The 24 Hour Musicals: Countdown (No Naps, Please)
By Erik Piepenburg6:30 p.m., 90 minutes before curtain.
Rehearsals have been in high gear all day: tech rehearsals, sound rehearsals, movement rehearsals, not to mention costume fittings and mic checks.
At this moment, Richard Kind is sitting on a couch in the Gramercy Theater’s lounge, which is playing the part of green room, catering hall and press check-in He has been rehearsing all day for “Islands,” which he decribes as a show about a “Bernie Madoff character who is getting kicked out of his house and who yearns to escape his life and go to Staten Island.”
“I need a nap,” he says. “I need to let my brain go down and then rev it up again.”
Guests are now arriving for the pre-show party. Curtain, they say, is still at 8 p.m. sharp.
The 24 Hour Musicals: Memory Test
By Erik PiepenburgLunch is over and rehearsals have started again. The room in which “Rachel Said Sorry” is rehearsing is hotter than it was this morning. The actors’ faces are pinker, and sweatier, too. The goals for this afternoon are to block the show, make sure the vocal arrangements are to the liking of the musical director and the actors and to finalize the choreography. Next up are costume fittings and the wrangling of props.
It’s fascinating to watch how different actors memorize their lines. Rachel Dratch is sitting in a chair saying her lines under her breath, lips slighty moving, as she subtly sways back and forth, as if deep in prayer. Another actress in the hallway has her eyes closed and fingers over her ears. An actor down the hall is staring out a window, script in hand.
For Ms. Dratch, the lines may be at the top of her to-do list this afternoon, but finding her character — the woman in the title, who is also named Rachel — is not so urgent.
“I think I’m just going to play myself,” she said. “It’s not a very character role, so I’m just going to be myself.”
The 24 Hour Musicals: New Shows and No-Shows
By Erik PiepenburgThe final casts for the four shows in “The 24 Hour Musicals,” to be seen this evening at the Gramercy Theater, are:
“Multiphobia” : Nellie McKay, Michael Longoria, Theresa McCarthy
“Islands”: Richard Kind, Capathia Jenkins, Tamara Tunie, Alicia Witt
“Dr. Williams”: Cheyenne Jackson, Scarlett Strallen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Roger Bart
“Rachel Said Sorry”: Rachel Dratch, Tracie Thoms, Marnie Schulenburg, Mandy Gonzalez
So far there are two previously announced participants who have not been seen: Bebe Neuwirth, who bowed out before Sunday night’s first meeting, and Idina Menzel. A spokesman for the event said it was unclear whether Ms. Menzel would participate.
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