Self Help by Norm Foster opens tonight. I certainly hope it's better than last night's preview. Lines were forgotten left and right, pages (literally) were skipped, messing up an entrance, etc. And, we have an audience for the preview. Technically, it's a dress rehearsal, and it's rarely perfect, but this one was so far from perfect that I felt really, really sorry for the audience who actually do pay, a donation to charity, to attend.
Anyway, it'll be right eventually. Tonight, I hope. We'll see...
So, I finally went ahead and used a recycled Preshow and Intermission for the first time. I previously used the same music for "The Butler Did It", about four years ago. No one noticed, and I didn't think they would. It's just soft, instrumental jazz, actually off one of those CDs you see at Walmart or the drug store, where you push the button and hear selections.
The theme of the show is, as you would imagine, self help. I needed music that would be strong, confident, successful, inspirational, etc. The show starts with "There's No Business Like Show Business" since, in the opening of the play, you can see that they are struggling actors, just trying to make a living. I found a great piece of music on the Internet called "Smash of the Titans, Underscore" for their theme music as self help gurus. I use the same piece of music in 3 different places: beginning and end of Act 1, Scene 2, and the top of Act 2 as the curtains are opening.
At various places in the show I am using "Money" by Pink Floyd, "Accentuate the Positive" by Paul McCartney, and "I Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison. Curtain Call music is "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. Exit music is "Try Try Try" by Nikki Yanofsky and "High Hopes" by Frank Sinatra.
Stuff had to be recorded for the show as well. I recorded two lines myself, the actors' five minute warning, and the "places please" announcement in the first scene of Act 1. I had my wife record the introduction to the self help seminar. That was a bit of work: I start with audience hubbub (from the Internet), then my wife starts and the hubbub dies down. As it does, a drumroll starts. As she's saying their names the applause starts, then cheers. I used two different sound effect clips for that. When the intro is over there is a cymbal crash, and the Smash of the Titans music starts. The actors come out and call for the music to stop. I put in a needle scratch sound for that. There's also a dog barking, a couple of times, and I just used a clip already in my computer, that I probably used before.
I decided it would be easier to record the intercom conversations from the kitchen rather than hook up a mic backstage and do it live. In three separate places in the script the Intercom is used from the kitchen and I knew it would work better as a sound effect. For one thing, it frees the actor, we don't have to set up the mic, and I can do the processing in advance, and it sounds the same every time.
Lighting is pretty basic. When the play opens they are in their dressing room, backstage. Rather than do it on the stage, we have them set up in the audience, right at the front so we had to have a special light cue for that. The seminar scene is done in front of the curtain, so we have just three lights devoted to that, which are also incorporated into the regular lights, for the rest of the show on the stage.
Well, that's about it, I think. Come see the show, if you can. But maybe wait a week or two until the cast learn their lines, okay?
Michael
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