More laughs, hard work and... dishwashers?

We'll who'd have thought that we’d laugh and spend fifteen minutes talking about dishwashers today, of all things. We found out that Chan has gone thru five or six of them over the years (must be buying cheap models) and Lauren definitely uses her dishwasher as she has soft hands. You’d think we're working on an appliance commercial, but all of this crazy talk came after an intense run thru of the show. We hadn't seen the entire piece put together in a week, so it was great seeing it with all the hard work the actors had done.

Today was Grace's turn to be on the chopping block. We were struggling with this one scene that wasn't working in the run thru and she said, "Well, this is my ISRAFEL. Let’s add it to the Christmas Album!" She later remarked that there would be only two lines left in the scene at the rate we were going. We actually ended up with more when it was all said and done — she made really smart choices and the scene works great now. We did more fine tuning on the ending of the show and continued to finesse scenes and characters.

It probably sounds like all we’re doing is having a barrel of laughs during rehearsals, but with the material going to such dark and various emotional places the actors tend to need a lot of release to delve into such depths. They’re all doing amazing work and I'm so lucky to be working with such a great crew of folks with no egos involved. When you end up taking a solo from one song and giving it to another actor and they're all for it — well, let’s just say, it makes for a terrific creative environment. Light focus began today and tomorrow we'll go on the set for the first time, which will be a whole new experience. I'm exhausted mentally and there's one more song that I need to restage tomorrow, so I’m signing off.

Have a good night.

—ES