A couple of words to the wise:
Dance rehearsal yesterday. No one told me that an A.D.'s responsibilities included stepping in for an absent dancer...but at least someone else who's not the choreographer or a dancer knows the dance now. It's a rather interesting, although simple, dance -- sort of a cross between a Renaissance-flavoured square dance and a waltz, choreographed such that it involves some amusing changes of partners.
When we were running the scene and working the dance into it, we had to run the dance a few times, because the character who rushes in at the end with a loud yell was badly informed as to exactly when he was supposed to come running on. Which meant that the dance was interrupted twice, in two different places, by said character rushing onstage amidst the dancers, screaming "MASTERRRRRRR!" (You know who you are. So do all the other actors, for that matter. I will simply continue to refrain from mentioning names.)
So anyway, after the dance rehearsal and a hurried (and late-making) dinner, we got into the second half of the play. Which was very long and heavy going. Much calls for lines, and that slowed things down; also, the procedure of scene running (e.g. run IV,1 and IV,2; give notes; run IV,2 and IV,3) tends to run things a bit on the long side...in brief, we finally finished up around midnight.
Our costumers have also clothed the Shepherd. We have a simple coat for the end of the first half, a "leather" vest (shirt to go under supplied by the actor) for the festival, and a delightfully silly and loud purple satin...thing, for lack of a better word, for when he is ennobled at the end of the play. (I've been racking my brains trying to remember where I've seen it before -- one of the Players' Shakespeares?)
Otherwise, this is that point in production where, from certain points of view (like, say, certain crewmembers', or even some actors') things start to look very bleak, and one starts to say despairing things about ever getting the show up. It will all work out. However, that doesn't excuse anyone from working to make it work out.
Oh, and we have a couple of spools to choose from. They're huge! There's no way anyone could conveniently sit on them (well, except maybe Stephen or Peter, and then only on the smaller one), so this may demand a rethink of the blocking...