Amazing "Tempest" Moment

I want to write about the whole process of scoring The Tempest in the style of American Roots music with trash percussion before the show opens, but this morning I only have time to share a brief story.

Friday night we had our first spacing rehearsal on the stage at Agecroft Hall. Very rough work at times, on an unfinished stage, with entire platforms still missing from the unfinished bleachers, with just a few worklights to see by as the sun set. I was sitting with my guitars extreme stage right, off the stage and nearly against the wall of the building. The whole cast and crew were either onstage, backstage, or in the house watching.

No one else could see what I saw. Only I had the right angle.

As the sun set and the sky darkened, flashes of distant lightning began to light the northern sky as a line of thunderstorms approached. For over an hour, I sat in my place watching Stephen Lorne Williams' Prospero tell Liz Blake's Miranda the story of their banishment to the island, justifying why he has raised the tempest. All the while, the storm grew nearer and nearer, the flashes brighter and more frequent past Prospero's head. When the thunder grew audible, it was almost too much to bear. Here was Prospero, in the form of this dignified old British actor, standing in front of me with his staff, summoning spirits to raise a storm, with the actual storm casting lightning like haloes around his head.

When the rain came, cutting off the last 90 minutes of our spacing work, the fun kind of ended. But I told director Anthony Luciano, "After watching what I watched tonight, I don't even need to perform this for an audience to be satisfied."

...Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't come. Maybe there will be a cool lightning storm for you, as well.

I'll take pictures at tonight's spacing rehearsal.