My last check-in was 7 days ago, talking about the read-through which occurred on Sunday Aug 30th. Cast rehearsals continued after that. I attended the rehearsal on Sunday Sep 6th which focused on blocking of much of Act II as well as Act III Scene 3.

In Act I, I need to create a gigantic shipwreck/thunder/lightning/surf pounding sound cue, which will be a lot of fun. My goal is to get the audience to collectively jump out of their seats. The goal for the opening of Act II is more modest – a return to the sea coast with a nice surf ambience to introduce Sebastian (Viola‘s twin brother, thought to be drowned) and Antonio (the “pirate”).

For the transition to Act II Scene 3, we’re going to try a semi-frantic but funny bebop riff for our two lovable drunks, Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew. I’ve come to really appreciate Shakespeare’s drunks. Feste the Clown also enters the scene and performs a reprise of the beautiful O’ Mistress Mine tune as well as joining the gentlemen in some musical shenanigans. Marvolio hops in to try to kill everyone’s buzz (to no avail). As does Maria who introduces the conspiracy to publicly embarrass. Marvolio later in the play.

Scene 4 will introduce a jazz version of Come Away, Come Away Death performed by Feste and Valentine (on guitar). I have a nice working combination of the melody and drums but now I need to work on the chord changes. Stay tuned…

This post is being published almost a week after the actual rehearsal occurred. The ideas are in my head, it just takes me an embarrassingly long time to get them into words in a post. I’m going to try to be more timely with future posts. We’ll see.

Today’s snippet – just a ditty