A Day at The Cottage- Opening This Weekend!

Today we’re thrilled to bring you a slice of life from APAC’s latest prodution, The Cottage. We Heart Astoria readers can get a special discount on tickets to The Cottage! Use code WEHEART when you buy tickets at www.apacny.org. See you there this weekend?  -Mackenzi

Teching The Cottage

APAC is excited to start performances of our fall mainstage The Cottage, a very funny play by Sandy Rustin, which makes its world premiere this Thursday. We just finished one of the most exciting parts of the process, the tech rehearsals. Tech rehearsals are when all of the technical elements are added in. So after four weeks of rehearsals in a studio room, the actors are now on an (almost) finished set, using real props, costumes, and full lights and sound. Following is a “behind the scenes” look at the past few days at APAC:

THURSDAY

9:00AM: Artistic Director Tom Wojtunik arrives at the theater to turn the rehearsal room into dressing rooms for the actors.

10:00AM: Designers Stephen K. Dobay (set), Evan Roby (lights) and Janie Bullard (sound) arrive to finish working notes on their prospective designs. Dobay fiddles with set dressing and does paint notes, Evan finishes last minute focus notes with his associated Michelle Tobias, and Janie preps her sound cues on the APAC MacBook.

11:30AM: The stage management team arrives. Production Stage Manager Laura Perez sets up her workstation in the house, where she will be calling light and sound cues for the next few days. The Assistant Stage Managers start prepping backstage, setting up prop tables and run lights.

12:00PM: Director Adam Dannheisser arrives and the team starts dry tech, going through the play moment by moment, creating a first draft of lights and sound without actors.

4:00PM: End of Day.

FRIDAY

10:00AM: Stephen arrives early to start painting the roof tiles and Janie sets up an audio interface system so sound cues can come from different speakers throughout the set.

2:00PM: The rest of the production team and cast arrive to start teching. Playwright Sandy Rustin sees the set for the first time in a week…her excitement is contagious and great way to start rehearsal.

2:15PM: Laura and Adam decide to start tech later in the play, as Kevin Isola, one of the actors, is in another show and has to leave by 6:45 to make his performance–so we start with his character’s entrance.

4:00PM: First problem of the day…the box of prop cigarettes is missing!

6:00PM: Cigarettes found!

7:00PM: Dinner break.

8:00PM: We finish teching the rest of the play!

9:45PM: Actors are released, and the production crew has a quick meeting.

10:35PM: End of Day.

SATURDAY

9:30AM: Annie picks up a Zip Car, and goes to APAC’s storage unit to pick up more fake vines and foliage from our production of The Secret Garden to help fill out the rest of our set.

10:00AM: Tech Director Adam Petherbridge joins Annie and Stephen to finish set notes.

3:30PM: The rest of the cast and crew arrive to finish tech. Makeup Designer Corey Hunton meets with each of the women to discuss their looks.

4:30PM: Actress Maria Couch experiments with no less than six different sounding knocks on the front door of the set, to make sure her entrance moment lands. The winner is three fast knocks on a 2×4 piece of wood holding up the set wall.

5:00PM: Adam works with actress Amy Rutberg on how to get in the window seat in the set, demonstrating the maneuver himself.

6:45PM: Dinner Break.

7:45PM: Adam starts a work through with the cast from the top of the play. Everyone is slap-happy at this point, from being cooped up in the theatre for so many hours, so many days in a row. It’s probably the most fun part of a very fun tech.

10:00PM: Actors are released. The crew transforms the space back into a church gym, for the church congregation to do their weekly dinner after tomorrow’s service.

10:35PM: The last of us leave APAC and a few decide to get drinks and take advantage of Daylight Savings. Tomorrow we will add costumes and wigs for the first time and do a first full dress rehearsal. After three dress rehearsals this week, we will open to our first real audience on Thursday, November 7^th.

 

**We Heart Astoria readers can get a special discount on tickets to The Cottage! Use code: WEHEART when you buy tickets at www.apacny.org.