Summer Stock II

Days one and two are complete, and were completely different. Sometimes you fear the worst and are pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Sometimes you grit your teeth and decide whatever happens, happens, but when it happens, it's horrifying.

Day one. We still weren't very well informed, but we were given some rules, a cast list, scripts and some musical review. It's a start. I was worried about the wordless judging that goes on the first time you hear a lead actor sing his or her role. I'm not above such judging: I will size up whoever is cast in the next show (Fiddler on the Roof), , so I know everyone has their ears open to see if I deserve this, if I should be singing Nellie in South Pacific. I can't lie - it was scary. I can only sound how I sound, I can't make them like or dislike my voice, but I wanted to feel I was good enough to do this. I have been ignoring the fact that this is my first lead role in a musical, ever. I've been in tons of musicals. I've had solos in quite a few of them. I've played the lead in non-musicals. But I've never had a starring role in a musical. I am trying to pretend that fact isn't true, because it will only make me more nervous. I don't want to tell people it's my first lead in a musical because if I say it before the show, it sounds like an excuse, and I think excuses are a waste of time.

Especially beforehand.

So it was my own opinion I was curious to test as well. When I sang, would I sound good enough to deserve to play this role?

Happily, I can report I did. I sound pretty good, and while of course other people sound just as good and sometimes better, I'm pleased overall with the singing. I sound ok, I have pretty good control over what's coming out of my mouth, I can follow direction. I am at least somewhat off book (that is, memorized).

Sadly, all that good momentum got shot to hell today, with our dance call for Cats.

We had a two hour audition with the choreographer for Cats, during which we learned three combinations and performed each in groups of 3.

(Oh, yeah, later in the season we're doing Cats. Complete with ridiculously complicated dancing. I say ridiculous because the stage is maybe 10 feet by 10 feet. )

I know I'm not a dancer. I did not expect to suddenly become a dancer today. But I can't help being saddened by the fact that I SUCKED.

I'm a perfectionist, true, and hard on myself, and I'm not sure what the choreographer thought, I'll admit, but there's just no getting around the fact that I have no extension, no flexibility, and a distinctly muddled understanding about how the moves I'm seeing should be communicated to my feet.

It makes me sad, because I like dance but I'm clearly not trained or good at it. I truly fear two things that may happen from this audition: I won't be allowed to be onstage at all in Cats and, much, much worse, I won't be allowed to be a Hot Box girl in Guys and Dolls. The Hot Box girls are so fun. They get to sing nasal, whiny choruses and do a strip tease - who wouldn't want to be a Hot Box Girl?!?

Ah, well. I am trying so hard to be a grown up, to accept that I won't always be perfect. I am trying not to let my self-confidence plummet just because I lack the ability to change direction on a maxi-step.

I hope I'm good at something else in recompense. Flossing, for instance, or taking care of lepers. Something to make up for the lack of dance in my life.

I hope whatever thing that is, I find it and think of it throughout Guys and Dolls while I'm in the Salvation Army instead getting to be a sexy, stripping Hot Box Girl. "Floss, floss, floss," I'll be thinking, banging that bass drum and singing Follow the Fold.

Look for that expression on my face. That'll be weeks 11 and 12.