Last night's final rehearsal in the rehearsal room went smoothly. Because the production is very much ready to move to the stage, we are all anxious to move to what is the "next level" of the rehearsal process. Therefore, because we're moving to the stage tonight, most of the singers (including yours truly) decided to mark our voices last night. Marking is a way singers can rehearse at a low-level vocally, singing at an entire lower octave and softly, while at the same time, taking the opportunity to focus on the acting, or dramatic part of the presentation without worrying about the vocal part.

After the rehearsal I met up with some of the others. Suzanne Mentzer, our Composer, and I were joined by Jan Eberwein, the Major Domo, who came with Chris Alexander, our stage director and his wife Hille Darjes, to Sonoma restaurant. It turned out to be a good, relaxing time for us all. We were soon joined by Joseph Lawson, the assistant conductor. Sonoma is open until 1:00 a.m. most evenings and serves delicious food and wine, so it is the absolute perfect place to go. We also ran into Jane Eaglen and her husband Brian Lyson. And near the end of the evening we ran into Robert Dahlstrom, our Set Designer from Seattle, as well as Robert Wierzel, our Lighting Designer.

Tonight's rehearsal is the big rehearsal for our designers, as the rehearsal is called a "Piano Tech", which means we will rehearse on the stage in costume and makeup, with a single piano accompanying us from the orchestra pit. The focus of the rehearsal tonight revolves around all the technical aspects of the production, and there is much to coordinate, between setting the lights, running the cues, etc. In many ways it is an opportunity for all the backstage stagehands to become familiar with the sets. It is generally a long night, as it is a "stop & go" rehearsal. Everything stops for a myriad of reasons. Just the scene changes take practice, and the only way to do it is to, as they say, "try, try again".

Last night, just before leaving for the rehearsal, I updated the security settings on my laptop computer. When I returned home late in the evening, I discovered that my browser on my computer had been reset (I use an Apple computer, and my browser is called Safari.) Normally this would be fine, but I have hundreds of bookmarks and RSS feeds that I use to make life easier on the internet. Fortunately, I have my Safari browser settings backed up so it will be a simple of matter of loading them back in. But I stayed up very late trying to get it accomplished, and at this point I still have not been successful in importing those bookmarks back into my laptop. Today, once I was up and awake, my Pittsburgh Opera volunteer picked me up, along with Lyubov Petrova, our Zerbinetta, and took us to Whole Foods where we stocked up for the final twelve days that we are here in Pittsburgh. I have a couple of hours before my makeup and costume call for tonight, so I'd better get going. We will be there until 11:00 p.m. tonight, so it will be another late night, for sure!