Well, we survived it. The tech and dress rehearsals for A Christmas Carol are over and we are officially in our preview phase of production. It all ran rather smoothly actually, even with the long hours. The best part of that portion of rehearsals, however, ended up being something that had nothing to do with the show at all.

Now, as those of you who have taken the train from Princeton to New York Penn Station know, the train ride back and forth between Big Apple and McCarter is not a hop-skip-and-jump ride. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Penn Station and some of us have another 30-45 minute subway rides from there. If we were to take the trains after rehearsals got out at 11:00 pm, only to be back for a 11 am call the following day, we wouldn’t be sleeping much.

The wonderful people at the McCarter treat their folks like family and, luckily, sprung to put the cast up at the Marriott Residence Inn. Many of us have often been on the road in national and regional tours, summer stock, regional theater productions, and various other performance outlets and are very acquainted with staying in hotels. When we all checked into this particular one, we braced ourselves for the usual non-descript decor, lumpy mattresses, teeny refrigerators and various other accommodations that are less than home-like. We all got our keys, boarded a few elevators and trudged off to different rooms on different floors. Expecting the worst we entered our rooms and saw… A FIREPLACE!!! Yes, you read that correctly. These rooms were not your run of the mill hotel fare. These were 2 bedroom suites with full living room and kitchen. And yes, the working FIREPLACE!!! Almost immediately we began calling each other all giddy and giggly. We felt like stars!

(more…)

A few days ago, I posted about loading in the set of A Christmas Carol. Every year, our information technology department makes a time-lapse video of the load-in. The crew watches it every year to teach the new folk the order in which things happen and to refresh the series of events for the returners. The camera sits in the back of the house, and records .5 seconds of motion video every 30 seconds. Therefore every second of the video represents 1 minute of activity on the stage, and every minute of video represents 1 hour of real time. The entire video is 24 minutes - from the first pieces getting brought into the theater through most of light focus.

It’s fun and educational to watch, especially if you like to skip around a bit (about 9 minutes in there is a really great section!). Sometimes you see a lot of people standing around doing nothing - that is because we have found it more efficient to have more people on-hand, even if they aren’t working every second. That way, if someone needs to move a ladder or lift something up in order to do the next job, there is always someone there to help - the process never gets slowed down because there aren’t enough hands on deck.

Enjoy the video! Post any comments or questions below, by clicking on the “comments” link.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

The “Spike Tape Challenge” is what happens when rehearsals for A Christmas Carol move from the rehearsal room to the stage. Somebody has to pull up all the spike tape that the stage management staff spent so much time putting down, and the stage management staff is busy getting everything all set upstairs. So the Young Ensemble has a competition - boys versus girls - for which team can pull up the most spike tape from the rehearsal room floor. Read below for one Young Ensemble member’s impression of the event.

The following entry was written by a member of the Young Ensemble of A Christmas Carol, the team of 14 local actors between the ages of 6-13 who play all the childrens’ roles in McCarter’s annual production of A Christmas Carol:

I had no fun in the spike tape challenge. The girls beat the boys in what I thought was an unfair match! But today was our first tech rehearsal today, and even though we are working lots and lots of hours, we are having fun.

Posted by a member of the Young Ensemble of McCarter’s annual production of A Christmas Carol.