our minor disasters

It was a trying day. One of our cast members called us on the way to rehearsal. She threw out her back, and as of this evening it was final: she can't perform.

Hofan is stepping in to understudy her role. This puts us in a difficult position. The piece, as a piece, is in a precarious position. It needs our full attention to have a chance of getting it truly performance ready by Wednesday, and many of the things we have tried or are continuing to try aren't working yet. The date is coming too quickly, and we need a new perspective. Now both Hofan and I are in the piece, so there's no real outside eye. We need to make our performances work and also get the structure of the overall piece ready. It doesn't look good.

We're becoming less ambitious by the moment. We're eliminating all the transitions from the piece, and planning to perform it now as a series of 5-7 minutes short pieces. Some will work and some won't is my prediction. Many could if we could figure out how to push them. Some may succeed if we and the cast can perform them correctly. Unfortunately, it's still not clear how to make it all fit. My dreams of creating a piece of genius are falling away for the moment--I just want to put on a competent showing of a work in progress. I doubt any of it--even what works--will translate to video.

It's a little dispiriting. We're trying to keep it all together. The piece probably needs two or three more weeks for us to get everything together, to explore again, to bring it in again. But we don't have it. We'll just have to do the best with what we have.