I am tired.
The past few weeks have been a blur of working, rehearsing, working, driving and rehearsing, with a little sleep thrown in for good measure. We are sticking to our three-day-a-week rehearsal schedule, which means squeezing 138 minutes out of every two hour practice. The show is blocked, the cast is (mostly) off-book, the musicians are hard at work, and there's only one more dance to choreograph. All in all, we are exactly where we need to be.
I mentioned our musicians, and I must take a moment to thank our pit (that's musical theatre speak for "band.") The quartet is headed up by the terribly hip Michael Stringer, and features Anne "community theatre" Richmond on keyboard, Katrina "church lady" Fairbank on drums and Nick Giana..., Nick Gianast..., Nick Giannatasio on guitar and guitjo (and if you don't know what a guitjo is, that is one more reason for you to come out and see this show!) Last week, when we put musicians and singers together, I just knew that this show was going to become everything I've been imagining for the past 18 months.
My biggest anxiety to date is that I have to finish creating, finish choreographing, one big number. I've mentioned before that I am not a "dancer." I am certainly not a "choreographer." It takes me four or five lines of chicken scratch in a notebook to describe one movement that I want to teach. More often than not, when I go back and read over my notes, I don't even remember what the movement was supposed to look like!!
But somehow, I'm really happy with the way the first four dances have come together! Last night, following a lovely potluck dinner, several of the cast members and I put together one of the final numbers. It is lively and energetic, and now that half of them know the dance, it will be so much easier and faster to teach it to everyone else on Sunday (I hope!)
So that leaves me with one last dance. I will be scribbling away in my notebook for the better part of today and tomorrow, so that it will seem effortless when I have to teach it on Sunday. Once that is done, once we are remembering the lyrics and harmonies, once we are clapping and scooping and stomping in the right places, we will be ready to put the finishing touches on this show. It's hard to believe we are so close to opening night! See you there!!
10 comments:
Wahoo!!!!!!!!! You are so amazing, Lelly!
Hope you have sold-out shows, with standing room only crowds!!
Wow! Were you a busy thing! Hope the show goes well with all the time you put in it will!
Yowser! And d'you know what the thing is - you'll put all that work in to make it look 'effortless'. Argh! What an amazing amount of time and energy you've put into it. I hope (and I'm sure) everyone will see it for the immense labour of love it has been. Good luck with it all! xx
Wow! It sounds like the show is going to be a hit! I'm sure that everyone appreciates all the hard work that you are putting in to make it work too! What fun!!!
This post made me nostalgic. I want to be in your show! I hope you have great houses and lots of broken legs.
What?! You're doing choreography? There's no way in the world I can do that. Reading this post took me back to doing musicals in high school. So much fun. (Although I can't imagine being on your end of the show...so much work!)
Good luck! I can relate to the mayhem. Hope all runs smoothly.
Musical theatre - what a lot of work! I wish I could come and enjoy a performance.
once again wanted to say i am so, so, impressed! you are amazing!
I do miss theather. It is tiring, buy oh what joy. Have fun.
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