Where shall I find another?

Our director has at least twice commented on how knowledgeable I am about the show.(I'm the only one in the cast who's done it before, and who's also see several different productions of it. I've found I know it better than I thought I did, and that I have most of the women's songs and perhaps half the men's songs memorized.) Well, at Saturday's rehearsal she announced that, effective immediately, anyone who couldn't remember their line was to call "line" and that no one from the cast was to help; only the director or AD was to provide the line. "Except for Pitti-Sing: she can feed me my [lyrics] lines." Well! Quite a vote of confidence for the director cum Katisha to give me express permission to feed her her lyrics! (A bit scary, too, as I don't know that I have them all memorized as well as she seems to think.)

Given how so many directors are so control-oriented (it is their job to run the show, after all, both figuratively and literally), where shall I find another director with this one's willingness to take maximum advantage of her people's abilities? She's also impressed me with her composure; a few weeks ago we got kicked out of our rehearsal space an hour early (we'd paid for the extra hour) because of a problem with the staff. Rather than pitch a fit or yell at the woman who came to lock up because her relief never showed up, our director accepted it with a good grace and urged us to pack up asap. Her temper is only just beginning to show as opening night approaches, but so far it's mostly been limited to a show of impatience when someone forgets a line or bit of blocking - nothing close to the temper tantrums I've sometimes seen. The acid test will come next week - Tech Week, sometimes known as Hell Week.

Ah, Tech Week, when you get to find out just how much your costume is going to change your movements, how much the set will affect your blocking (having the actual steps always slows you down, at least initially), whether you'll have time to get from this side of the stage to that for your next entrance, how well (or poorly) you can hear the music in the actual set-up, and other adventures. Maybe I'm deranged, but I rather enjoy it; as I said before, that's when the magic starts working for me.

Last night I ordered a pair of small hand mirrors for Ko-Ko to use (a primary and a spare, but mostly to justify the shipping, which was more than the cost of just one mirror) instead of the full-size hand mirror he's been rehearsing with. The little one should fit into his obi (I can rig a pocket if necessary), and he and Yum-Yum won't have to worry about "Who's got the mirror?" and "Where did you leave it? I need it for the next scene!" And today I picked up a basket to replace the stand-in, a rather beat-up cardboard box. I figure I'll use them again in some future show, and the sooner we can all work with all our actual props, the better. (To her eternal credit, our producer saw to it that we all had our parasols, fans, etc., from Day 1. Geta mistake notwithstanding, she's a gem!)