tackled "Santa's Little Teapot" head-on. They took the silly blocking I gave them and took it to a new level.
• The whole cast jumped in nicely to the opening number. Sarah, who is in final dress rehearsal for ETC's Ghost Tours at the Square, was able to jump in easily after 9:00 PM and pick up everything we'd done.

The only sections we didn't get to do detailed blocking with were the Secret Santa section, Sister Julia (Child of God), and Carnival Christmas. I'll call individual rehearsals with each of the primaries to go through their solo routines.

Other than that, I can't wait to see this go up!

- Sean