Preparation

Friday and Saturday were insane rehearsals. We had a goal of teaching all choreography and blocking by Satuday, and I think we achieved that goal. I´m still a little frustrated, though, because I´m still having to scream out formation changes and transitions in dances. We´ve been rehearsing some of these dances for weeks, and I still have to clap out timing. It´s not even that difficult, either. Everything is on a down beat! For the last week I have been finalizing formations and choreography, and I feel like it´s really unnecessary and a waste of time to spend at least half an hour every rehearsal cleaning up the same sections. It´s very frustrating to teach the same corrections over and over and over again. Hopefully this week everything will just click. That´s generally how musical theatre works in my experience. Everything feels like a wreck and then one rehearsal very close to the show everything just falls into place. I cannot wait for that day to come!

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day! The sun was out all day and it was warm and it didn´t rain at all! I can´t remember the last rain-free day I had here. Because of the lovely weather, I was in a great mood during rehearsals on Saturday. But something else put me in a great mood, too - I received a letter from one of my closest friends from Santa Clara, Jack Wagner! I got so excited when I saw Jack´s very distinctive penmanship on the front of the envelope (those of you who know Jack know exactly what I am talking about). So I had four pages of perfectly organized updates on the life and tales of Jack Wagner. During my breaks from rehearsal I got to sit down, relax, and begin to write my response to him. As happy as it made me to hear from him, it also made me rather nostalgic for SCU! Two months until I´m reunited with all my Broncos!

After rehearsal on Saturday Katherine, Dario, Hannah, Anna, Lisa, and I stayed back to work on some Cabaret things. Earlier in the day, Dario and I had put together a run order for the show, so at least now we know exactly how the show is going to pan out. After running through a few of the numbers we´ve already learned, we started working on the group number that is going to open the show. We decided on "Louder than Words" from Jonathan Larson´s Tick, Tick... BOOM! I am so excited - this is one of my favorite songs of all time. Usually it is performed by two men and a woman, but we have four women and one man, so the balance is a little different, but it still sounds gorgeous. Hannah wrote in all the harmonies for us and divided up all the solos among the five of us. It has a really cool sound because of the way she has people fading in and out of all the verses. I cannot wait to perform this song!

Saturday was also Anna´s birthday, so that night she, Hannah, Katherine, Laila, and I went out for a girls´ night to celebrate. Unfortunately, though, Katherine and I couldn´t make it past 11:30... We´ve been working really hard! I don´t know how I´m going to handle to college night lifestyle again when I get back to SCU in September.

This week begins our pre-tech run through extravaganza. I am feeling an odd mixture of excitement and terror. It will be great to see all of our work come together as one production and see where the show is, but I´m terrified to see how it looks because I know we will have a lot of cleaning and work to do. I´m going to try my best not to yell out formation changes and timing during the run throughs, but I don´t know if they will even be able to get through the dances without my screams from the audience. But at least they will find out for themselves exactly how much work they need to put into this show. I am totally not prepared for this!