Good questions

I swung by OP4P rehearsal last night just in time to catch the full run of the show with costumes, props and tech. (Before I got there, they were working certain scenes and cues.) It's fun to see the set almost all together; it's just missing a little bit of set dressing. Lighting cues are all programmed, just now need the timing honed. There was music, chicken wings ... everything you need for a real show.

The top half is still flowing with more ease than the bottom half, but it's obvious Jenna has been working with the actors on certain key serious scenes (Steph and Sierra in the bathroom, Steph and Matt at the bar) because they've grown by leaps and bounds as far as energy and intent.

Last night Stuart (the actor) brought the cast lollipops ... because his character Matt, a pediatrician, talks several times about giving young patients lollipops. I love that.

Another thing I love ... while onstage but not in focus, Josh, Sarah and Shawn have developed a massive debate for their semi-pantomimed conversation. The topic: who would win in a fight between vampire ninjas (Vampjas) and werewolf cyborgs (Wereborgs). Now, there's a debate that could truly go either way.

I've been very tickled throughout the process by the questions the cast has asked me about the script. Some of them I have no answer to (like why Steph dismisses Superman as being ineligible for president for being an alien when Prime is an alien too. Which is true. He is an alien, but in my head, that's his least prominent identity after robot and truck.).

Among my favorites: Aubrey asked me about Kevin and Steph's past and relationship prior to the play, particularly their break up. The weird thing is, I've never specifically outlined what that was, I've just always sort of known or had a sense of what it was without scripting it. So, when I tried to offer a brief, general response, I ended up with paragraphs and paragraphs on my "guesses" as to what their relationship was like. 

Aubrey also asked me what kind of beer Steph would drink, and truthfully, I'd never thought about it. In the script, we know Stuey drinks Eliot Ness and Killian's at different points and that Sierra is ridiculed for drinking Coors. I never thought about Steph's beer preferences. Together, we figured, it would probably be something from Great Lakes. Like I told Aubrey, I totally see Steph as that girl who returned to college after spring break with a case of Great Lakes beer, Peterson's peanuts, Malley's chocolates, and Bertman's Stadium mustard. Because she's a Cleveland girl.

Josh astutely noticed that Kevin rarely drops the F-bomb, only if he really wants to piss people off. Rather, he often says "frickin'" as a substitute.  Josh asked if that was intentional, which it is. I just don't have a reason for it. In the very first draft, it was just my natural instinct to have Kevin use the word a lot ... and no one else. Once I noticed that inclination, I intentionally cultivated it, but there's no deep reason behind it. It's just how Kevin sounds to me. Josh thought he might devise for himself a reason.

And of course Sarah asked me why Sierra is only character that doesn't have a "What I want to be when I grow up" monologue as themselves at age 9. I get that question a lot. And there are two reasons. One: she does have a monologue. She tells Matt she wanted to be an astronaut, and tells him why. It's just that she says it within dialogue in the here and now, not in the past and alone in light delivered to the audience. Two: the reason Sierra can deliver her childhood dream in real conversation rather than in nostalgic fantasy is that she doesn't cling to her childhood like the others. She's very comfortable with herself as an adult; she's not afraid of letting go of some of that past to move forward. The others would all go back to being kids in a second if they could, pain, awkwardness and all. She would not. Thus, no monologue ... at least not in the traditional sense.