Quantum Physics: The Musical

It's 11 pm on Monday night. We open Friday. Tech is Wednesday. For those of you who don't know, normally in a theatre, technical rehearsals will take place over three to five days - long, twelve hour days. For the Fringe, all shows get three hours total. Besides which, you have only fifteen minutes to set up everything you need before each performance, and another fifteen to get it all out of the theatre again. All of which makes for most Fringe shows having low technical requirements. Well, our show is all about the performances, the music, the dancing, the comedy - so we're leaving the "quantum world" special effects to your imagination. But this is the point - again for those of you who've never been involved in a theatre production - where everyone gets tired, everyone's working incredibly hard, everyone's trying to get it together, to get the show where it needs to be for opening night. All over the city theatre folks are pulling long hours. I've spent the day listening to the recording of the CD that we made last night. In my heart I'm really excited, even if in my adrenals I'm exhausted from all the coffee I've been drinking to keep awake.

This is where everyone's nerves get excited - the tension mounts as we head to opening night, one week from today. Today I taught the finale to the cast - the last new song, I promise! The cast did a line run under a tree (see picture in our album) while waiting for Leon to arrive. The crazy thing about doing a new show is that you sometimes don't know what works until you see it "on its feet." We cut the last part of the finale in half just before Keri choreographed it tonight. Craziness! But, as Ian reminded me earlier, we only put pen to paper on the first draft of this show in June. And it's looking really good. I think the audience is going to enjoy it a lot. I can't wait to see a run-through. Meanwhile, I'm still plugging away at these backtracks. Almost done, and I think I will get them done to do a cast recording on Sunday. My part is almost over, and then I'll just have to let go and cross my fingers.

Ian just did a search and discovered that two Canadian bloggers have put our poster, with their comments, on their blogs. One, a science fiction writer, said, "Go see this show!" and the other, a physicist asked why we used a picture of a galaxy for a show about the microdimensions. Well, it looked cool, that's why. Check out their blogs at:

http://jonben.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_jonben_archive.html

and

http://edwardwillett.blogspot.com/

In case you're just coming in here, this is a musical comedy about Quantum Physics that I wrote with my husband Ian Gschwind, that's going to be at the Fringe Festival in Vancouver - opening Friday, September 9, which is only four days away. My name is Vanessa LeBourdais and I've been working on backtracks for the show and for a CD of songs from the show I've been hoping to be able to record with some of the cast. We did it. I got the backtracks done in time for Michael and Leon to come over today to record a bunch of songs from the show. See the hilarious picture of them singing the heavy metal song "Dark Matter" - look in our album. We had a great time doing the recording, and it didn't take as long as I thought. I'm really pleased. And I loved getting to sing on the album, since I decided not to be in the show. Now I know why the cast is having such a good time with the show. Now all I have to do before we open is record Amy, do all the mixing of the album, plus the creation of the physical CDs themselves for sale. Oh, and make a program. Did I mention rehearse? And we have four days. I can do it.

Four hours of dancing! Okay, since I'm the composer & music director, and most of the backtracks are now finished, it meant I pushed "start", sat back and watched the actors dance. But what fun. Keri, the choreographer, is doing a fabulous job. Some of the actors missed a couple of rehearsals last week, so we're behind with the dancing. Keri was uber-efficient and the cast were lapping the moves up and having a ball. The audience is just going to have a good time watching them enjoy themselves, I can tell.

I spent most of the day finishing the last backtrack. I'd hoped to get them all done and a CD made for rehearsal tonight, but it was not to be. I honestly don't know how I'm going to get it all done in time to make a cast recording, the way I'd hoped. But I know I'll do it, even if it means staying up nights and ignoring my adorable 2 1/2 year old daughter. (She is saying, lately, that she wants to write musicals when she grows up).

I can't wait to see the show put together in a run or stumble-through. Hopefully we'll get there by Saturday. Yipes. Today Ian (my hubby, co-writer, co-producer, director and stage manager) was building set pieces and contemplating lighting.

Must go to bed.