We met for set crew at my house at 10:00 this morning, and by the time we finished, we got at least most of the items on our list started, although none of them were finished. We were hampered by not having a large enough crew, but those of us in attendance worked hard.

We started with the paper maché, since it had to dry before anything else could be done to it. Here we are starting the teacups and turtles:

Here’s Marc working on his turtle later:

We also got the walls started, since we had to wallpaper them. The first step was to reinforce the edges so that they would flap over. We used some extremely sturdy corner packaging, originally used in shipping window blinds. Here are Molly and Carol Lee getting ready to cut one with a hacksaw:

Marc and I took turns wallpapering the walls.

Here’s one that’s done:

Mary Frances painted the edge reinforcements brown, sort of a wood-looking effect. She also painted the chair railings which we will have to attach later:

Ginny cut out the headpieces for the Toast Heads:

Carol Lee and I worked on the Toast Head’s banners, which we hung on the fence to dry:

Galen measured out the lumber for the Sunflowers’ suitcases:

We also got the snowdrifts and the Toast Heads’ instruments cut out of the cardboard.

So lots got started, but nothing got finished. I’ll assess all of that tomorrow.

After we exhausted ourselves with set crew, we had a cookout and just relaxed around a fire in the backyard. The weather was beautiful all day, and the evening was the same.

I spent three hours this afternoon shopping for all the materials we’ll need to build the walls, the toast heads, the turtles, the tea set, etc., etc.

At my very last stop, Frugal Fabrics for foam, I found black and white fabric that will serve for the Wise Cow’s boa/stole. I wasn’t looking for it, but there it was.

This shopping experience was a little bittersweet in that it was exciting to be this close to getting the Inn turned into reality, but it brought back the memories of all those years keeping the theatre afloat with my money. I had sworn that I was not going to pay for this production, and I’m not. If no one steps forward after May 3 to take the role of producer, i.e., fundraiser, then it dies. Well, the idea of a premiere in Newnan dies. I intend to pursue the Inn in other places if Newnan can’t step up to the plate.

In attendance: Dale, Marc, Mary Frances, Molley, Laura, Melissa, and Carol Lee. We also had MMH Galen, Toast Head Maggie and Hedgehogs Taylor, Kennedy, Chiara, Preston, and Travis.

First up were the Hedgehogs. Heavens to betsy, are these cute critters!

This last one is of us all double-checking what hedgehog ears look like on my laptop. We decided to try knit caps with ears and noses attached to them, over their eggshell foam.

We worked bit by bit, starting with the hedgehog choreography and working our way backwards through the song. Eventually we added some “walls” and a fireplace for the hedgehogs to come bursting out of. We added Toast Heads. We added the Gang. I think it’s all going to be very merry, especially if we can get the Gang to the level that they actually look precise.

The hedgehogs are not very precise. We’ll work on that, but of course that is not the point. They’re there for cuteness.

They were troupers: they focused on what we needed to focus on, they hit their marks more often than not, and I think by the time we get to May 3, they’re going to be absolutely awesome.

After we sent them home, then we worked on Toast Head choreography. That was a lot shorter. In fact, it surprised me how little time it took to get that done. Of course, it takes forever to develop the choreography; transferring to real dancers (like Molly and Maggie) takes no time at all.

Finally, Galen arrived from his Music Man rehearsal, and we worked on the Marmalade Man’s stuff. I chatted a bit about how I had come to view the MM as a disruptive force in the Inn: he shows up, and things just get stirred up. He has that power, to straighten roads, to command the Gang to fall in for close order drill, to summon up hedgehogs, to change winter to spring. And yet when he’s done, things are better.

It’s sort of like Wallace Stevens’ image of the creative mind/act as a garden: sometimes you have to scrape it clean and start over. That’s the function of the MM, to make us all reexamine the status quo.

This is reflected in his choreography, all free and light and arms and legs and entrechats, while his Toast Heads are starched flat and the Gang marches in order.

Finally we tried to put it all together. It may be too much, but we’ll see next week.

Jonathan Hickman was there, shooting video for a small documentary/trailer for the May 3 thing. This is good.

In other news, I met with Don Nixon at the Centre, and he’s on board for the 2008 premiere. There’s some exciting stuff going on out there, folks.

Also, Ginny got the invitations printed, folded, and stuffed. Excelsior!

Another workshop night, again an intensive rehearsal kind of thing. Dale, Marc, Carol Lee, Melissa, and Denise in attendance, with Mary Frances joining us later.

Carol Lee had finished the sunflowers, so we were able to work on getting the sunflower waltz shaped up.

Dance is funny to write about, because we followed the same process of successive approximation we’ve always followed, but it’s all movement instead of drawings and discussion. I mean, I can say that we backed up the Big Bang and replicated it above the Two Sunflowers with the Field of Flowers, but is any of that going to make sense?

Or that we cut the second run across from the inverted V and went straight into the Field of Flowers? Or that we didn’t have time for the weave-through heading into the Tableau, so we just did the Big Bang, one waltz turn, and then ran into a pas de chat and spiked the Tableau?

See what I mean?

Eventually, we snagged Molly Honea and two dancer friends, so we had five dancers and ten sunflowers. We laid our choreography on them and lo, it worked! Super cool!

I had to come home and write it all down before I forgot.

Problems with the invitation: we just can’t get the screened sunflower right, and now we have 500 invitations that cannot be read. ::sigh::