So I have been going through the bi-polar roller coaster of tech week:

My show's great.  My show sucks.  My show's great.  My show sucks.

I'm currently directing a play called Minnesota Moon by John Olive.  Set in September 1968, it features two 18 year boys (Alan and Larry) who are drunk late at night outside of an abandoned farm house in rural Minnesota.  These two best friends gather for one last drunken goodbye - Alan is heading to the University of Minnesota in the morning and Larry admits he is thinking of enlisting.

We open on Sunday for 4 performances and then an additional performance in the Kaleidoscope AACTfest competition.

I've run the gamut - working with two young and relatively green actors.  Last Friday night was great as we put it together.  Sunday was awful as they forgot all of their lines.  Monday was an efficient tech cue to cue.  The first run on Tuesday was disasterous as the actors skipped 2 1/2 pages of dialogue.  The second run was much better - word perfect for the first half of the show.

Last night, we had a fight choreographer come to rehearsal as one of the theatre board members insisted we needed - as the guys to roughhouse a bit on stage.  It was awesome.  The choreographer got totally into the script and took what I wanted to develop as conflict between the two guys into a high stakes moment of violence.  I was dancing out of my chair.

But now two more rehearsals to see if it all can work.  Not sure if they will commit and stick the dismount.  But the potential is all there.  Wish me luck.  In the meanwhile - I'm trying to bottle my enthusiam and remember this is why I love to direct.