Guest Blogger: Molly Tynes

Since my last post we have gotten about a week's worth of previews under our belt. I figured the crowds would settle a bit after those first couple of absolutely wild preview audiences, but it appears the audiences are only getting more enthusiastic as we go! Each crowd is a little different and has its own personality, but they are all incredibly encouraging and vocal which we absolutely love! We are greeted daily at the stage door by smiling fans with posters, playbills, and sharpies in hand waiting for autographs. The support has really been overwhelming, and we could not be more grateful for the love our audiences and fans have already shown us. After all, what is live theater without an audience? Thank you all for spreading the word, for tweeting and posting about us, and most importantly for coming to see the show!

I absolutely love springtime in New York City. After months and months of bitter cold and grey skies, those first warm days revive the spirit and warm the heart with the promise of Spring. It was during those early warm days last year that I first began auditioning for "Pippin." I remember traveling to Brooklyn on Easter Sunday for my "circus audition." I had to perform cerceau (aerial hoop) and aerial fabric. I still remember vividly the hope and the nervous excitement I felt that day. I had never wanted to be in a particular show more in my entire life. I knew I was perfect for this show and desperately hoped the creative team would feel the same way. Now almost exactly one year later, I got to walk onto the stage at the beautiful Music Box Theatre and make my Broadway debut with that very show - truly a dream come true.

Today's blog comes to you from deep in the trenches of tech at the Music Box! For the past week and a half we have been hunkered down at the theater for extremely long hours every day doing everything we need to do to get this show ready for our first preview audiences this weekend. Tech is always pretty hectic, and our show - with so many extraordinary and complicated technical elements - is no exception.

For weeks I have been looking forward to our move into The Music Box Theatre. I knew our first day there would be exciting and thrilling. But on the day in question I was running a bit behind, so there was no time for excitement or thrills. Our call was at 1:00, and when I emerged out of the subway into the slow moving sea of 42nd St pedestrians it was already 12:57! I sprinted through Times Square weaving between packs of loitering tourists and checking the time every five seconds to see whether I was late yet. I arrived at the stage door on 45th Street at exactly 1:00, was ushered up the stairs in a frenzy to the dressing rooms, dumped my coat and bags, and ran back down to the stage where rehearsal was beginning. I hadn't stopped moving since exiting the subway, so it was only when I reached the upstage curtains of our set that I stopped for a second to consider the fact that I was about to walk onto a Broadway stage for the first time - not as a backstage guest after seeing a friend's show (I had done that plenty of times) but as a cast member myself.

The time has finally come for us to move into our new home at the beautiful Music Box Theatre! Once we get there we will begin 'tech' and shift our focus to the technical aspects of the show. We will start at the top and go through moment by moment setting lighting cues, spacing dance numbers, determining prop locations, figuring out entrances and exits, set moves, etc. The tech process is pretty hectic, so we tried to make good use of our final days in the rehearsal studio.

Many people ask me what it's like to work with Diane Paulus, our Tony nominated director whose recent Broadway revivals of "Hair" and "Porgy and Bess" each won Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical. I must say that being in a Paulus-helmed show is an incredibly gratifying experience. The working environment is professional but intimate - a sort of hard working family feeling. Diane utilizes a lot of group discussion often leading the company in verbal explorations of particular parts of the script. We discuss the underlying messages and concepts so that a collective understanding can be reached about what we are trying to say with the piece and how we will say it.

This week is all about getting in the mood! We spent last week cleaning vocals and dance steps, reviewing, and adding new elements to support and enhance the show we had already created. This week we get to delve in a little deeper - to focus less on notes, steps, and lines and more on the mood and delivery of what we are doing. What are we trying to communicate with those steps and vocals? How should they feel?

Our first week of rehearsal has just come to a close. As many of you probably know, this production of "Pippin" originated at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA this past winter. Our director, Diane Paulus ("Porgy and Bess," "Hair"), collaborated with Gypsy Snider (a founding director of the circus company Les 7 Doigts de la Main) to create a new context and theme for the show - the circus. However Diane also wanted to incorporate some of the beloved choreography and iconic style from the original 1972 production created by Director/Choreographer Bob Fosse. Our choreographer, Chet Walker (an expert on the Fosse style and a cast member of the original production of "Pippin"), has made several referential nods to the original "Pippin" in his choreography and has even utilized some of the original choreography in a couple of key moments. (For more information on the new concept and the creation of the show, see my previous BroadwayWorld blog posts about our time at the A.R.T. here: http://americanrepertorytheater.org/inside/articles/look-inside-pippin-molly-tynes.)

Hello! I'm Molly Tynes from the Broadway cast of 'Pippin.' Many of you may remember my BroadwayWorld blogs from this past November about the American Repertory Theatre's production of 'Pippin.' I am so pleased to be blogging again for the month of March - this time about the Broadway production of the show!

One of the most thrilling days in the entire process of building a new show is the sitzprobe. This is when the actors and full orchestra come together for the first time to sing and play through the show. Throughout the rehearsal process, the actors will rehearse with live accompaniment, but generally it is only piano or perhaps some percussion. The sitzprobe is the first time the actors get to hear the full orchestrations of the score. Words do not suffice to describe the sensation of hearing the music come to life for the first time. It is truly an amazing experience.

We have now been in Cambridge for a week and are in the full swing of "tech." I explained in my last blog that this is the part of the process when the show is moved out of the rehearsal room and onto the stage. As some may know, we begin at the top of the show and carefully move forward step by step and cue by cue setting lights and figuring out the logistics of the show. A lot goes into making a musical flow smoothly.

This week we traveled to Cambridge, MA, home of the American Repertory Theater. Now we begin "Tech," or the part of the creative process when we move the show out of the rehearsal studio and onto the stage. This is often one of the most tedious parts of the process - long hours spent setting light cues, figuring out set moves, spacing dance numbers on the stage, etc. However it is also one of the most exciting parts of the process because we get to see the real sets, costumes, and props for the first time and begin to incorporate them into the show. It is a time of exploration and discovery and a time when the world of the show really starts to come alive!

Well, our time rehearsing in NYC has come to a close, and we are all preparing to journey up to Cambridge, MA where we will move into the theater at the A.R.T. We finished up this week with our first full run through of the show. This was exciting because it was the first time we really got to see the complete picture of what we have been working on so hard for all these weeks.

We have talked a lot in rehearsal about the traditional perception of the traveling circus troupe - about the ways in which we romanticize that life. In a way everyone secretly wishes he or she could run away with the circus and perform some unimaginable feat few others would dare even attempt. We've talked about the transient nature of the circus - how suddenly it bursts into town thrilling audiences with colorful displays and inexplicable tricks, and then just like that, it is gone again. There is an element of mystery in all of that. You find yourself wondering, "Who are these people? What do they do when they are not flying through the air or jumping throughburning hoops? Do they eat? Do they sleep? Do they perform ordinary daily tasks just like the rest of us?" They become almost superhuman figures existing outside the constraints of regular life.

In the world of circus, there is a special term for the opening number. We have been hearing this term, "charivari," in rehearsal a lot lately. Our circus choreographer, Gypsy Snider (of the Montreal based circus company Le 7 doigts de la main), explains that the charivari is a colorful and busy display in which the audience sees brief snippets in rapid succession of all the acts that will be featured that night. It should give the audience a taste of what's to come without spoiling the best tricks or giving too much away; it creates excitement and anticipation.

Hello again! After the craziness of Hurricane Sandy, things are slowly but surely getting back to normal.

Hi! I am Molly Tynes from the cast of the upcoming production of "Pippin" at the American Repertory Theater. Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be blogging about our rehearsal process and giving you an inside look into the creation of this exciting new production!