Closing Night Party

The Red Team had its final reading last night. As we had Triple Mousse Cake from Porto's for Kellen's birthday, someone mentioned it felt like a closing night party!

Each of the three mini-musicals had done absolutely wonders the last 10 days after the Second Assessment -- and we all had very tight, lovely shows! "The Liar" went first and was an impressive 21 minutes so they (we all) have two days to make 6 minutes of cuts. It's so wonderful to "get" that show now -- it's really clear and sweet and I actually like the main character, "Melvin."

"In the Nick of Time" (formerly "Mamarama") came in at an amazing 16 minutes -- amazing because after the First Assessment it came in at 31! They basically cut their show in half, and ended up with such an original, fast-moving -- and ultimately very touching show! The last song, Nickety Nick, really moved me in its simplicity and lyric... it came at the perfect time in the show and was set up beautifully... I'm still so impressed with this show! Hillary, the lyricist, could not believe it was possible to cut it when it was 22 minutes, but her collaborators, married couple Darin and Tara, have been writing and producing children's musicals for years now, and they did a fine job of making a super-tight, edgy show.

Our show -- I never had so much fun! I, like Kellen, was worried that what we thought was funny to us was ONLY funny to us -- working so hard on something you don't know if you're perspective works correctly. Fortunately, Elise and Scott, who played all five parts, picked up the "timbre" of script right away. They played it for the comedy -- quick, madcap, melodrama -- that it was, as after two or three speeches into the first scene, I closed my book, relaxed and enjoyed the show.

Okay, that was an understatement -- IT WAS A HOOT and I was laughing my guts out! YAY! The show was out of our hands and into the hands of professionals -- and it's funny!!! I was knee-slapping at the very end... and fortunately, not just because we wrote it, but because it was a success.

We came in at a surprising 19:58 -- five minutes of cuts tonight and we're done.

Whew. It was a great Closing Night Party. Now we go into a different phase -- production. And as a writer -- well, we're basically consultants now. That's okay.

As Maureen says in her blog, gotta start thinking about next year.