I didn’t manage to blog once in the first four days of SAGN rehearsal. I suppose they must be keeping me busy. To add to the insanity, Robert and I finished a Creative Capital grant for the Convergence less than 45 seconds before the first readthrough was about to start. I was sitting in a corner of the stage management office typing crazily. But we got it in.

That first read: Kesey is a genius. A room with eleven men in it, cast as lumberjacks, is a room full of testosterone. And they are all so, so well cast.

I played the composer’s banjo on Tuesday and it broke my heart. It was all I could do to keep from rushing out of the rehearsal room, then and there, to continue playing it. It’s been so long.

Wednesday was a day full of the Six, and our first pass at the logging chorus. Thursday was a day of the Stamper family. I have felt so happy to be able to be useful to these actors, to get them books or resources they need. The week of research I did has paid off.

Thursday was also my wonderful brother’s birthday. He sent me, in the mail, a tape of a long-lost production.

Today the choreographer, the director, and I all arrived at a new conception of the first logging chorus. Our original sketch of it didn’t do everything it needed to do. But this one is much closer, and we are going to tweak it more tomorrow. I feel so very proud of our ability to get to this place.

I learned something today. (Actually, I could have learned it yesterday, had I been paying attention, because the director did a variation on it, but my head was in the sand.) I learned that when trying to find the soul of a chorus, it makes total sense to give all the text in it to one actor (in this case, Leland), as an exercise. Then when the text goes back to the chorus, it has been voiced by a single sound, and that spirit remains.

And we made it through the first act.