Technical Rehearsals for “Cabaret” began on Thursday evening. Over a four day period we move into the theater, add lights, costumes, michrophones, and the band. Trying to figure out how to maneuver each of the scene changes, respace the scenes to fit the actual physical set and adjust the choreography so a dancer doesn’t land in the orchestra pit, inevitably means we move at a snail’s pace. So there is usually a fair amount of waiting around on the part of the company.

The orchestra for this show is down in the traditional “orchestra pit” - and will be on view to audience members seated in the first few rows. In this photo, Joel is leaning against the forestage and discussing spacing for “Don’t Tell Mama” with Pilar and Sarah Marie.

Danna, our wig designer created hair for most of the characters in the play. I thought with Karen’s wig (above) - Danna really helped to visually move Karen into the world of the play.

The set for “Cabaret” employs a revolving turntable, which always means a super-complicated tech process. You have to program both the speed of the turn, and number of degrees turned for each move - and that usually means doing each move over and over and over. The revolve was designed to be able to move 2000 lbs of weight (as we knew we wanted the entire cast moving for the very end of Act I). But we hadn’t anticipated that the force of ten dancers doing sharp turns against the movement of the revolve would trigger the motor’s “overload” threshold and shut the system down. So we spent several hours on Saturday afternoon tearing our hair out, rechoreographing the number (MONEY) and contemplating purchase of a larger motor. The joys of technology.