Now with 50% less spike tape.

Dear non-squirted kittens,

Just another little thanks for keeping it all together today. I know it's no fun shifting from being real boys and girls into seemingly wooden puppets manipulated by a "hold please" here and a "take it again" there, but y'all sure are looking good under those lights and it's only going to get better. (And we at the tech tables really are sorry that there's no way to gage exactly when we'll need you during a Q-to-Q.)

As mentioned, Act II will be completed on Monday evening and then we'll move into a work-through (between which we'll do song/fight call).

As a reminder, Heather will be in on Monday and Tuesday to pull each of you at varying times for costume fittings. (Costume fittings!)

Watch your in-boxes tomorrow for love notes in the form of notes from Thursday's run!

And now, for your previewing pleasure, here are my Director's Notes for our program:

Director's notes, huh? In my own words? Oh, I've got 'em. Too many of them, sometimes: isn't it important to figure out what you think and say so?

What I'm thinking is everywhere in this production: how I feel about theatre, how I feel about storytelling, how I feel about magic--imagined and real. Those thoughts are there for you to interpret. They can also be found within Geoff Ryman's notes about his excellent book Was (a re-imagining of the worlds of The Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum, and Judy Garland):

I fell in love with realism because it deflates the myths, the unexamined ideas of fantasy. It confronts forgotten facts. It uses past truth--history.

I love fantasy because it reminds us how far short our lives fall from their full potential. Fantasy reminds us how wonderful the world is. In fantasy, we can imagine a better life, a better future. In fantasy, we can free ourselves from history and outworn realism.

Oz is, after all, only a place with flowers and birds and rivers and hills. Everything is alive there, as it is here if we care to see it. Tomorrow, we could all decide to live in a place not much different from Oz. We don't. We continue to make the world an ugly, even murderous place, for reasons we do not understand.

Those reasons lie in both fantasy and history. Where we are gripped by history--our own personal history, our country's history. Where we are deluded by fantasy--our own fantasy, our country's fantasy. It is necessary to distinguish between history and fantasy wherever possible.

And then use them against each other.

And that's the world and spirit I hope we have created for you with Magic. I hope it is silly and frightening. I hope it is giddy and beguiling. I hope its flowers and birds and rivers and hills are alive...even though it's just a play.

And I hope you find your own words to describe it all.