The Home Stretch

I can hardly believe that 42nd Street opens in a matter of days. All our hard work is just about to pay off with the incomparable thrill of performing in front of an audience. We're in the final stretch of rehearsals and it feels like life is flying by 100 miles a minute. I'll just touch on a few fun 42nd Street related activities I've experienced in that last few days.

Tech rehearsal - on Saturday I was one of about 15 cast members that got to hang out in the theater for 8 hours! I don't know where this particular rehearsal got its nickname but everyone calls this rehearsal, "the lottery." If you are chosen to participate then you have "won the lottery." I spent all day waiting to feel like a winner... Though it was a long (and sometimes boring) rehearsal, we got some free meals out of the deal and over all a lot of technical details were ironed out including lighting cues, scrims flying in and out, and curtains opening and closing. Overall, it was a very productive day at the theater.

Promoting the show around town - I've had the privilege of attending a few community club meetings to perform a few numbers from the show. The response has been all positive and I'm having so much fun meeting some future audience members and giving them a sneak preview of the show.

Radio fun - I was also invited to join a handful of cast members and our assistant director, Debbie Scoones to promote the show on the air! What a fun time!! I studied speech communications in college so having just a few minutes to clearly communicate and cleverly promote this show is right down my alley. A bunch of us will be on the radio again tomorrow morning!

First dress rehearsal - last night we ventured into our first of three dress rehearsals this week. Wow, suddenly this show is so different!!! Everyone's in full costume, make-up, and fun hair-dos. That alone is enough to distract me a bit, plus we now have cool lighting, full orchestra, enormous set pieces, microphones, scrims coming in and out, etc. It's taking every ounce of professionalism within me to not let these fun additions throw off my focus. It's pretty crazy how the littlest thing can get me distracted for even just a few seconds!

Last night was a lot of fun. Though it was a late night, we're all starting to get a real sense of what our hard work is accomplishing. Scene changes are getting smoother, CRAZY fast costume changes are starting to work, and with each scene we're getting that much closer to Friday's opening performance. After two months of HARD WORK, I believe we have a show, folks!!