This past weekend was an amazing experience. On Friday night, we saw a group of amazing actors perform a staged reading of the show in it’s entirety. We’re still in awe from the experience. Having said that, the weekend actually started off a bit rough.
GETTING TO SAVANNAH
Harrison was supposed to fly out of Chicago on Wednesday night and spend the night on Jimmy’s couch in New York before sharing a flight to Savannah the next morning. However, nearly every flight into LaGuardia was cancelled due to the weather. Luckily, Harrison secured a spot on the last flight for the night. Unluckily, after two hours of sitting on the tarmac, the flight was cancelled (at least he got his money’s worth in terms of time on an airplane). Needless to say, Harrison was a changed man.
Meanwhile, Jimmy played ground support bycalling nearly every airline support number he could find. And after several negotiations at a break-neck pace, he was able to lock down a new travel plan without spending a single extra dime. Booyah! Harrison was able to get to Savannah, via Boston, the very next day.
IT’S SHOWTIME!
We primarily spent Thursday and Friday touring Savannah and catching up. Neither of us knew what to expect from the reading and the excitement was definitely palpable as we joked about potential disasters that could ensue. Not only were there no disasters, the reading surpassed our wildest expectations.
When we got to the space on Friday, we were thrilled to see that the crew at SCAD was going all out with the video and audio recordings of the show. No matter what was going to happen next, we’d have it documented! And everyone was so nice. All the faculty and students were friendly and hospitable; they made us feel so at home. In a way, they helped to settle our nerves even before the show kicked off. We fired up our Periscope® live-stream, took our seats, and waited for the show to begin.
For anyone watching the video, we’re sure you noticed how aghast we were. We spent the entire show with our jaws on the floor, looking at each other in awe. First of all, the performers’ voices? Insane. It was wild. And they were so funny! Jokes that we hadn’t even caught before were jumping off the page as the team played with the piece. It was amazing to see a group of people tap into something that has lived entirely in our minds (and living rooms) until now. So, thank you to Kevin, Lindsy, Leia, Braxton, Robbie, Christian, Steve, Kat, Matt, Burke, Tonya, Richie, and Bekka for all of your hard work and fantastic results!
HIGHLIGHTS
One of Jimmy’s highlights was being able to play through the songs with the team after the reading. Having performers sing along to music that he composed was truly special.
For Harrison, he particularly loved discussing the show with the cast. It was inspiring to see how the work impacted each performer differently and how they each found personal meaning from it.
For both of us, it’s just nice to have more people involved in this endeavor. It’s as though we’ve been alone on Lasagna Mañana Island for years now and there are finally more islanders joining the fun.
To the crew at SCAD who made this possible: thank you so so much. You’re all part of the Miller Tree.
And to Natalie, the kind waitress at J. Christopher’s who recognized us as “the guys who wrote Lasagna Mañana” and hooked us up with sweet patio seating: thank you for making us feel like celebrities. Sorry for the lousy tip (jk, jk…).
SO WHAT’S NEXT?
Well, we spent most of the day on Sunday cooped up at Gallery Espresso in Savannah working on revisions. We learned a ton from the reading about the potential of this piece. So in making revisions, we’ve basically been playing into the things that worked well, while tweaking or scrapping the areas that were confusing or just didn’t work once the show was on its feet. We’ve still got a long way to go, but the show feels more real now than ever before. We believe that after a few more edits we may actually have a show that’s ready to be performed as a full piece. So, we’ll likely be exploring our production options in the coming months. Stay tuned.
Thanks again to everyone involved in this amazing experience. It was a joy to meet you all and have you on the team.
J & H
