The Story So Far Pt.3

James and I had our first reading. And it went well. I had already read through it four or five times and I believe we were reading draft 3 at that point. No major changes were deemed necessary, rhythm was fixed as necessary, unclear lines were clarified or cut, the usual. Then we did a very fool hardy thing. We made a video, announcing to the world what our intentions were. We jumped a shark that was holding a gun and threw ourselves past the point of no return. This was going to happen.

Later I had a second reading with my siblings and it was suggested, and I agreed, that some scene additions were necessary. This led to draft 6.

Our first step in preparation was one of humility. We made a list of all the people whose help we would need. It was a long list, and we're still in the process of enrolling, blackmailing, or kidnapping them. The first person contacted and roped in was the most pressing need. James and I know music the way stalkers know their stalkees. We could tell you a lot about what it does, where it goes, and how it gets there, but we don't really know music and we needed someone who did. Fortunately, we knew exactly who that someone was, Mitchell Yaksh.

I first met Mitchell my junior year and James had known him even longer. Mitchell was a music lover when I met him, but held to the belief that rock in all its forms was dumb. At this first meeting, I vowed to change that opinion. My vow was scoffed at. But the mighty fell and he now loves rock and roll. Anyway, Mitchell and I graduated high school in '06 and he went on to study musical performance and composition. He knew music inside and out and had perfect pitch. He was our man. Especially after he said he'd do it.

The next step was casting. I decided to be silly about it. I suggested we keep with the theme of the show and announce our auditions in a video where we sing a parody of "Be Our Guest" because we didn't mess with any songs from Beauty and the Beast. It took us a full month to make the thing because our schedules only permitted one night of filming a week. Once we finally finished it though, we were very pleased with the result. It very neatly captured the silliness our little musical would revel in as well as show what it would be like to work with us.

Now we ran into a problem. We had this video announcing auditions would happen but people were unsure about the specifics. So we made a second, boring video that flatly explained everything you'd need to know about auditions. The strange thing was 67 people saw this video but no one we talked to had any idea what was in it. We would still like to know who these 67 people were.

There was another reading with the music director, and I created draft 7.

Auditions arrived and providentially we had just the right amount of people show up. Then we were struck with an unusual problem. We had the right amount of people, but there were a lot of smaller parts and a lot of really good actors. We had trouble deciding who to put where. With our initial considerations for the lead roles, we had at least 3 possibles for each of them. A near all nighter followed as James and I looked at conflict sheets and set up schedules for the rehearsals and finally, after three months of planning we had a cast for our show.

Let the rehearsals begin.

-T.J. Mercer