WEDNESDAY JULY 18

Note the following change: Music rehearsal this week has been moved from Wednesday night (tonight) from 7:00 to 7:30 to Thursday night. Well probably meet in the purple room again, so look for us there.

Sorry for the confusion on the blog yesterday. For some reason, I just had the wedding scene on my mind. And that’s what I focused on. Well, at least we’re ahead for today!

Last night went well. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have the entire cast available to complete a scene.  Please make sure to review your blocking before we run this scene again so that we don’t have to stop and figure out where your entrance is or where you need to stand. As the show evolves, note these things will shift around a bit. Not a lot, but perhaps a bit.

We’re going to pick up the pace next week by running TWO Acts per night instead of just one. This is what next week looks like:

Mon July 23: OFF (Run lines at home, particularly Act I and II!)

Tuesday July 24: Acts I and II (Off book for I and II, but you can call for lines)

Wednesday July 25: Acts III and I

Thursday July 26: Acts II and III

We’ll also have to squeeze in a few more music rehearsals here and there, but these should take no more than 30 minutes a piece.

Some of you have asked about costumes and why we will mime events from 1900 but wear contemporary clothing. I talked about this early on during rehearsal and on July 8 blog entry, but here’s a review:

Wilder wrote Our Town in 1937 and it premiered the following year. So the opening Act takes place a generation or two earlier than the present- 37 years to be exact. For comparison, if Wilder had written Our Town today, he would have set the opening Act in 1973. And while the clothes people wore in 1973 are certainly different from what we wear today, they wouldn’t look as foreign as waistcoats and bustles. The clothing would have been recognizable and relatable.

One of the things Wilder did was to throw theatre convention on its ear. He eliminated scenery, which made the audience LOOK at the actors more intently to imagine what was happening. We’re doing the same thing by tossing out dated turn-of-the-century costumes that are typically associated with Our Town. When people see floor length skirts and kids in knickers, it creates a distance. They begin to think that Our Town happened 100 years ago when people were different. Our world, they begin to think, is different today.

But you and I know that things today aren’t different. People still rush headlong through life, missing chances to really look at one another, losing out on making connections. I’d like all of you to look like present-day moms or dads or students or editors or professors or stage managers. That way, the moms, dads, and students in the audience start to see themselves.

Chances are, maybe half of our audience will have seen one version or another of Our Town before. It’s one of the most performed plays in America. But I want them to see Our Town in a new way beginning August 17, a version that includes them.

Fun Fact about Our Town #7

This fact isn’t fun, but it is important. On p 71, Mrs. Soames, after finding out that Emily has died in childbirth, says, “Childbirth! I’d forgotten all about that!” Perhaps she is referring to the joys of bringing a new life into the world. But she is also referring to how dangerous childbirth was back then.

Maternal mortality rates at the turn of the century were, ballpark, about 100 deaths per 100,000 pregnant women. In the 1800’s, these rates crept upwards of 40% in some areas. Getting pregnant was about the risky thing a woman could do in an era lacking blood transfusions and antibiotics. (US maternal mortality rates today vary from state to state, but a rate of 10 per 100,000 is close to average.)

Putting this into perspective, start counting kids in your school or kids of co-workers or kids in your church. Every time you get to 100, eliminate one mother. The cumulative effect could be quite profound. If your school has an enrollment of 1000, the "cost" would have been the lives of ten moms. Very sad.

Cemeteries at the turn of the century were full of the graves of mothers and their infants.