While I realize that I promised to write about Sunday's rehearsal, the truth is, I was sort of ill, took very few notes and don't remember much. Let's see, I drove down a questionable alleyway to find my way to that one-way street mentioned in the first rehearsal. I even remembered how to get back to the car afterwards.
Ok here are my notes as scribbled in my notebook:
water in glasses
dancers
principals come in last, sit together, hug the director
sing octave lower to protect voice
cell phone or electronic game sound
Director: "You know why Verdi wrote it like that? The orchestra stops... To shut up the Italian audience."
and
"It's not sloppy drunk but it's feeling good."
So let's see... during the musical rehearsal there was some sort of cell phone or electronic game noise playing. Everyone scrambled to check their phones, except, of course, the owner of the offending device. Eventually the stage manager looked in his bag, and yup, it was his. Oops.
The glasses we brought out on trays had water in them. Blah blah blah not very interesting. I already posted the interesting part, when Ellen picked the wax out of Michael's ear. Yes, it was that kind of day. And now, three days later, I'm still waiting for the Imodium to wear off.
Oh! Here's one nice thing! Meanie girl actually smiled and said hello, and has been friendly even. It's as if she read the blog and recognized herself. I highly doubt it.
Tuesday
Yes, yet another parking fiasco. I didn't have to be there until 7:30 so I figured I'd have no problem finding a spot on Prospect Street near the rehearsal building. And in fact, there were no cars parked on Prospect Street for the 1st quarter mile.... because all the spots were blocked by friggin' saw-horses! There were "no parking" bags (yes, bags) on the meters. I was like a mile down the road before I spied an empty spot another quarter of a mile away. While I am a very big fan of walking, and do like a brisk walk after dinner, I don't relish the idea of leaving rehearsal at 10:00PM to walk a mile in the dark to my car. Alone.
So once again I drayed around until I found a spot on another street slightly closer than the spot I would have gotten on Prospect. Turns out that a Transformers Movie was being filmed there, during the day, which meant that the spots had to be blocked all day and all night. Or maybe someone forgot to unbag the meters.
So I did eventually make it to the rehearsal with time to spare.
I had been sort of ignoring it before, but the director has a sort of hissy fit when people talk when they're not supposed to. I suppose he has a point but he'll be calmly giving direction to someone and then suddenly he'll snap and shout, "SHUT UP!" It's shockingly effective. Individually everyone seems ok but when the chorus gets together they are very much like a bunch of kids.
EXCITING SUPER NEWS TO REPORT!! We've been put into the opening scene! (rah, rah rah.) Half the chorus enters and we come in behind and stand in the back. I'm carrying a vase of flowers, Kelly has plates and forks, Ken has two bottles and Rachel has a tray of glasses. The chorus does this slow motion move for a count of 8 and then when they break out and move at speed we step forward and set the table as fast as we can. Then we run off in time for Kelly to go back on to give Violetta her two flutes of champagne. Next we take our trays of drinks out. As I stepped out with my tray, one of the glasses wobbled... and over it went with a splash. Did I mention that they were full of water? Oscar-worthy actor that I am, I ignored it and went on to serve the drinks. Kelly later said that she heard the splash and was thankful that it didn't come from her tray. The asst stage manager ran out to wipe up the floor and said that if it happens during a performance one of us would come out with a towel to clean it up. Great. Nothing quite like the potential for humiliation in front of a paying audience to give me a steady hand.
We also got fitted for costumes. I should have taken a picture of the delightful black and white checkered floor length, long-sleeved, high-lace-collared dress I get to wear. It was a little too long so they have to take out the horrible choppy hem someone put in it and redo it while I'm wearing the shoes. Patty, the head costume person, was just as surly and frightening as she was last year. The interns are just as young and all have normal names! Meaning, there's not an Ashely, Brittney, Taylor or any other soap opera name among them. I guess classic names really have made a comeback. Of course I don't remember any of their names. So anyway my dress fits just fine otherwise, thanks to my post-pregnancy, um, figure, (I will continue to "blame" pregnancy for my new, larger shape for as long as I can, meaning, for the rest of my life) but for the Kelly and Rachel and their fat-free dancer-bodies some adjustments have to be made to account for the extra material in the chest area. Ahem.
We made it back to rehearsal in time to move the table on for the poker scene. I had been debating about whether or not to bring a fake spider or other small plastic insect to stick on the table, but decided that I didn't want to risk really fooling anyone - those toy bugs are frighteningly realistic. So instead I took a tiny Lego man and sat him down behind the bag of poker chips. At the end of the scene when we brought the table off he had moved to behind the ashtray and under some money. I calmly palmed him as I arranged the stuff on the table and no one said a word. So today I brought home from work a tiny rubber chicken I had there, and I do mean tiny - like less than an inch long - to put there on Saturday.
Today I went to a nearby Capezio outlet to get character shoes. This store!!! I can't believe I didn't know about it before!!! Very cool shoes meant for dancers but perfect for fancy events, all leather, mind you, for under $30! Sale shoes were $5 a pair!!! $5! For high-heeled leather strappy shoes and sandals! And the dance clothes are like workout clothes, also super cheap and adorable. $5 racks of what look like super-comfy yoga pants, racks of sport bras in all sizes and colors... if I didn't have Alex with me I would have spend a few more $$ than I did on my new shoes.
Next rehearsal: Saturday night.
Goals:
- Don't trip in the shoes
- Don't spill anything
- Talk to the principals
- Plant the tiny rubber chicken on the poker table
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