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BEHIND THE SCENES
Another Opening, Another
SHOW
It’s six o’clock in the evening and
Tawes Theatre still stinks from last night’s dress rehearsal. Not that the final run-through of The Boys from Syracuse was particularly sweaty, it just was particularly bad. Really bad. The pace was glacial, the singers were off-key, actors missed their lines, props wandered away, the timing was off, the orchestra was either behind or ahead of the cast, jokes fell flat, entrances were late. And the actors knew it.
There were fights and bickering and tears. During a post-mortem with the cast, director Jason Rubin threw down his pad—partly for effect, no doubt, but clearly he was frustrated.
Rehearsal the night before, he says, went extremely well.
Why is tonight so God-awful bad?
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That is the speech the 30-or-so actors remember as they trickle into the Daniel Z. Gibson Performing Arts Center for the musical’s Thursday night opening in April. For |
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two months they have been rehearsing one of the most ambitious projects ever produced by the Washington College music and drama departments. The drama department has |
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been enjoying a remarkable surge in popularity during recent years. Major numbers are at record totals, classes are full, and casting calls are flush. So expectations are high this Opening
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