Back from first meeting of the CHILDREN OF EDEN cast

We met for three hours tonight in the auditorium at Rockingham Community College. I got to know quite a few of my fellow cast members (Children of Eden demands a fairly large number of people for this show, which is one of the reasons why it hasn't been run on Broadway yet). As one of the principles I got to bring home a script, but it's not mine to keep and in order to have this copy I had to leave a security deposit. That gets returned to me at the end of the show, when I give the script back.

Then all the principles and some of the kids who'll be portraying animals listened to the 2-disc soundtrack of the Paper Mill Playhouse's production of Children of Eden, the one that gave this musical its final form. For a lot of the cast this was the first time they had ever listened to the music from the show. Since I've been listening to this same soundtrack for almost eight years now, I knew the songs by heart and couldn't help bopping along to the beat, especially when "Generations" started playing :-)

During the listening session, we were each called out of the auditorium to get measured for our costumes. I've no idea what mine is going to look like: all that happened in that regard tonight is that my height was measured along with my chest size and a few other dimensions taken. But since I'm playing Seth and he only shows up toward the end of Act I, I'm thinking it'll probably be something more than the "skins and rough fabric" that Adam and his family wear after the expulsion, but nothing like the colorful pageantry that we see a thousand years later at the beginning of Act II either.

Right now we're scheduled for six performances in June: one each for Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the final weekends of that month. It could go into another weekend, if there's enough demand (and I'm hoping there will be).

We meet again tomorrow night, when we go over the first and last songs for Act I.

Did I say that there are a lot of wonderful people in this production, and that it's a great honor to be working with them?

This is gonna absolutely rock!! :-)

Categories: art, children of eden, musicals, theatre guild of rockingham county