A Curious Series of Small Murders: So Many Things

Ok! It's been a hot minute since I made a post here. A lot of things have happened. Runthroughs, tech, dress, and opening. And now we arrive at the closing performances. Runthroughs were a little shaky at first, a combination of nerves and incomplete memorization. After the first round of runthroughs we had another rehearsal where we sped through the play as fast and loud as possible. Not only did this help with memorization, it also brought spirits back up and everyone left the rehearsal feeling energized and happy. By the time second runthroughs were done the actors were doing much better.

Tech week went pretty smoothly for my play. The lighting effects were pretty simple, with the only special being the red light near the end of the play. During tech the light was pretty much impossible to see. So the lighting crew had some ideas about how to fix it when dress rehearsals came around.

Dress rehearsals were a fun process. Getting to see the play with all the pieces in place was awesome. It made me so happy to see the costumes, make up, and sound all come together.

Opening night! I was so excited going into the theatre, I thought I would be more nervous but I wasn't. I was confident in the actors and the tech crew, and I knew the jokes were landing with the other writers and directors during dress rehearsals. A couple minutes before the show started my director Sarah leaned over to me and told be there would be some new sound cues in the play. I had no idea what they were going to be. I thought maybe there would be some different intro/outro music or something. I was not prepared for the first "Law and Order" sound effect. I was caught so off-guard that I burst out laughing harder than anyone else in the theatre I think. The play was a hit, it got a lot of laughs and some groans. My favourite thing about seeing the play performed is seeing the audience piece together the twist. hearing the occasional "Ooooh." or chuckle at one of the hints in the play makes me so happy.

Overall, I am so proud of how this play has turned out. My cast and director along with the student designers have all been phenomenal in bringing the silly play I wrote last term to life better than I could have imagined. This whole process started with stress over casting and scheduling and has been nothing but fun since then. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.