Besides the fact that when you have twenty people reading lyrics, typos are found quickly, it has already made the show better. Seeing things we had written sung out loud and acted on stage was incredible. Plus, it really gave us some insight on the sound of the show.

One actor in particular, our friend Cameron playing Friar Tuck, exploded our view of the show. He bought a fresh perspective to the character very quickly, and his pacing and intentionality with his lines gave us lots of ideas to make the character more than just “the priest character”.

It was also my first jab at directing, and I was so glad that a good friend and amazing director there to help me get on my feet. Of course, we had already planned out most of the blocking like football plays on our awesome whiteboard, but stick figures are much different than teenagers. Looking back, I see things that I could have paid more attention to or nit-picked about, but this was a big-picture and get-on-our-feet kind of day.

Today, as we continue to discuss the workshop and learn from the day, we were looking at our next planned scene: ACT II SCENE I and the only place where dancing could happen in the show. But, after hearing these amazing young men and women sing our opening song, my husband learned a lot about the keys he had chosen, and the song in this Act II opening scene had too wide of a range to find a good key for men and women. Thusly, REWRITING BEGAN!

Now, you should you know, this is not the first time we have completely rewritten a song for this scene, but every time it gets better. I think we’ve finally struck gold and are excited to see it come to life and find out if it actually works.

I’ll continue to keep you updated on our “Scarlet” adventures with playwright-ing, song writing, and directing, but for the time being, here is a snippet from the opening song, “Nottingham”, featuring our amazing Friar Tuck: