First Production Meeting
Met the whole production team (sans prod. mgr - away for personal reasons)
The director led the discussion beginning with a brief idea and objective lesson. Our concept is episodic, no through line, modern, rock concert-esque. Our objective is to induct high school kids, who will be performing in the show, into a college production in the hopes of enticing them to come to Fullerton College, and at the same time, teach them something new about Musical Theater.
The 1960's music of the show seems very dark, and grim. The director wants us to add that spark of hope to the show. The music is being arranged to speed up the tempo of some of the songs. And costuming will consist of jeans and sneakers (provided by the cast) and shirts of different colors (most likely dark colors in the beginning) which will become a "rainbow of colors" for the finale.
The scenery will consist of scaffolding. The scaffolding will be one and two stories high and on wheels so the configurations can change. The idea is to create rail balcony, tenement like setting with the scaffolds and a series of flown in windows at different levels for the actors to sing from.
The cityscape will be created by yours truly (lighting designer) with gobos. Otherwise my job is only to draw attention to the music through movement of light. Basically, think Rock Concert!
I'll be adding zip strips to the floor on the upstage and left and right of the stage. All (or most) of the lighting will be completely exposed.
For now, I will begin reading the script, which I just received 40 minutes ago. And take a listen to the old 1960's version of the music. I will then begin researching the inventory of lighting (including 4 auto yokes, 8 technobeams, 2 fog machines, 20+ SL zooms, and tons of source 4's and PARS) along with any photos of previous dance/jazz/rock concerts that have taken place on that stage before.
I also have to keep in mind that with the time limit, I will be adapting house plot so that the next show in the theater can load-in in the amount of time they've been given as well. This is the unfortunate circumstances of doing a low budget musical in a rental house with very, very, very little time and crew.
