In an awesome post giving us a glimpse of the behind the scenes adventures of the National Arts Centre's Resident Acting Company's production of Mother Courage, local muckraker Kris Joseph declares:
This is a week when I must remind myself that there is a difference between a preview performance (which is still a rehearsal) and an actual performance; and even though we will have members of the public watching us work as of Tuesday, we don’t actually open until Friday. Our preview audiences will, I expect, get a few glimpses of the foundation as we put the finishing touches on the walls.
It's true. When a show has never before been seen in front of an audience, it needs those previews to find its legs. It's not uncommon in New York for a new show to be in previews for a month before its official opening night. That's because the audience is the last key component to any performance. The audience response will affect everything from timing to actor reactions to, sometimes, entire sections of the script.
But what happens when a show has been on tour for years?
BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera goes into previews tonight and tomorrow at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. It was written by Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow with music by Aaron Macri.
I had the pleasure of meeting Chris (can't believe I know someone in the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia) at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival this past year (we were billet neighbours), but Ottawa audiences might remember his writing from the sold out one-woman show, PornStar (and if Brian Carroll is reading this, he will probably have a list of other shows that have also been seen in town).
BASH'd toured the Fringe Festival Circuit in 2007 before being picked up for an off-Broadway (yes, THAT Broadway) run in 2008. Recently, it was seen in Toronto at Theatre Passe-Muraille and it held its dress rehearsal at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre on Sunday. Overheard by one of the guests in attendance at the dress rehearsal: "This is probably the most polished dress I have ever seen on the GCTC stage."
As I said, BASH'd goes into previews tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. and these guys are ready to go! So, dear readers, as a special public service announcement to you (and as a part of my promotion work at the GCTC), I'm letting you know that you can see the full production of BASH'd at rates that are heavily reduced from the regular run because, well, that's how things are scheduled.
In addition, I just found out that the theatre has implemented a new Rush Ticket policy for every performance. As of noon (NOON!) on show day, you can contact the Box Office for your Rush Tickets which are $10 for students and $20 for adults.
Since it's about 1 p.m., you could get ridiculously cheap tickets for an amazing performance right now! Call 613-236-5196 to reserve your spot.
I'll be seeing you at the Theatre!
*Side note: I wonder if my blog stats will go up now that I have PornStar in the tags?
