April 2026 - The Staged Reading

Holy hell, you guys.

Putting on a staged reading of a musical is HARD. Which we knew, going into it, but phew.

Here’s how we spent the last two and a half weeks of April.

We had the great fortune of being featured in Principito Productions’ Dream Cabaret at WeRise Wines in Seattle! Over the course of a week, we worked with Carlos Barajas, Alma David Taylor, and Nick Bringhurst to put together a cabaret that promoted songs from the show (and gave us the chance to sing our favorite karaoke songs in front of a captive audience.)

Get Incorporated

Technically we’ve been preparing for this for months, but for the sake of brevity, we’ll talk about the days before our first rehearsal.

Using funds from Jessi’s DGF Fellowship stipend, we were able to purchase:

• print material (feedback forms, flyers, and postcards to insert in the first 100 programs as a little treat)

• shiny new black binders

• copies of the script and scores

• highlighters, flags, and pencils

• snacks to keep the actors from attacking us

We were resourceful and spent zero money on:

• extra chairs, which we stole from Jessi’s house

• music stands, which were generously “borrowed” for the rehearsal process (its fine no one knew they went missing)

• rehearsal space - we held rehearsals at Daniel’s house, Jessi’s house, and in a rehearsal space at Tacoma Little Theatre

• venue - Tacoma Little Theatre very generously programmed our reading through their Off the Shelf staged reading series

We spent our first rehearsal meeting and greeting with the actors and reading through the script, playing demos when we reached the music. In the event we didn’t have a demo ready, Daniel stepped in and played/sung the song live.

The next two weeks were a blur of learning harmonies, feeling out the emotions and intentions of each scene and song, and drinking a LOT of coffee.

By some miracle, we made it to April 29th for…

We were absolutely blown away by the number of people that showed up. Thanks to our friends, families, and Tacoma Little Theatre’s dedicated audience, we were able to sell over 170 tickets!!! Testing our work out on a full theatre what a completely unexpected treat.

Featuring the talents of Nick Bourgault, Heather Matthews, Elise Campello, Russell Campbell, Naomi Blue Nieves Driver, Hannah Votel, Sophie J Sen, and Rebecca Reeder, we were able to put on a HELL of a staged reading.

Here’s some highlights:

Strap in, Bitch

Karaoke - It’s a Metaphor!

Someone to Someone

SO. Having survived the reading, what are our main takeaways?

While you can get away with two (maybe even one) rehearsal with the actors for a straight play, a musical is FAR more demanding. The performers had to learn eighteen songs (counting reprises) in roughly 30 hours of rehearsal time, which was not nearly enough time to completely iron everything out.

The benefit of reviewing music under such intense crunch time is that Daniel was able to really figure out which parts mattered the most. A lot of harmonies ended up cut on the rehearsal floor, and most of them may or may not remain cut in the next draft of the show. Sometimes simpler is better for everyone.

As the director, Jessi only needed probably 5-10% of the rehearsal time to run lines, work through which stage directions should be spoken out loud, and manage the limited amount of props. The rest of the time needed to be dedicated to music rehearsal.

We originally had an accompanist for the reading, but due to unforeseen circumstances, were left without one less than three hours before the show. Thankfully, no one knows the music better than Daniel, who was able to hop on the keys to accompany the whole thing. While it was disappointing for him to not be able to sit back and watch the show, it was admittedly nice to have an accompanist who knew the work so intimately.

One of the best parts of the experience for Jessi was listening to the audience make small positive and negative noises at the appropriate moments. The plot of the show requires Sue to withhold information from Hijinx - the audience is privvy to the information, but must follow along as Sue skirts around the truth. Hearing the audience react to specific moments of unspoken significance was like a sigh of relief. The material was understood - thank GOD.

Girl we are RESTING.

Kind of.

We’re still collecting feedback from the reading (if you attended, and your feedback link was broken, you can find a working one right here!) We’re not looking at any of the feedback forms for another few weeks. From there, we’ll sort through the advice from our audience and performers, and make a plan for revision. But we won’t be jumping into edits immediately - we’re reserving the majority of edits for mid-June, when we’ll be at Drama Club Camp in Maine!

Instead, May and June will be used to take a deep breath, revisit some other projects that have fallen by the wayside, draft brand new pieces, and bask in the glow of a successful staged reading.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU to all who attended the staged reading of Hijinx & Sue. We truly could not be doing this without all your support and passion and kindness. You have no idea how important your laughter was to us.

While we rest up, make sure to check out the May Dream Cabaret, happening at WeRise Wines on May 19th. The Dream Shows are SO much fun to watch, and you get a free glass of wine with your ticket! Get your tickets right here.

And if you haven’t already, check out Daniel’s new article published on MusicalWriters.com all about his experience music directing Spring Awakening at Tacoma Little Theatre earlier this year.

Catch ya next month. 💫