Kitchen Witches

Tonight is preview night for Kitchen Witches, and I have to admit to being a little panicked. Our actors seem to be doing well -- there may be a few slightly rough patches in the dialogue, but overall, they're doing really well. In fact, when we told them they couldn't call for lines any more and I finally got to get my nose out of the book and look at what they were doing again, I found myself laughing at new places every night. I was a little worried about Brad, our newbie, being able to jump back into his role after a two-week vacation he got back from on Aug. 18, but there was no real cause for worry -- it was almost like riding a bike for him. And we started playing with food props during Brad's vacation, so our actresses had plenty of time to get used to them.

But our costume mistress, who was really sick for two weeks, has just barely been getting some of our costume pieces done. I think we've had two nights to practice with the tear-away "naughty apron." And as of last night she still hadn't gotten one of the biggest pieces, a Scarlett O'Hara dress for Dolly with a specially made bodice that Isobel can plop biscuit dough into, done. There's a quick change into the Scarlett O'Hara dress, too. Kevin Kimsey, who's playing Rob the cameraman, joked last night that she's got "all day tomorrow to finish it." I said, "And I've got all day tomorrow to sh!t myself." In about a half hour I'm going down to the theater, and hopefully I'll be able to get some time in practicing the change.
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Update (Sept. 5): Our costume mistress still hadn't brought the Scarlett O'Hara dress by as of the beginning of our preview night, though we can blame part of that on miscommunication and a good chunk on the fact that her house was one of the houses in a huge fire that week (did I not mention that in the original post? I could have sworn I could have mentioned it -- we were all worried sick about her, but she apparently got out of her house with the pets and the costumes and little else. Her house is apparently one of the most smoke-damaged on the block). Anyway, she came through with the hoop skirt midway through Act 1, maybe half an hour or so before we had to use it, and it fits fine and there's plenty of time for the costume change. No bodice, so we just paired it with a blouse from the costume room, and we've been using that ever since because it fits and works better than the bodice our costume mistress had been working on.

We did actually have one other costume snafu -- the tear-away boob on the "naughty apron" actually flew off into the audience one night. Now that's comedy.

We had a great opening weekend, and the show has run pretty smoothly overall. Come see it if you get the chance!