Final Report

Final Report: January 12, 2003

Week of 12/22:
We can't get anyone to help strike the lights due to the holiday and the short notice. So James, Mark Hankla (our SET designer!) and I (with help from a couple people from Cole's office) finish the job, and in HALF the time I was quoted by our Master Electrician. (Reference the observation in the last report re: time and cost estimates you get in NY.) Kurt handles boxing up the makeup, costumes and props (with Leslie's assistance), and we get everything shipped back to Dallas late that week. We have a lovely White Christmas, the first one NYC has had since 1969! And we spend Christmas dinner with the Dallas folk at a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side.

Week of 12/29:
We pack up our personal stuff and ship much of it home as well. We finish about an hour and 15 minutes before our flight is scheduled to depart, and we grab a cab to the airport, where we learn our flight has been delayed three hours due to weather in Dallas. Doesn't matter, as we know we will soon be home in the land of free refills and common courtesy, so we are patient. We spend the rest of the week in Dallas in a non-stop whirlwind of idle sluggishness, as we soak up sleep, Tex Mex, movies we missed, and the company of our animals.

Week of 1/05:
We get back into our familiar routine, and it feels WONDERFUL! The only lingering effect is that Albert (our Corgi) apparently developed separation anxiety at some point during our absence and literally barked himself hoarse. (Yes, our neighbors love us.) So he still sounds like he has a sore throat when he barks.

Production observations:

People really do get in trouble for working "too fast" on union jobs. Both James and Mark have personally experienced this, so I think it's a feature that unions in both Texas and New York share.
Guess what? Film people are different from theatre people. We know this because both the props designer and the costume designer have worked almost exclusively on films. They didn't know what a technical rehearsal or preview was and thought that as long as they had all costumes and props by Opening Night, they'd be OK. We discovered this about a week before Opening. And to this day, the props designer refers to the production as "the shoot" .
Shows in NY that are listed as starting at 8:00 p.m. actually start at either 8:00 p.m. or 8:10 p.m. Someone makes a conscious decision at the beginning of the run regarding which will be the true start time. This is apparently standard procedure, according to the NY folk we worked with.
During the final week of the show, we tried a marketing experiment. We went to the TKTS booth at Times Square with several actors in makeup and costume to hand out show flyers. We attracted a lot of attention, including from a Japanese TV crew. (They were there to interview the "man on the street" about the new baseball player from Japan who has signed with NY.) And Raymond scared a number of children in his black-and-white Santa getup. We also attracted attention in ways we had not anticipated. On both days the actors got called "n*gger" by young gentlemen in the subway. We finally decided that "n*gger" is the equivalent of "dude" , as in "Hey dude! Look at that dude. That dude is some scary sh*t." And so on.
We now understand why there's a need for an organization like Actor's Equity. There really are people on the production side who treat actors like cannon fodder. If our role had only been as co-producer, we might never have known, not having any insight into the day to day details. In this case, Kurt was also in the cast, so he got to see both sides. There was an attitude on the part of some people on the design team and crew that because the actors were non-Equity, we could do whatever we wanted with them. We had to intervene several times.
In the end we walked away with four reviews (maybe five if TheatreScope gets around to writing anything) plus a video of the show that includes the audience mingling with the cast in the lobby afterwards. It's terrific material to use for the next phase of the adventure, which we hope will include a Texas tour.
And in case anyone is wondering, we do plan to produce in Dallas again! Not sure when yet, but we'll keep you posted.

NY observations:

The Christmas tree at Rockfeller Center is every bit as beautiful as it looks in photographs!
Another NY dichotomy: Mass-transit etiquette. On the positive side, all you have to do is peer intently at a subway or bus map, and at least one person will immediately stop and offer assistance. The flip side is that it's usually everyone for themselves once you're on the bus or subway. No namby-pamby offering your seat to someone here, by golly. I once gave up my seat to an elderly woman on a bus. She didn't move fast enough, so a woman my age zipped over and took the seat. And she ripped me a new one when I observed that I was giving up the seat for the older woman. Silly me.
Avoid Midtown restaurants and shops if possible. They tend to serve overpriced attitude with a side of ennui.
Don't assume everyone you meet in NY fits the stereotype. Just when you're ready to smack the next rude person you encounter upside the head, you'll meet someone like the clerk at Staples, or the owner of the drycleaners where we took the show laundry, or any one of a number of people who were helpful and gracious. They kept us sane!

So that's it. This phase of the adventure is over. And what an incredible journey it was! Thanks for sharing it with us.

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