Top Ten

Originally, I'd anticipated having some media to share with you at this point. But I don't (yet). So instead, here's my top ten list of my favorite-things-you-might-not-have-known-were-my-favorite-things from KATB.

10. Maxine. For the first couple months of rehearsals, we didn't have a (confirmed) actor to play Max. So instead, we used our loyal stage manager, Becca. "Maxine," of course, was the obligatory nickname given to her character to account for the abrupt gender shift....

9. The duck slippers. I got to wear DUCK SLIPPERS for Sam's first scene. How cool is that???

8. The Federation of the Americas (FOA). Frequently referred to as the Federation for short, the FOA quickly became a running joke backstage. But to the best of my knowledge, Prime Minister Jones never met Captain James T. Kirk.

7. Singing. Surprisingly, I enjoyed doing this. Enough said.

6. The dance. Long delayed by a mischievous DJ, my much-anticipated dance finally came to be through the magic of KATB. Enough said.

5. The Jarboes. Seriously the unsung heroes of KATB, they were the model cast members: On time, down-to-earth, and willing to do just about anything. Plus, their sons are the most promising young proofreaders on this planet.

4. The dress. I learned a lot, reassembling that dress onstage over and over again. The biggest thing I learned is that I'm glad I don't have to do that on a daily basis.

3. "But it's Friday!" The greatest line in the script.

2. "Whatever." See above.

1. "Always love taco night." The Chuck Norris of lines. Is it a statement? A question? A plea? A transcendental globe of pure energy sent from the highest of celestial spheres? Whatever its true meaning, it remains one of the greatest sentences ever to pass the lips of humankind.

–William

The King And The Bride: A Complete & Unofficial Analysis Of Major Themes, Characters, Etc., Containing Multiple Digressions Into Original Research...

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's performance! Thank you all for coming and making the second night as memorable as the first! Closing night, as our stage manager had so wisely said, was terribly bittersweet....

I promised I would write this, so what follows is my poor feeble analysis of The King and the Bride. Whether or not it's exactly what Sarah meant to convey, I can't say. In fact, I'm sure I'll read things into it that she didn't intentionally put there. I'd love to hear your opinions on it. Please leave a comment in the box below, or send me an email if you have comments or questions.

There are several different ways I could have gone about doing this. In the end, I decided to just discuss major characters and major events, and what they meant to me. I did make a couple of basic assumptions. First of all, I took for granted that readers of this post had seen the play, and that I wouldn't need to summarize the whole thing. In addition, I think that people generally understood why Sam represents Jesus. Therefore, I didn't feel the need to explain him (though again, if you think I do, let me know!)

Things get much more complicated when we move on to Lucy, though. Who is Lucy? The character Uncle Jesse says it best:

"Lucy is all of us, Peter. She's every person you've ever met who seemed alone...every person who ever needed to know they were loved. That's all of us, buddy. Everyone you meet, at some time in their life, is a Lucy. And every Lucy needs a Sam."

However, it's also obvious that Lucy is the titular bride of "The King and the Bride", which would argue for an interpretation of Lucy as the Bride of Christ, or the church. Fascinatingly, Lucy is both. Not only is her story one of personal redemption, but it's also the story of the redemption of the church. And the love that Sam shows her is exactly the same. God loves us all personally and corporately exactly the same way. Quite incredible!

Who is Uncle Jesse, anyway? And who's Peter represent? At first, I thought that their role was purely a narrative device, with Jesse telling Peter the story of Sam and Lucy. It took me until the second-to-last dress rehearsal to realize that they could be a continuation of the origins of The King and the Bride. God told the story to Deacon David, Deacon David told it to KidsPraise!, and KidsPraise! told it through "Uncle Jesse," who was himself telling the story to Peter. I can't help but think that's significant.

Is Max Satan? Possibly. But couldn't he also be just another fallen, sinful human? In fact, Deacon David made an excellent point that the person who really could be Satan is one of Max's minions. After Max and his gang shred Lucy's wedding dress, this particular minion stays behind and says to Lucy, "Pathetic." Instead of recognizing the beauty of God's creation, Satan will always call it pathetic. My question has always been, "Is there hope for Max?" Only time will tell....

And speaking of Max, why the heck doesn't Sam beat the tar out of Max after Max pushes Lucy down in the prom sequence? It rankled with many people that Sam simply fixed Max with a gimlet-eyed glare and raced out of the room. Again, this begs the question: Can Sam, being Jesus, care for Max too? Could Max be just as much a part of Creation as Lucy? We never find out. But I think he is.

Sam's dad is a fairly obvious characterization of God the Father. But who's the Page? Here again, opinion differs. Sarah specifically wrote the Page to represent the Holy Spirit, but others have suggested the clergy as his framework. Only one thing is certain: "Page" is spelled P-A-G-E, not P-A-I-G-E as it is in the script.

The dance, long desired by Sam and long avoided by Lucy, marks the climax of the play. I'm somewhat uneasy discussing it, as I feel like I really don't know what I'm doing here. So here goes. For me, the dance is our relationship with God. As Sam says,

"You see, Lucy, life isn't about all the time we spend staring at our feet. It's not about the steps we miss. Or whether or not we like the music. It's about the dance. It started the day we were created, and it has a million beautiful steps we never could have imagined!"

Like our relationship with God, the dance is intimate, personal, and hungered-for by Sam. And only by looking into the eyes of God, surrendering our will, can we dance in perfect time.

I'm really only scraping away at the surface. The King and the Bride is incredibly deep, and it would be impossible to describe everything contained within it. But I hope this has clarified for you some of the major points of the play (and I also wanted to have a written account of the allegorical references made in KATB).

I'm not quite through yet, though. As soon as I get them, I'll put some pictures from the last dress rehearsal up here. Also, I've one final, more personal post in mind, and I may have it up by the weekend (but it depends on when I get the photos). So I hope to see you then!

–William

Thank You

First of all, a big thank you to all who made the effort to come out and see our opening night! Thanks for making it such a success. (And I hope to see at least a few of you tomorrow too!!)

One quick item of business: I promised in the program for KATB that I would have a detailed analysis of the major characters/themes in the play up on this blog. I wanted to let you know that it'll probably be Sunday by the time I get it up here; I wanted it to be a detailed analysis, after all. So don't give up hope when it's not posted tomorrow; I wnat to mkae srue I get all the tpyos out.

Thank you once again! And my fellow cast members: I know I really had fun! Thanks for making this such an awesome experience.

–William

Don't Look Back

It seems fitting that I'm detailing the last chapter in the "Making Of" saga on the day of the World Premiere. Yet in a way, this chapter hasn't been written yet....

Being a classical pianist, I have a somewhat privileged look at performance. I've done it often enough that I think I can say that I'm comfortable walking on stage (though never would I DARE to call it "routine" or "boring"!!!!). And as part of my training, I've learned many things about performing. But probably the single most important piece of advice I've ever heard is "Don't look back". This bears repeating:

Don't. Look. Back.

In its barest form, those three words could mean "Don't think about your mistakes", but that's really not all that they encompass. What they really convey is, "Don't think about anything but what comes next. Live the moment. Be Sam. Be Lucy. Be whatever you need to be. And above all, don't look back."

I really can't wait for tonight! (In fact, you might say that I'm looking forward to performing....) I think it will be superb.

And I hope to see you there!

–William

Dress Rehearsal Photos

Here are some photos from the dress rehearsal yesterday!

A young Lucy sings her "depressing Russian song":

Lucy throws an admiring glance NOT AT SAM:

"Look Luce! A shooting star!"

And my personal favorite:

Many thanks to Daniel for taking these pictures! They prove that little brothers are occasionally good for SOMETHING....

–William

P.S. There are a TON of pictures that I didn't post. But I did want to save a FEW surprises for the performances...and I'll post them after Saturday!

How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall?

Hello again! The last few weeks have been the busiest yet, and we've been putting the final touches on costuming, sets, and sound effects/music. Yesterday marked a milestone: the first ever dress rehearsal! Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that I mention on Sunday that I planned to post again on Monday, which I didn't. Well, I lied. Sue me.

Originally I had intended to devote a Sunday "Making Of" post to the sets and costumes. However, I have been involved in very little of that process, so I don't feel as though I can do justice to those departments. I can say, however, that they're looking beautiful, and that they lie in good hands. So costume and set people, please don't think I've unfairly neglected you (which I have. I just don't want you to think that. Get it?)

So today, instead, I will talk about the next Weave in the Great Fabric of KATB: Practicing. Probably everyone, at some point in their life, has repeated something in the hopes of doing it better the second time. There is something particularly strange, though, about the nature of rehearsing art. The greatest art is spontaneous: The second time you hear or see it should feel just as fresh and new as the first time. At the same time, though, much is to be gained from experiencing it over and over. Knowing the work of art inside and out, being able to anticipate the unexpected, lends a flavor unlike any other to the spontaneous.

So the performer's dilemma is finding the extremely delicate balance between security and spontaneity. Play it too safe, and you find yourself becoming an automaton, a machine; live too dangerously, and imperfections begin to creep in. Sadly, there is only one way to discover that balance: Practice. And practice, as I'm sure we've all noticed, can be plain old HARD WORK. Rarely is there anything terribly glamourous about practicing. It can be boring or tiring, or boring and tiring.

Yet it can also be full of joy. As you memorize a script, work on a Beethoven sonata, or drill through a dance routine, you can discover hundreds of beautiful tiny details you never would have noticed otherwise. And behind each detail are hundreds more. It's this quality, unique to art, which can give dimension to a painting, words to wordless music, emotion to poetry. It is the job of the performer (or the artist, in painting's case) to bring these details to the audience. And if you've practiced (REALLY practiced), then there's no way you can't bring out all those details, or why it shouldn't be fun!

Thankfully, I can say that I have had fun practicing and rehearsing The King and the Bride. I hope you guys have too! Next week's topic (and next week is not too far away now!) is the biggest, most transcendental yet...performing. This will conclude the behind-the-scenes look at The King and the Bride.

So I'll see you then!

–William

P.S. In case you didn't know (or figured it out by now), the answer to the question "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" is not "Practice, practice, practice," but rather, "Take the Queens Midtown Tunnel to E 34th St., then take a right at 6th Ave. Turn left at W 57th St. and then take the first left onto 7th Ave. It's the tall red brick building that says 'Carnegie Hall' on it."

Official Trailer, & A Cattle Prod

A gentle reminder from the Tyrant that "people like the blog so MAYBE YOU SHOULD UPDATE IT!!" has not gone unnoticed. In fact, it has galvanized me into action like a cow before the Electric Cow-Encouragement Device (as the cattle prod is now called in politically correct circles, or should I say, pastures.) Anyway, I sat down after church this morning and began to write my next post in the "Making Of" series, but was quickly overwhelmed by a writer's block as tall and daunting as Sagarmatha itself. So instead, I turned to another, more-easily-written-about subject: Our new Official Trailer!

Here it is, embedded below:

And for those of you who come here for the long long ramblings of Me: That's coming tomorrow. (Bless you, spring break!!)

–William