Check Please!

Have you ever been on a blind date?  How about a bad blind date?  Check Please, co-directed by Braiden Fisher and Edna Gill, has everything you have ever wanted (or not wanted) when it comes to online dating.

Told through alternating dates, Check Please follows the story of GUY and GIRL as they navigate the stormy waters of blind relationships.  Have you ever tried to have dinner with a mime?  What about a kleptomaniac?  Why don’t you sit down and listen as someone tries to talk in only movie quotes?

“Anyone who has dated can relate in someway to [the show],” Edna Gill says senior musical theatre major.  Concerning the five-day rehearsal period she told me, “It has been crazy, but also exciting to see how much can be accomplished in that amount of time.  It’s a really fun show.”

The cast of Check Please started rehearsal Monday the 7^th, and they open this Thursday, the 17^th.  That gave them only a week and a half of rehearsals to put the show completely together.  Both the cast and crew have worked hard with the limited time allotted, and the student-directors have been challenged to plan everything in the one-week time frame.  It is nothing like the usual four-week rehearsal process, which gives time to address table work and memorization and blocking in equal amounts.  Instead, actors were expected to be off-book (completely memorized) for the first rehearsal, which allowed the directors to focus on content and blocking.

I asked Braiden Fisher senior musical theatre major, why he wanted to co-direct this show, and what it has been like working with such a small space (Skiles Building).  “It would give me directing experience and possibly more opportunities in the future,” he told me.  “Working in a small space is surprisingly more difficult, because not only is it small but it’s also in the round.  You have to deal with audience in close proximity.”

Check Please runs Thursday (9/17), Friday (9/18), and Saturday (9/19) at 7:30pm—Round Room, Skiles Building.  House opens at 7:00pm.

Students and faculty are free.  Chapel credit available.