In Elvis Has Left the Building, our boy Mac Welch stands (and dances, and struts, and karate-kicks) alone on the stage for a good 70 or so minutes. Only a fraction of that is time spent singing; most of the time, he's talking, and in the rambling, sometimes nonsensical voice of a man who's not quite all there. In any one-man show, line memorization is one of the biggest hurdles to get over. It's particularly tricky in this show, because Mac is a stickler for detail, and wants to get these monologues word-for-word accurate--not just because that's the responsible thing to do as an actor, but because The King's word choices (and fumbles) are so unique that you really have to do them exactly as he did. (Plus, there's always the chance that there will be people in the audience--like us--who know these tapes by heart, and will know if he goes off on a variation.)
So, in both of our stagings to date, we've made sure to structure the rehearsal schedule in such a way as to allow him enough time, room, and repitition to really learn the lines correctly. Since we're only doing two to three rehearsals a week, we decided to spread the due dates for lines across a full month. This week we're on the last week of that month, so as of this week, this guy know these lines. It certainly helps that he'd learned them before--but hell, that was four and a half years ago. And it helps that some of the speeches (like this one) are ones we've known and recited for years. But memorizing a nearly hour-long monologue is no easy task, and kudos to Welchy for pulling it off.
Posters and postcards are in, and we got a lot of 'em, so you'll start seeing them around the NYC soon. And the show's only five damn weeks away-- so plan ahead, like grown-ups do, and make your reservations (Friday night here, Saturday night here). Make it happen, kids.
-bailey
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