Sounding off

Today marked a very big day for Click Clack Moo: not only was it our first three-show day (at a school, no less), it was also the beginning of our longest stretch of local shows, and our first 6am call at the vans up on 108th and Amsterdam. This rather-taxing situation was made slightly better by the fact that it was preceded by a day off, but a 4am wake-up is hard to swallow no matter how much sleep you had the night before, so everybody was a little groggy and grouchy as we pulled onto the Triborough Bridge (excuse me, the RFK) and headed for eastern Long Island.

Once we arrived at the school, however, the fun really began.

First, the school had a different schedule for our shows than we did. Our schedule listed 9:15 as the first show time, which would have been tight anyway for building the set and getting our full half hour, but with the time-change to 9am, we went into overdrive. The barn, house and roll drop flew up, and Claire (our ASM 2, and charged with the sound) raced through her set-up. We were making decent time, until Claire approached us with a bit of a problem. "Guys," she said, "the monitor and mini disk player don't seem to be working."

Uh oh.

For those of you new to the Theatreworks set-up, our mini disk player is the source of all our music. And, in the words of former stage manager Rafi, "our 'musical' just turned into an 'al.'" Alaina called Theatreworks and dug through her files for the rehearsal CD while we scoured the school for a CD player. Colleen offered up her iPod, which has the tracks on it, but no converter wire could be found. And, once the first boom box failed to work at all (with only 15 minutes until the first show), we braced for the harsh reality that we might be doing our show a capella. Finally, with about 5 minutes to showtime, a replacement boom box was procured, its speakers deemed large enough to fill the auditorium, the kiddies were let in and our first show began.



One problem we noticed right off the bat is that our rehearsal CD has slightly different tempos and pauses as compared to our performance tracks. My farmer's lament, for example, is at about half-time on the CD from our performance speed. Maddy's revelation (and mine, as well) have huge rhythmic breaks that threw our timing. We stumbled through the first show, able to hear everything but (at least on my part) unsure of our musical footing. We quickly reset, having learned that our second show had been pushed back by a half-hour, rehearsed a few trouble spots, and did it again. And, after a lunch of delivery Chinese (and a Red Bull each for Alaina and myself), performance number three went off without a hitch. Did I mention that we're "really fast learners"? (Sorry. That's a quote from the show.)

What was truly spectacular about the whole experience, besides the fact that we pulled it all off on almost no sleep, was the genuinely positive reactions of the teachers and administrators to our show. Between every single performance, a teacher wandered into the theater to tell us how great we were. This school, it seems, gets a ton of the touring school assemblies out there (and, as a Slim Goodbody alum, I'm well aware of the ways in which those shows differ from Theatreworks), and the teachers were very appreciative that we gave them something they could enjoy along with the kids.

We broke down, giddy from exhaustion (and quite literally dancing a few our our set pieces down the long hallway that stood between our stage and our vans), loaded up, and headed home through rush hour traffic. I drove the final stretch, and as most of the rest of the cast dozed in the back of the passenger van, I took a moment to feel good about today's grueling experience. Lesser casts would have groused and griped about the time changes, the wonky sound, the lack of sleep and the general unpleasantness that accompanied today's shows. But these guys made me laugh and smile until the very last minute. As hard as it all was, today is going down as a favorite on this tour. I just hope we don't have many more like it.

Call tomorrow: 6:30am, 108th and Amsterdam. The local shows continue.

Kid quote of the day: When I announced that "Cows definitely do not type" and a cow-hand produced a letter from the barn, a little boy in front shouted: "Oh yes they do!"