Rehearsal Diary: First read through. Last night we held the first read through for Guys & Dolls, and I got to squawk through my one song. The show – and my part – are going to be a whole lot more work than I thought: originally I figured I’d just try to channel Nathan Lane while playing Nathan Detroit, but I see now that I’m going to need to do a lot more digging into the character and try to figure out his motivations. Additionally, just affecting a vague New-York-Jewish accent isn’t going to help me land the laugh lines. There’s a certain rhythm and cadence to the delivery they require that I still need to crack.

Oh, and I found out we’re renting the costumes — hopefully they’ll be as colorful and bright as the ones from the ’92 Broadway revival, featured in this interview with costume designer William Ivey Long.