"The Naked Marble Boys" TOUR DIARY  

July 26, 2006 - Boise, Idaho

It is so hot in Boise, Idaho that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk.  And to prove the point, some stagehands actually did on the steps of the stage door entrance to the Morrison Performing Arts Center on the first day of rehearsal.  It remained there for over a week as a fitting testimonial to the heat wave.

After three intensive weeks of rehearsal at Lincoln Center, the cast flew to Boise on July 16 to continue rehearsals here at the Morrison.  The new proscenium set was built in Canada and shipped here to be ready to step on when we arrived for the last two weeks of rehearsal and tech.

The orchestra sitz probe was yesterday and Adam Guettel’s score and orchestrations never sounded better.  Red Press, the orchestra contractor, brought in 6 musicians from New York who will travel with us all year.  In a rare scenario, the musicians who will play the show at the Orpheum in San Francisco were also flown in to rehearse with the balance of the orchestra and the cast in Boise.  I admired the insight of our producers as I thought this would help us feel really tight with them by first preview next Tuesday evening.

Margaret Johnson is slowly beginning to emerge like a Phoenix from the well of the likes of Laurey Williams, Eliza Doolittle, Frankie Frayne ..…characters that have long been a part of my theatrical psyche.  Unlike those ladies, I’ve had to do a lot more digging for ‘Marge’.  She is Southern, grounded, very, very practical and a total product of the 50’s.  I am Northern, airy, non-linear and not very happy thinking inside the box!  But Bartlett Sher, our director has been living with this piece for almost 5 years and there is not a single second of it he has not crafted and shaped.  ‘The Beauty Is’ that because it is the writing he honors, there is all the room in the world for this new company to find their own way in hitting the marks Bart has so carefully considered.  He was also creatively provoked by the fact that I have spent almost 20 years raising my Mac, who is developmentally delayed….you can imagine how much this informs my work and how  much this work informs my life!!!

Bart is also quite a trip….. he has a completely irreverent sense of humor that is so whacked and he tosses it exactly where he needs to make a point…..he clarifies most of Craig Lucas’ natural and often delicate writing with humor and a peculiar grace.  We all trust him because he takes wonderful care of us as he slowly peels away insecurities, continually digging deeper and deeper on a daily basis.

The show is wonderfully cast.  Beautiful talent and engaging people…..more about them in later writing…..  

We started 10 out of 12’s this past Monday….and not to give short shrift to the weather, the temperature has risen over 100 degrees every day since we arrived…until today…when the thermometer topped off at a balmy 96 degrees.  Did not matter all that much to the cast and crew, as we were locked away for most of the day inside the theater…  The Doubletree Hotel has a wonderful pool and when we do have a few free hours…we are in it!  I also wandered into the Boise River one day that runs behind the hotel and jumped into the freezing current up to my waist. 

Marty Silvestri, [who has temporarily put his musical director/producer persona aside to become in his own words, my ‘personal assistant’…..(don’t believe it for a minute)] arrived in Boise about 5 days into rehearsal and we spent our one day off driving North into the national forest, through the small towns of Idaho City and Lowman.  Went swimming in a mountain river and melted in some wonderful Hot Springs as well.  The ride home was an adventure.   A forest fire forced us to detour through the mountains on some incredibly dusty, dirt roads for almost two hours.  Felt like we were in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ as we were in the middle of what looked like a major desert sandstorm navigating some pretty steep cliffs.  We made it home safely as our thoughts began to turn to San Francisco and the cool bay breezes.  Only three days till we fly.

August 8, 2006 - San Francisco

According to news reports, a small earthquake shook the city ever so slightly several nights ago, just around curtain time here in San Francisco.  I tend to think it actually might have been a small tremor caused by the collective sigh released by the cast, crew, creatives and producers of THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA tour……as rehearsals FINALLY came to a conclusion.

A process that began back on the early summer morning of June 27 with Day 1 of rehearsals at Lincoln Center in NYC…winded it’s way West with daily ‘work thrus’ on the new set during two of the warmest weeks on record in Boise, Idaho…finally raced to the finish with five days of rehearsal and four preview performances at The Orpheum theatre in San Francisco…before culminating with Opening Night on August 4.  We made it!

I forget how much I miss theatre until I’m back in it…..I miss a certain discipline and order …it’s a challenge balancing daily life and performance…...it’s not as if I spend time ‘figuring it out’, but I sort of conjure my day so that I can really make it MY day but still have the essential energy for the show.  And right now its great knowing what I’m going to do, who I’m going to be, and where I’m going to do 8 performances a week for a year.

So walking into my dressing room in San Francisco, laying down the towel ‘borrowed’ from the hotel, on which I set my makeup… putting script and score and pitch pipe to the left of makeup…  wig, hairpins, glue, et al to the right…I don’t know……..maybe it’s hard to understand, but it gives me a thrill….it just does……. I’m not very nervous opening nite……and that’s okay too.  I’m too excited about the doing of it…. I can’t wait to walk out there and be Margaret (‘Big Marge’ as I fondly refer to her).   I had all my nerves in rehearsal.  Those 4 weeks in New York were a major source of concern. Big Marge is such a grown-up, and the score is complicated (there are dotted 32nd notes!!!), characters always lived in my body…. where was Marge??

Christine and "Big Marge" on opening night

But all the help I needed was there…..  our director, Bart Sher, loves this show and passionately directed every dot and comma with sardonic humor and a crazy kind of grace.  Kim Grigsby, the conductor on Broadway, embodied the pulse of the piece and infused that same energy and elegance into our conductor, Jim Lowe …… and once the music was digested, Adam Guettel took over.  I actually had Adam sing all my songs himself into my tape recorder because I wanted to hear them from the ‘horse’s mouth’… (how else would I hear those damned dotted 32nds?  It’s a wonder Andy Einhorn, our gorgeous rehearsal pianist’s hands didn’t fall off for all the times I made him repeat the complex phrases on piano).  Let me suffice it to say that tech in Boise, tho’  somewhat harrowing, mostly felt as smooth as any tech can due to the aforementioned work, an ace touring crew, and wonderful house crew.

So that brings us back to opening nite at the Orpheum in San Fran………it’s time to bring this show to life….no more dress rehearsal!  We rehearse up to an hour and a half before curtain….all essential, I feel tired but grateful.  I have many more miles to walk in Margaret’s shoes but I honestly don’t think that our audience will be disappointed… (they’re not).

Christine in front of the gorgeous Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco... Nothing like an old Vaudeville palace!

Its 8 o’clock ….we’re called to ‘places’.  I stand in back of the house curtain as I often do, listening to the buzz of the crowd.  Funny…. that doesn’t make me nervous….in fact it’s like music to my ears.  I move to my opening spot and hold Elena’s (Shaddow) hand…my Clara.  I end up doing this every nite, our first ritual….rubbing her back, linking arms, sharing a soft thought before going back in time to 1953 and transporting myself to Florence and into the light and the crowd….

Next……..’Piazza’ in San Fran……

Truth be told…… here I am in the clouds again, enroute to Orlando, so not only do I have to fill you in on San Francisco….you need to know about Cincinnati as well……

That’s quite a lot of catching up and I’ll try to be better about it. 

San Fran loved us it seems……being our first stop, we weren’t sure how we would be received.  What are crowds used to these days….lots of ‘stuff’….bombastic scores, sensational effects, big….bigGER….BIGGEST!!!!!!   Well, the Orpheum is BIG!  It’s big for this show… 2200 seats.  Most of the theatres will be large so we just have to get used to it….seems like we are able to draw audiences into us, tho’.  Our sound team is great which really helps give an intimate feel. 

Production was very smart to design a set that is consistent in every town….it is built on a palate, so spatially everything is always the same…on opening nite, the stage is OUR stage as we know it.  I can’t tell you how secure it makes me feel.  There’s a lot to do preparing for opening with training dressers for quick changes and getting used to differences in sound, in audience reaction, the size of the house…..there’s a lot of ‘artful’ choreography going on backstage allowing for the elegant entrance that the audience enjoys.  

We also carry 6 incredibly gifted musicians who play all the complex passages in the score.  THANK GOD!  We pick up 10 more in each city, so we have a pit of 16 musicians…..it’s lush down there and when you hear those soaring chords and glissandos as the curtain rises…  that’s sensational enough for everybody. 

So, we’ve opened…..reviews are great, people are coming and I’m loving the show 8 times a week.  Ken Gentry, our producer throws a fabulous opening nite party.  It’s elegant and warm and we are all so grateful not only to feel that all those intense weeks of rehearsal have paid off in a good opening nite performance, but that we are part of a top-drawer, first class national tour, taking this beautiful Broadway show out to the good ‘ol USA ….just like the old days!!!!!    (Of course, I know there are hundreds of tours out there, but in our first two cities, theatre-savvy people remarked that they never see theatre of this quality from a touring company...okay, I’m tooting my own horn, but I’m proud!).	...party time!
Christine with a happy Adam Guettel (Piazza composer)	Marty Silvestri 'hard at work' on tour w/C,  Elena Shaddow & Laura Griffith
A moment frozen in time.........and ice!
Barb Beale (great friend and business partner),  Marty Silvestri and Christine	Christine with Andy "magic fingers" Einhorn

We share San Francisco with A CHORUS LINE which is in out of town previews at the Curran before heading to Broadway.  I’m thrilled to see Terry Mann one nite backstage after seeing my show.   Terry was my ‘Chauvelin’ in the original B’way production of THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.  He’s here with his wife, Charlotte D’Amboise who is starring in the show as Cassie.  He’s a daddy now with 2 little girls.  He loves it and looks wonderful, (tho’ I think his girls are tiring him out more than ‘PIMPERNEL’  ever did)…..he had tears in his eyes when he came backstage.  The ‘mother’ aspect in our show gets to every parent with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Marty’s daughter, Emilie, comes to see the show and San Fran for a week, just returning from a trip to Italy.  While I’d been rehearsing in NY, she had BEEN in Florence, AND Rimimi, AND Rome enjoying a generous gift from her dad for graduation from La Guardia Performing Arts High School.  In a few weeks she will be heading down to George Washington University in DC.  We are officially empty-nested!!!  Yikes!!!!!   Em grew up with Mac, so watching me navigate Clara in the show was especially meaningful for her.  She said to me once, years ago….”I can’t imagine a family without a Mac”.  When I asked her to describe Mac, the way he was to her, she said quickly, “He’s always so happy”.  That made me feel good……real good.

My girls….Elena, Mom & Em in the dressing room

	We took a trip to Carmel (Mart had to kiss the hallowed ground at the18th hole at Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula).
and I love the drive along Highway 1.
	...Beautiful Em…
And that beautiful lone cypress at Pebble Beach...

I found I didn’t have the energy for too much sight-seeing.  We took the boat to Alcatraz which affected me more than I thought it would.  The audiotape is narrated by wardens, guards and prisoners.  The place has been abandoned since ’63, but the walls still hold the anger, hatred, loneliness and despair of the solitary lives that were lead there. 

Your new home... 

...and last few steps in the free world you walk before entering the gates.
	So near and yet so far…… a peephole view from the prison yard
Solitary…. So….after seeing that,  we will all be good boys and girls…….
	The main cell block of Alcatraz is called…BROADWAY …talk about tough audiences!!
	For some much needed levity…….a joint concert with ‘Chorus Line’ for Aids….already a ‘Piazza’ parody w/ Fabrizio (Jonathan Hammond), and the Pony (John Charles Kelly), Marge (Evangelia Kingsley) as a total alcoholic, Clara (Wendy Bergamini) a nympho, …Marge ends up with the Pony……..of course.
Beautiful Sonoma Valley……
	And that shot you’ve all been waiting for……. s’long San Francisco……

Next ... Cincinnati &...........Mike Piazza?????"