The Gun Show - The Next Part of the Story

I mostly write about professional events, productions, and upcoming projects in this blog.  But occasionally I use this space to write about things that happen at the intersection of the professional and the personal.  I've written several posts about my play "The Gun Show" -- which more than anything else I've written, falls into that category.

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I've been thinking about writing a companion piece to "The Gun Show."  The idea has been in my head for a while... percolating in my subconscious, alongside several other play ideas.  I think there's something to it.  But the other day, as I chatted with my director friend Kevin Fox about possible projects we might work on during an upcoming writing retreat, I decided against working on "Gun Show, Part 2..." and felt a sudden and overwhelming sense of relief.  I didn't want to go to the sad place again.  Not right now, anyway.

I want to be happy.

It feels pretty amazing to write that silly little sentence.  But it's a testament to the profound effect that writing "The Gun Show" has had on my life that I *can* write it.  Because for the last twelve years, since my husband died -- since my husband killed himself -- I have understood that I don't deserve to be happy.

It isn't that I've been sad all this time.  Not exactly.  And I've been reasonably productive.  I'm a hard worker.  But any time something good happened -- a production or an award or a trip to some place pretty -- my inner voice would warn me against enjoying it too much.  My husband was dead.  I wasn't allowed.

It's been half a life, and I got tired of it.  I got tired of myself.

So I wrote "The Gun Show."  Which is a theater piece about guns and gun control in America, but one that had a role in helping me come to terms with my husband's death.  It was time for me to open up that box, and deal with what was inside it.  The play has had four productions in the last year and a half, and has three more in the works.  And as I come out the other side of the writing and performance of this play that is more than a play, I am beginning to realize how much I'd like to ditch my inner voice.  I'd like to stop checking myself every time something good happens.  I'd like to not be alone anymore.

I want to be happy.

And I guess that I'm maybe, finally, ready.

Now... to see if I can figure out how.

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A Busy Fall!

Hey, friends!  Hope you'll check out some of my fall events.

THE GUN SHOW - directed by Melissa Hillman​, now playing at Impact Theatre​ in Berkeley, CA.  Tickets here: www.impacttheatre.com

HEADS - directed by Laura Savia​, now playing at the Beckett Theatre​ on 42nd Street in New York City.  (Use discount code "TRCREATIVE" for $15 tickets here:  https://www.telechargeoffers.com/Off-Broadway/Heads/Overview )

NOW COMES THE NIGHT - directed by Alex Levy​, opening this weekend at 1st Stage​ in Tysons, VA as part of the Women's Voices Theater Festival​.  Tickets here:  www.1ststagetysons.org

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE FALLEN GIANT - American Lyric Theater​ Living Libretto event featuring this new opera in progress that I'm working on with composer Evan Meier will be at the National Opera Center on September 28th in New York City.  http://altnyc.org/new-operas-for-new-audiences/sherlock-holmes-and-the-case-of-the-fallen-giant/

TRUE STORY - directed by Kevin Christopher Fox​, at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, coming up in October.

ASHLAND NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL - I'll be acting as host playwright for the sixth year in a row at my beloved ANPF in Ashland, Oregon in October.  http://www.ashlandnewplays.org

Go see a play!  (Or an opera!)

THE GUN SHOW NJ - 3 Feature Articles!

After an exciting world premiere production in Chicago over the summer and a sold out run of a second production in Los Angeles in the fall, THE GUN SHOW is having its third production in eight months right here in New Jersey.  This play -- which is about guns and gun control, and my own personal experiences with both -- is playing at Passage Theater in Trenton from January 22 - February 8.  It is directed by Damon Bonetti, and features Trent Blanton.  I will be there for all performances... so if you do come, please say hello!  


Details and ticket information can be found here:  http://passagetheatre.org/gun-show/


And check out these three feature articles about the show.  (Beware of spoilers, though!  They got 'em.)

Feature article:  Finding Middle Ground
http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2015/01/21/time_off/entertainment_news/doc54bf47412afd0238184058.txt

Feature article:  Ellen Lewis has a Gun Story

http://www.njartsmag.com

Feature article:  Gun Play Opens at Trenton's historic Mill Hill Playhouse

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/theater_the_gun_play_opens_at.html

The Gun Show - Endings and Beginnings

I've never had a show close in one city and open in another on the same day.  But that's what's happening today.  "The Gun Show" is having its final performance at Moving Arts, in Los Angeles, this evening.  And it's opening night for the Passage Theater Production of "The Gun Show" in Trenton.

Beginnings and endings.

Endings and beginnings.

It couldn't be more appropriate, really.  Because this play is all about endings and beginnings.  Beginnings and endings.  I go back and forth on the order, in my head.  This play is a door, and... I think I get to decide which direction to go through it.

Ellen Lewis and Juan Francisco Villa, in the 16th Street production of "The Gun Show."

I started this play in the middle.  By which I mean Chicago.  But maybe I mean more kind of middle than just that.  (Everything is a metaphor today.)  It's a rather intimate and personal play, and when it premiered at 16th Street Theater, I was still, in many ways, figuring out what it wanted to be, and how to manifest it up on stage.  I was very lucky to have Kevin Fox dramaturging and directing and occasionally holding my hand and propping up his overwrought playwright (do they teach that in directing school?).  I was very lucky to have Juan Villa up on stage, telling my story with all of his skill and empathy and humor and charm.

Chuma Gault in the Moving Arts production of "The Gun Show."

When I went to Los Angeles, to work with director Darin Anthony, and actor Chuma Gault, and producer Cece Tio who were putting the play on stage at Moving Arts, I knew more about how the play worked.  But it is a city where some of the major action of "The Gun Show" took place.  It is a place where I lived for a long time -- first with my husband, then alone.  It is the place where I lost everything, and began again.  It is the place where I became a playwright.  It is a place where a lot of people know me, and it was difficult to tell people I know and love this story.  But I'm glad I did.  Thank you, Chuma, for bringing all your ferocity and grace to my gun show.

Trent Blanton in the Passage Theater production of "The Gun Show."

Some of the action of "The Gun Show" occurs in New Jersey and New York, too.  I lived here for three and a half years, and made strong and enduring friendships.  Passage Theater in Trenton premiered my play "True Story" last season, directed by Damon Bonetti, and it feels very right to now be working here, with Damon, on this play, which *is* a true story.  (Funny how that works.)  We've had two previews, and already it feels uncomfortably revealing to be sharing this story with people who I know and love.  (Why are strangers easier?  But they are.)  Edward Albee once said that theater should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  I've always liked that.  Playwright Robert O'Hara once remarked that he was trying to create theater where everyone was welcome and no one was safe.  I like that, too.  And the playwright herself shouldn't be exempt from being welcome and afflicted and unsafe and comforted.  So it's very right to be doing this play here, and now.  I'm feeling all of those things.  I'm also feeling grateful for yet another wonderful actor who has taken up this story and made it his own.  Thank you, Trent, for the fearlessness and vulnerability and intelligence that you are bringing to "The Gun Show."

Here I am, standing in the doorway.

Open the box, Ellen.

Light a match.  For light, not for burning.

Begin a conversation about this.

Choose the direction that is forward.

2015 Starts Off with a Bang!

The new year is busy, busy, busy already!  It's so nice to be working. I have three shows up in January, and one in February, and I hope that you'll check them out if you are in the vicinity!  

The Gun Show/Los Angeles by EM Lewis extends its production run
into January at Moving Arts!

The Gun Show/Los Angeles: extended!  Jan. 17-24 at Moving Arts

The Moving Arts production of The Gun Show has extended, so you have three more chances to see it!  Directed by Darin Anthony. Featuring Chuma Gault.  Produced by Cece Tio. Congratulations to the Los Angeles team! movingarts.org

The Gun Show/Trenton by EM Lewis runs
from January 24-February 8 at Passage Theater.

The Gun Show/Trenton: Jan. 24 - Feb. 8 at Passage Theatre

I'm getting ready to spend a month on the east coast, where the Passage Theatre at the Mill Hill Playhouse production of The Gun Show in Trenton is going to be taking the stage. Directed by Damon Bonetti. Featuring Trent Blanton. Damon directed the world premiere of my play True Story at Passage in 2012, and I'm delighted to be working with him again, and with everyone at the playhouse! passagetheatre.org

Infinite Black Suitcase by EM Lewis will be playing at St. Louis Park High School
in Minnesota from January 16-18.

Infinite Black Suitcase/St. Louis Park High School:  Jan. 16-18

If you're in Minnesota, you can check out the St. Louis Park High School production of Infinite Black Suitcase. This is a high school production. Support kids making theater!

https://www.facebook.com/slphstheatre

Heads by EM Lewis will be playing at Theater for the New City
in NYC from February 2-14.

Heads/Theater for a New City in NYC:  Feb. 2 - 14

My play Heads -- a hostage drama set during the early years of the Iraq War, winner of the Primus Prize from the American Theater Critics Association -- is going up in New York City.  Tickets will be available soon, so stay tuned for more information!  

http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net

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I'm packing my parka for NJ/NY -- and hope to see some of you when I'm out there, which will be from January 14 through February 9 or 10.  I'll be down in Trenton for the most part, with my production of The Gun Show, but will definitely try to take the train into New York City for a few days as well, and maybe down to Philly and DC for a couple days, too.  After New Jersey, I'm going to be in Chicago (or thereabouts) for a little writing retreat for a week or so.  And then I go to Ellensburg, Washington for a few days, to be a playwriting respondent for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Region 7, and teach a playwriting workshop entitled "Writing Our Own History."  Back home to Oregon again after all that, I think!  Until the next thing comes along...

Happy new year, everybody!

2014 In Review - It was a very good year!

What a wonderful year it has been!  

I wasn't sure what impact moving back to the farm in Oregon would have on my playwriting career.  But 2014 was full of new creative partnerships, lots and lots of writing, and a nice batch of productions.

It's been a year of transition in more ways than just location.  I premiered the smallest and most personal play I've ever written ("The Gun Show"), made huge strides in my biggest play (the Antarctic epic, "Magellanica"), and wrote my first opera ("The Resurrection Engine," with composer Evan Meier).  

I feel like something is unlocking inside me right now, in some deep and fundamental way.  Writing "The Gun Show" (and being part of its production)... is letting me step out of a room I locked myself in quite a while ago.  It has been very hard.  There may have been an unseemly amount of crying involved in the eking out of those pages.  But I feel lighter now.  Like I've set down something very heavy.  And like I've stepped out of the darkness.  

Perhaps this is part of what allowed me to move forward on "Magellanica" -- an epic ecological drama, set at a research station in Antarctica in 1985 -- which I've been researching and working on for quite a while now.  I went from having part one and a little bit of part two at the beginning of this year, to having four of the projected five parts of the play drafted.  A nine-week residency and workshop at the William Inge Center for the Arts in the spring was a great help with that, as was an amazing workshop at TimeLine Theater in December.  But the biggest boon to this project has been my collaboration with Chicago director Kevin Christopher Fox.  It is wonderful to find a director who can work alongside you as a dramaturg as well as be successful in bringing productions of your plays to the stage.

My other new creative venture has brought with it another exciting creative collaboration.  I have been studying to be an opera librettist with American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program for the last year and a half, and have found that I absolutely love working with composers and telling stories with music.  I wrote my first opera this year -- a thirty minute gothic chamber opera called "The Resurrection Engine" -- with composer Evan Meier, and we are just beginning the process of writing a second piece together.  I'm very excited to see where this new venture leads me!  I recently watched the movie "Quartet," and in it, an opera singer tried to describe what opera is to a bunch of teenagers.  He told them that in opera, when someone stabs you in the back, instead of bleeding, you sing.  I look forward to letting my characters do more singing in 2015!

I'd like to give a big thank you to all the people I've been lucky enough to work with this year.  I'm a very lucky playwright. I love what I do -- and I get to do what I love. Thanks for being a part of my life and work, friends and colleagues!

Overview of 2014

"The Gun Show" premiered at 16th Street Theater in Chicago in July 2014.

Me and actor Juan Francisco Villa in "The Gun Show" at 16th Street Theater.

"The Gun Show" had its second production in Los Angeles in November, starring actor Chuma Gault.

"The Gun Show" premiered in Chicago, directed by Kevin Christopher Fox, and went on to a second production in Los Angeles, directed by Darin Anthony (with a third coming up shortly in Trenton, directed by Damon Bonetti and featuring Trent Blanton). 

"Reading to Vegetables" at University of Washington, directed by Tina Polzin.

"Reading to Vegetables" at Independence College, directed by Kevin Christopher Fox.

"Reading to Vegetables" premiered at University of Washington, directed by Tina Polzin.  Then the play went on to a second production at Independence College in Kansas, during my residency there, directed by Kevin Christopher Fox.

Working on "The Resurrection Engine" with composer Evan Meier.  The thirty minute Gothic chamber opera premiered at Symphony Space in New York City, produced by American Lyric Theater, where we've been studying.

"The Resurrection Engine" -- my first opera, written with composer Evan Meier in American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program -- premiered at Symphony Space in New York City. 

"Heads" at Pittsburgh Rep.

"Infinite Black Suitcase" was produced by Staples Players at Staples High School
in Westport, Connecticut, directed by David Roth.

"Dance Me to the End of Love" -- a bunch of my short plays, produced by the DramaDogs in Santa Barbara, CA.  Original music, played live!  Dancing!  And they did such a lovely job with my plays.

"Heads" was produced at Pittsburgh Rep, "Infinite Black Suitcase" was produced by Staples Players, and a bunch of my short plays was produced by the DramaDogs. 

Nine weeks in residence at the beautiful Inge House in Kansas with playwright Russell Davis!

I taught playwriting and worked on "Magellanica" during a nine-week residency at the William Inge Center for the Arts in the spring, had readings of the play at Moving Arts in Los Angeles and Project Y in NYC, and then had a tremendous ten-day workshop of the play at TimeLine in Chicago -- making fantastic progress on the play with their help. 

Me and my guys!  ANPF 2014 was wonderful again this year!  I love this festival with all my heart.

I was host playwright for the Ashland New Plays Festival in the fall. 

Samuel French, my publisher, featured "Infinite Black Suitcase" in their newsletter. 

I was a finalist for the Shakespeare's Sister Fellowship from A Room of Her Own Foundation.

Here in Oregon, I helped my Dad plant the garden in the spring, helped my brother harvest grapes in his vineyard in the fall, and took a wonderful (and much needed!) road trip down the California and Oregon coast in November.  This is such a beautiful state!

Goodbye, 2014!  Hello, 2015!

The Gun Show - west coast premiere opens Nov. 1

The west coast premiere of THE GUN SHOW opens tomorrow for a six week run in Los Angeles, at my old home theater company, Moving Arts.  The show is directed by Darin Anthony, and produced by Cece Tio.  It stars Chuma Gault.  Hope you can make it out to see the show, Los Angeles friends!

More information and tickets available at www.movingarts.org.

WWEAD? (Thoughts on The Gun Show, continued)

There's a war going on inside me.

There are a hell of a lot of wars going on outside of me right now, too…  and I'm not sure what to do about those, either.  The whole world seems to be falling apart.  The center cannot hold.  (Why do I wind up back with TS Eliot so frequently?)

My small war is between humility and hubris, between agency and inaction, between process and product, between past-tense and present-tense.

"The Gun Show" is up, now, at 16th Street Theater in Chicago.  We are in our third week of performances, playing to strong houses and pleased about receiving good reviews.  We've extended.  What the hell do I have to feel conflicted about?  I have a show up!

Every full-length play I've written has been the creative expression of me grappling with a question I don't have an answer for, and desperately need to.  My plays are all very different from each other in form and subject, but like most writers, I tend to circle the same set of questions on a pretty regular basis.  "How do we go on?" is a favorite for me -- taken from both existential and practical angles.  "The Gun Show" asks (amongst other things) how we as a society are going to choose to deal with guns, these dealers of death or security (depending on who you ask) which seem to be intrinsic to our American identity in a way we're no longer entirely comfortable with.  How do we go on?  Philosophically?  Practically?  With them or without them?

"The Gun Show" isn't just about guns, though.  It's about me trying to figure out how to integrate a difficult, messy, violent piece of my past into my present self.  I've been dragging it behind for a long time -- separate, heavy, albatross-like.  But at a certain point, going forward in pieces is no longer a very successful defense mechanism, but rather an impediment to progress.  

Progress hurts a bit.

I knew that it would, going into this.  It's all right.  I'm tough as an old tree, really.  I can do this.  And for the most part, I'm staying in the game -- feeling all the feels, only occasionally breaking for a Law & Order marathon with a Ben & Jerry's and bourbon chaser.  Because what good is all this art crap if it's not going to get me anywhere?  

I want to get somewhere.

I want to get somewhere farther than I am.

Personally and professionally.

I keep see-sawing between thinking the play is good and thinking it's self-indulgent crap.  I keep remembering things from the past that this play is dredging up, while trying to navigate the present and BE present and let what comes up come in, not slam the door on it like I have before.  Because it's part of me.  It's part of me.  It's part of me.

The play is going well.  People are coming to see it.  Two more theaters want to produce it.  So it's time for me to work to promote it.  Now.  Right now.  Not in a few weeks or month, but now, while it's up and running and growing and becoming.  Some people are going to hate it -- disagree with it, be appalled at it.  I am actively grappling with it myself, still.  Art isn't about the easy questions, after all.  Right?  I'm not entirely sure what to do with the people who LIKE it.  

It's at times like this that I ask myself, "WWEAD?"

I don't know Mr. Albee.  I have heard him speak a few times, and am in love with his plays.  How do you do better than "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"  How could you be more difficult and provocative than "The Goat" or "The Lady from Dubuque" or "Zoo Story?"  He has written difficult plays his whole life, and he has stayed in the game for a long, long time.  The Mr. Albee in my imagination is a grappler with angels, like Jacob in the story, when everything is at stake.  So...

Stay in the game, Ellen.

Send out the play, to the theater and the agent and the director you want to work with.

Don't stop wrestling with the play until it's done wrestling with you.

KEEP GOING.

The Gun Show Is Now Up on Stage at 16th Street Theater

The Bottom of the Box. 15 JULY 2014

My second full-length play production occurred in 2007.  Darin Anthony directed the world premiere of my hostage drama "Heads" at the Blank Theater in Los Angeles, California.  It's a dark little story, about four civilian westerners who are taken hostage during the early years of the war in Iraq.  The play has had five or six more productions, but that first one came to mind the other day.  I remember having a discussion with Darin about the ending of the play.  Specifically, he was asking me about the final stage direction, in which (spoiler alert!) the two surviving hostages are thrown together into a single cell.  Both of them are grieving.  One approaches the other with a tin of food; he slaps it out of her hands.  She tries again.  My final stage direction read something like "she holds out the tin again - lights out - end of play."  And Darin asked me if I thought that Michael might reach out and take the tin from Caroline, the second time she offers it.  We talked about it a lot.  I think we might have tried the scene both ways, with the actors.  I ended up choosing to end the play with Michael accepting the tin from Caroline.  It was a small change that made all the difference.  How you end something is really important.

I was thinking about the end of "Heads" because I've been thinking about the end of "The Gun Show."  It's my seventh or eighth full-length play to be produced, and as always, I have found myself having intense conversations with my director about the play as we work together to bring it to the stage.  The original ending (before the last 20 or 30 rewrites) had the actor abandoning the audience after the last story.  He leaves the stage.  Leaves the audience to think what they think and feel what they feel.  And the play still kind of ends that way, but my director, Kevin Fox, asked me if I thought that a conversation with the audience about the rather intense subject matter of the play -- guns and gun violence and gun control -- might be a natural follow up to our performances here at 16th Street Theater in Chicago, especially since the play explicitly asks, at one point, "Can we have this conversation?"  We talked about it a lot.  I was nervous about the idea, but Kevin had a carefully thought-out plan.  I ended up choosing to let him try it.  It was a small change that has made all the difference.  People have been sharing their own gun stories, and listening to each other, really listening to each other.  I have felt both humbled and supported by their willingness to take part.  How you end something is really important.

And I realized that maybe what both of these directors were asking me to do, with these dark little plays of mine, was not to step back from the darkness, but to keep reaching inside until I got to the furthest point that the plays were trying to take me to.  The bottom of the box.  

Don't close it until you let the hope out, Ellen.

Rehearsals continue for THE GUN SHOW, here in Chicago

Through the Looking Glass.  04 JULY 2014

“I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”   (Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

My guts hurt. They've hurt for days now, a low ache that makes me want to curl up under the covers. 

It's not appendicitis.  It's not cramps. It's not that I've been drinking too much coffee during the day and booze at night (though, you know, maybe that, too.) It's that I've been clenching those muscles tight since rehearsals began on Monday afternoon.

This play cuts a little close to the bone.

It's a strange thing to work on.  Kevin Christopher Fox is my director, for this first ever production of the play.  Juan Francisco Villa is my actor.  (Don't they have wonderful names?)  They've been troupers.  This is a public story -- THE GUN SHOW -- but it's also a private story, and they are hanging in there with me for this oddly intimate exploration of what guns mean to us here in America and what guns mean to the three of us there in that room and what guns mean to me.

Juan is playing me.  Sometimes, during the show, he talks to me, where I'm sitting out in the audience.  (I love the theater, where the most complicated things can be magicked into the most simple things.)

Kevin said something to Juan the other day, in rehearsal.  He said that when Juan looks at me, for him to think of it as looking in a mirror, since we are the same person for the duration of each performance.  That felt both surprising and deeply right to me.  It's been so strange to watch Juan wrestle with my demons.

I am a relatively emotionally contained person, generally speaking.  Carefully bottled up, one might say.  But this play is pushing me to let go a bit.  A lot.

Some moments I want to flee the theater, and some moments I want to cling to the guys, and some moments I don't want to be touched.

I'm trying to sit in my chair and not be distracting.  Because we are there to work on the play.  It is my job to be the playwright in the room, to take notes and give notes, to support and encourage and guide, to let Kevin work with Juan, as they bring my little play to life up on the stage, working all their own magic.  To be professional.

So the clenching.

It'll pass.

“The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings.”  (Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

THE GUN SHOW begins rehearsals at 16th Street Theater in Chicago

28 JUNE 2014

I arrived in Chicago late last night, and Ann picked me up at the airport -- Ann Filmer, artistic director of 16th Street Theater in Berwyn. I'm here because I wrote a play, and because Ann is producing it. The play is called THE GUN SHOW.

I will be here all month, participating in not only the rehearsals, with my director and actor, but also in the show itself. It's a "one-man, two-person show," in its current iteration at least. That's how I've been describing it, anyway. The actor plays me, and once in a while he talks to me. I'm all over this one. Part of the story in a way that I've never been part of the story before. Tangled up in blue, to borrow a phrase.

The play is about guns.

This is its first production. I've been working on it for about a year and a half, and it's new and raw. Part conversation about guns and gun control and part stories about guns, pulled from my own experiences.

I grew up in rural Oregon, on a farm, and we had guns. Not a lot, not a stockpile, not for show, not for machismo. They were a tool, to be used to kill creatures that were preying on the chickens, if creatures happened to be preying on the chickens, or to defend ourselves if we needed to. Because we were far from things like civilization and law enforcement. Not super far. But far enough. Everybody had guns, and dogs, and fences. Most everybody out there still does.

I didn't stay in the country, and I didn't stay a kid. As I moved out into the world, my thoughts about guns became more complicated. My experiences with guns became more complicated.

I've waited a long time to tell this story. Which is the wrong way to put it, because I never thought I'd ever tell this story.

Why now?

Things collide. That's part of it. It's impossible to NOT think about guns right now. Right? There's one story after another in the newspaper lately, and the debate is hot and emotional and immediate. All this public story crashed against my own personal stories, and when you're a writer, there really are moments when you HAVE TO write. Fish or cut bait. Grow or die.

I saw a friend recently, who I hadn't seen for a while, and she asked how I was, and how the play was going… the usual questions. I would usually say "fine, how are you?" automatically, automatically, automatically. Like a math equation that I knew the correct answer to. But this time, I didn't say fine. "Good," I said. "Strange. Like a snake shedding its skin. Ugly and patchy and vulnerable."

She's a writer too, so I think she understood. She patted my arm reassuringly.

I don't know how this is going to go.

Rehearsals begin tomorrow. We'll see.

It begins.