Spellcrossed by Barbara Ashford

Author:Barbara Ashford [Ashford, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101594728
Publisher: Daw Books, Inc.
Published: 2012-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

KEEP YOUR SUNNY SIDE UP

BLEAK PRETTY MUCH DESCRIBED HELL WEEK, too. Even with a cue-to-cue Sunday afternoon and a walk-through of the scene changes Sunday evening, Monday’s tech rehearsal lasted a brutal five hours.

The set was simple enough—a stepped unit with two playing areas for the children’s bedrooms upstage left and right and a larger central area for the other interior scenes. The maze and greenhouse would be created downstage. Hal had also built a painted “frame” around the proscenium arch that looked like elaborately turned wrought iron until the lights came up for the finale to reveal it as a flower-bedecked arbor.

Lee’s lighting set the mood: a fiery Indian sky and a cloud-filled one in Yorkshire; the ghostly blues of the storm sequences and the amber pools of light that illuminated the dreary mansion; the silvery moonlight that poured through the door to the secret garden in the final moments of Act One and the brilliant sunlight that flooded the garden at the end of the show. But all those effects required a zillion cues and twice that many stops and starts to ensure that they were coordinated with the music and scene changes.

A few of Hal’s design elements had to be raised and lowered from the flies: two crystal chandeliers for the ballroom, large portraits of Lily in the gallery, damask draperies in Archibald’s library. Unfortunately, one bank of draperies kept getting stuck in mid-flight, adding a Salvador Dali-esque touch to the Yorkshire sky. The portraits were more obedient, but the empty frame in which Michaela was supposed to stand swayed back and forth as if she were on the deck of the Titanic.

The other set pieces were placed and cleared by the actors. Most were easy—a garden bench here, a settee there. What they couldn’t carry on was supposed to roll smoothly. Given the Crossroads tradition of reluctant rolling, Catherine had been zealous about her casters—a bit overzealous judging from the way Colin’s bed whizzed onto the platform, accompanied by the startled shrieks of its occupant.

However, the giant topiaries in the shapes of stylized birds and flowers took top honors in the “Neither Smooth nor Seamless” competition, turning “It’s a Maze” into a rousing Edwardian bumper car sequence. Every time an actress brushed against them, her dress clung to the damn things like Velcro. The ghosts spent more time tugging at their skirts than wafting.

And then there was the mist. Our fog machine had been recalcitrant during Brigadoon and surly during The Fantasticks. Now, it was gleefully bent on world domination. By the end of tech, the atmosphere was more Jekyll and Hyde than The Secret Garden.

Rowan gave me a magical neck rub. Janet gave me whisky. Between the two, I managed to sleep.

Our first dress rehearsal was rocky. Our second was marginally better. Whatever substance Hal applied to the topiaries mitigated their desire to snatch at the women’s clothing. Whatever magic Alex applied to the pit band helped them discover volumes other than fortissimo. The set changes more or less worked.

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