Director's Notes Act 4: Rough Scheduling

by Michael Litchfield

One thing that you might want to do now is sit down and think about how this is going to play out. When will you hold auditions? When is the show booked for?...and how much time is there before performance? By this time, when we did it, I had booked the theatre, and there were 8 months before the show was to go up. (Just to give you an idea of the time-frame.) You’ll want to solidify a time for auditions to take place. When, where, and for how long will auditions run? When we did it, we booked auditions to run for 2 weeks, 2 nights per week, for a couple of hours each night. As it turned out, we actually needed to go one more 2-night week, to round up the majority of people needed for the production. (I say ‘majority’ because the process actually took a further month to finalize.) The extra week of rehearsals was added, not because of run-over auditioners from previous nights, but because we needed to spread the word more so as to get more people to try out. I would suggest that you not over-load one week with too many nights of auditions (i.e., don’t just to try to fit all audition nights into 1 week), as the Sundays between each audition week will give you more opportunity to advertise and spread the word among your local congregations. Once the audition dates are set, inform the sponsoring church group, and get them to spread the word!

At this time, I would suggest that a rough rehearsal schedule be made up. No doubt your auditioners will ask you about the time commitment involved with this production, and thus, your general, rough schedule will come in handy.

For myself, I had to actually sit down and listen to the music over and over again, to get a feel for the time that would be needed in order to have things ready at a performance level, i.e., the area of the production that would take the most time to prepare for. You may want to do this.

Below is the rough, tentative rehearsal schedule that I made up in the beginning, just to act as an estimate up until I could get the real schedule out.

Liken’s Nephi and Laban: Tentative Rehearsal Schedule

Oct 26 and 27, Nov 2 and 3, 16 and 17 (Wed and Thurs) - Auditions

Nov 19 (Sat) - First Rehearsal! Assignment of Parts, Music, Schedule of rehearsal, Intro to Directors and Managers; Intro to Liken (poss, watch video)

Nov 26 (Sat) - Life Could Not Be Better - Listen/Words (minus track); Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise); Listen/Words (minus track); Spencer and Pri.Teacher's Dialogue Run-through; Pri. Teacher Narrative Overview

Dec 3 (Sat) - His Arms Around You - Listen/Words/Music; Thy Arms Around Me - Listen/Words/Music;

Dec 10 (Sat) - I Love My Things - Listen/Words/Music; Here Waiting - Listen/Words/Music; Spencer and Pri. Teacher's Dialogue and Beginning blocking

Dec 17 (Sat) - Life Could Not Be Better/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Words/Music

Christmas Break

Jan 13 (Fri) - His Arms Around You - Words/Music; Thy Arms Around Me - Words/Music

Jan 14 (Sat) – I Love My Things - Words/Music; Here Waiting - Words/Music; Light Choreography

Jan 20 (Fri) - Life Could Not Be Better/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Words/Music; Pri. Teacher's Narrative lines

Jan 21 (Sat) - Here Waiting/His Arms Around You/Thy Arms Around Me - Music; Pri Teach and Spence's Lines and Stage work

Jan 27 (Fri) - Life Could Not Be Better/I Love My Things/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Music; Lines for all scenes in-between songs (possible blocking); Pri Teach and Spence's Lines and Stage work

Jan 28 (Sat) - Here Waiting - Dance Choreography; His Arms Around You (CHOREOGRAPHY and music); Thy Arms Around Me (CHOREOGRAPHY and music); Pri Teach and Spence Lines/Music/Blocking

Feb 3 (Fri) - Life Could Not Be Better/I Love My Things/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - MUSIC and Choreography

Feb 4 (Sat) - Blocking/Lines for all scenes in-between songs

Feb 10 (Fri) - Blocking/Lines for all scenes in-between songs

Feb 11 (Sat) - Life Could Not Be Better/I Love My Things/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Choreography, Lines w/ Recorded Music (All actors and singers, w/o Pri Teachers, and Spenc); Pri Teacher, students and Spencer - Lines/Music/Blocking

Feb 17 and 18 (Fri and Sat) - No Rehearsal

Feb 24 (Fri) - Here Waiting - Dance Choreography; His Arms Around You (CHOREOGRAPHY and music); Thy Arms Around Me (CHOREOGRAPHY and music)

Feb 25 (Sat) - Life Could Not Be Better/I Love My Things/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Lines, Choreography w/ Recorded Music (All actors and singers, w/o Pri Teach, and Spenc)

March 3 (Fri) - Pri.Teacher and Spencer's Lines, Music and Choreography (w/ the rest of Spence's class); Here Waiting - Lines/Music and Choreography (Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi & Choreographer)

March 4 (Sat) - Here Waiting/His Arms Around You/Thy Arms Around Me - Complete Music and Choreography (Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi and Dance Choreographer, then Nephi, Lehi and Sariah); ALL Lines and Blocking w/ Primary Teachers, students and Spencer

March 10 (Fri) - I Love My Things/Life Could Not Be Better/Thy Arms Around Me (Reprise) - Complete Blocking/Lines and Music (Entire Cast); and each follow up, non-singing transition scene

March 11 (Sat) - Tidy-up

March 17 (Fri) - Tidy-up Day/Costumes (any numbers that aren't 100%)

March 18 (Sat) - Full Run-through (Entire Cast)

March 24 - (Fri) -

March 25 (Sat) -

March 31 (Fri) -

April 1 (Sat) - General Conference - No Rehearsal

April 4 and 5 (Tues and Wed) - Put up Set; Tech and Dress Rehearsals

April 6, 7 and 8 (Thursday evng, Friday evng and Saturday mat) - Showtimes

As you can see, my rough schedule was made up before my auditions, when I hadn’t yet realized that we’d need another week of try-outs. Also, although it doesn’t say on the schedule, I knew that I wanted to rehearse in 2-hour blocks on each of the rehearsal days, and that, in general, Saturday rehearsals would grow longer starting a month before the show was to go up, but never exceeding 4 hours.

Ok, so once you’ve made up the rough/tentative rehearsal schedule, you are ready to get going with the auditions!